(Artificial) Swarming: 2012

[gavin]

I'm splitting this out from the Current Nectar Flow thread as I think this warrants discussion in its own right
Nellie


I'm struggling to understand why ASs seem to be failing this year. Score so far, three of mine and one I closely supervised belonging to a friend, all misbehaved.

Colonies ASed: 4
Colonies with old queen absconding in a swarm after AS: all 4
No. Q cells accidently left behind to induce the swarm: 0 (I'm sure of that, but all made Q cells from eggs/larvae left behind by the queen)
No. sealed or nearly sealed Q cells in colonies which swarmed/absconded at the time of swarming: 0. (Having had a thorough inspection today I'm sure of that.)

I'm starting to question my abilities as a beekeeper, but I'm pretty sure of the above. All four ASs failed to keep the queen at home even though the only Q cells in the box she swarmed from were early stage cells with small c-shaped larvae present today. Accidental killing of the queen might have explained one or two (doubt it though), and for the others either I saw the swarms (one stayed after recapture) or the queen went and the boxes are quieter than they should be.

G.

[Jon]

Gav.
re the artificial swarms you maybe have carniolan/swarmiolan genetics in your stock thanks to all the commercial stuff in your area - making control more difficult.
The other thing which occurs to me is the Tom Seeley stuff about nest selection and reaching the point of no return.
I have a bait box on my shed roof and for 5 days now I have had up to 500 scouts casing the joint. they are not my bees as I chucked flour over them and they did not enter any of my hives.
I doubt if a swarm has been hanging in a tree for 5 days so I am guessing that the scouts are coming from a colony which has the intention to swarm but has not gone yet.
I can picture the scenario where a beekeeper does an artificial swarm or collects the swarm from a bush, but nothing at this point will deter them from the cavity they have been checking out so thoroughly.

The only thing I can suggest is to move the part with the queen several miles away or put a queen excluder under the brood box for a week until they settle down.

People locally have had the same thing happen.

[Trog]

Here's a poser for the experts. Do you think/have you observed that ferals who are accustomed to living in buildings (chimneys or under slate roofs) tend to swarm into same rather than being attracted to bait hives, and are managed stocks more attracted to what they know, ie square boxes, even though they might check out alternatives?

[chris]

I'm no expert, but I know that I've had swarms that didn't come from a chimney that chose a chimney for their new home. I also know that I've managed to attract a swarm into a box that I've placed close to a chimney after seeing scouts exploring said chimney.I've also taken ferals in a bait hive when the possibility of tree hives existed. I think they go for what suits their needs.

[Neils]

My understanding is that scouts when they investigate do follow a broad pattern of "looking around" to determine whether what they are investigating is a suitable home. Whether that pattern varies depending on where the bees currently live I have absolutely no idea. I.e. do bees used to a national look for something national shaped and those in a chimney look for something chimney shaped as a preference?

[Bumble]

I.e. do bees used to a national look for something national shaped and those in a chimney look for something chimney shaped as a preference?
I wondered if it was more to do with height above ground, with those in higher sites seeking new sites at the same level and so on, maybe because they're easier to navigate to?

Maybe shape and size has an influence too, but I'm not entirely convinced that our local bees prefer Seeley's recommended capacity, otherwise they'd ignore chimneys completely, and would rarely end up in a wall cavity.

[Jon]

I doubt if current home has any influence.
Tom Seeley has graphs to show that they start out looking at about 10 possibilities which are whittled away one by one till they are left with the best choice. I think the two biggest factors are ideal height and ideal capacity which is why they love chimneys.

EDIT for bumble. Yea a chimney has a bigger than ideal capacity but I guess they set up home in the top part which does not have great heat loss.

[Neils]

A chimney might be bigger than ideal on the vertical, but I think that's largely irrelevant from a bee's point of view. A floor is a convenience for us and protection for them because we put them a couple of feet off the ground.

[Julian]

[QUOTE=Jon;10623]I think the two biggest factors are ideal height and ideal capacity which is why they love chimneys.[QUOTE]

This may not be the right thread for this but the matter has been raised so here goes…

I know Tom Seeley has referred to the ideal capacity of a new site being 40 litres and that this is a constant with bate hive construction but does anyone know the origin of this figure?

[beeanne]

To sidetrack (boomerang?) back to the start, I AS'd mine on Sat, they swarmed Sun, captured swarm within half-an-hour of them settling, am sure I had Q, hived them Sun night (with syrup, in already-used hive), definitely all there Mon morning (lots of traffic) pretty sure they've all left now (no traffic, but can't check as my own little larvae too small for a bee suit). Other hive has a bit of coming-and-going. Any chance they're all safely in their new home, but just watching the big match on bee-TV or recovering from the hive-warming party?

[chris]

I know Tom Seeley has referred to the ideal capacity of a new site being 40 litres and that this is a constant with bate hive construction but does anyone know the origin of this figure?

I think it's probably because René, the world famous swarm catcher down here, buys his wine in 40 litre containers and then wants to recycle them.

Actually i'm going to contest this 40 litre business. Perhaps it's an average like the typical size house or soething like that. But surely it must depend on such things as type of bee, locality, time of year, importance of nectar flow, etc.? My talking with long time beekeepers gives the rough rule: big bait hives attract big swarms and little bait hives attract little swarms.

[Jon]

Tom Seeley did set up an experiment looking at the different sizes of container and if I remember correctly they preferred 40l over 30l.
My apple wine fermenting vessels hold about 30l but I had not considered housing bees in them.

Welcome to the forum Julian btw.

[Bumble]

I know Tom Seeley has referred to the ideal capacity of a new site being 40 litres and that this is a constant with bate hive construction but does anyone know the origin of this figure?
Tom Seeley's Bait Hive research is in this pdf http://ecommons.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/2653/2/Bait%20Hives%20for%20Honey%20Bees.pdf I have a feeling it dates from 1986.


Actually i'm going to contest this 40 litre business. Perhaps it's an average like the typical size house or soething like that. But surely it must depend on such things as type of bee, locality, time of year, importance of nectar flow, etc.? My talking with long time beekeepers gives the rough rule: big bait hives attract big swarms and little bait hives attract little swarms.
I'm no expert, far from it, but my take on it is that, in general and if they can make a choice, they prefer something a "reasonable" height above the ground because the higher they are the easier to defend, and the further they can see/fly without being interrupted by undergrowth. I think they also prefer something that's "the right" size for that particular swarm to thrive in, which may or may not be the magical 40 litres.

I think the height above the ground is something Sealey has returned to and has changed his mind, and I think acknowledged that he was originally looking at around, or above, his head height because it was easier for him. Can't remember where I read it though, so it could have been in a dream!

[Julian]

I think it's probably because René, the world famous swarm catcher down here, buys his wine in 40 litre containers and then wants to recycle them.

Oh, that René! He is famous in these parts because of the amount of Rosé he consumes before he sets his bait hives.


Welcome to the forum Julian btw.

Thank you.


Tom Seeley's Bait Hive research is in this pdf http://ecommons.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/2653/2/Bait%20Hives%20for%20Honey%20Bees.pdf I have a feeling it dates from 1986.

Thank you Bumble. Very informative document that I believe answers my question.

[Neils]

Just done an artificial swarm on one of mine but I'm a little puzzled at what was actually going on. 2 frames in, classic charged queen cell so plonked the crownboard back on, set up a new hive and set about finding the queen. Plonked her in a Nuc while I swapped brood boxes over stuck her frame in the middle of the new box, QX and supers back on, jobs a good'un.

Went through the frames three times but only found two queen cells. Made up a Nuc with the second anyway. I did find what looked to be a classic, sealed emergency cell. This was on one of the combs swapped over when I donated brood into one of the smaller hives last week.

Is this something other than swarming given the small number of queen cells? Am I mistaking something else for an emergency queen cell? It definitely contained a larvae and definitely wasn't a drone cell.

The queen in this hive is less than a year old and I'd say I'd still laying like a champ so I'd be very surprised if its supersedure.

I was expecting this hive to prepare to swarm this week, it just doesn't look like classic swarm preparation with that few queen cells.

Kicking myself for not taking photos but the weather isn't brilliant and I was conscious that I had hives in various states of disarray all over the place.

[Adam]

Neil,
I've got one queen that is still there despite me removing queencells on two occasions so I will leave alone and see if they supercede her. Her colony has built up very well this year and has space; not all 14 x 12 frames were fully drawn at the last count. So maybe the bees knows something we don't.
I have another colony where there was only the slightest whiff of a queencell and I found all the bees under the hive with the queen after they swarmed.
So two extremes of swarming there. Never had one go without a queencell started apart from a mini-nuc which was packed to the rafters and they tried to abscond. The little hive really was full.

An A/S with just foundation has no laying space and no storage space and it can take a while I think for the bees to settle. And of course an A/S has no wax producers so it doesn't work like a real swarm. Hence the suggestion of a queen excluder under for a wee while.

[Neils]

It's a busy colony, 9 14x12 frames of brood, 3 supers full off bees and for the past few weeks I've been taking a frame of brood out and giving them comb. Last week the play cups were increasing in number and a few had eggs in, hence thinking this was the week I was likely to find queen cells and why I just closed them up and did an AS soon as I found the first one.

It was just a bit of a surprise to find that few queen cells and why I thought I'd question what I saw.

[fatshark]

Tom Seeley's Bait Hive research is in this pdf http://ecommons.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/2653/2/Bait%20Hives%20for%20Honey%20Bees.pdf I have a feeling it dates from 1986.

Does anyone have a better quality PDF than this (which I've seen before but gave up reading as I couldn't differentiate between the c's and the e's)?

There's also a good account of bait hives in Honeybee Democracy by the same author.

[GRIZZLY]

So far I've had two colonies that refused to play ball when I did an A.S. Both absconded from the bottom box.Top boxes have no brood,no Q cells,no eggs-can't see any sign of a queen but have lovely polished cells.I'll give them a day or two then will re-unite and give a frame of eggs and see what happens.No sign of any swarms either.

[Neils]

This is the cast swarm I was being played with earlier

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7078/7359393876_737738497a_c.jpg

We have another 8 queens from that hive safely plonked in Apideas. Yeah, yeah, swarmy bees. Given that they've been slightly less than well managed I'm not going to begrudge a colony getting to the end of May before it swarms (that was definitely a cast, there were queens popping out left right and centre once we started removing queen cells).