All beekeepers in their practice are faced with the phenomenon of swarming bees. This is the natural process of insect reproduction. Managing it is quite problematic. However, observation and the right machinations allow you to get as much benefit as possible from swarming.
If you manage to correct the situation in time, you can prevent the formation of weak families. Consequently, by the time the honey is collected, the apiary will become larger and entire families will remain there.
If you are not yet familiar with this process, you can find many videos of bees swarming on the Internet. So let's try to figure it out.
Why do bees swarm?
To act correctly, you definitely need to know why bees swarm and how to deal with it. The main reasons for swarming bees:
In the spring, bees raise brood. By doing this, they prepare to collect nectar. Then there is very little space left in the hive. Consequently, there is no empty space left for the queen bee to lay her eggs. This becomes one of the reasons for the start of swarming.
It happens that newly hatched bees do not have enough brood. Then they stay idle and start building bowls. This causes the queen to begin laying eggs. Therefore, queen cells begin to form.
The queen bee begins to produce less pheromones at the age of 3 years. Then the males do not feel it. As a result, again, swarming occurs.
Causes
The laying of the queen cell occurs at the level of the reproductive instinct. It is he who pushes for the construction of a new house and to expand their numbers and strengthen their family.
In addition, this is an excellent way to avoid unfavorable living conditions in the future, when there are too many bees.
If we consider all the reasons, down to the little things, that can push to this state, then here is what can become a catalyst:
- When it is impossible to carry out further egg laying due to lack of proper space. We need new space.
- Some workers who stop fulfilling their functional duties can also push others to separate.
- When the queen became too old.
- When there is insufficient ventilation inside the house. The bees are overheating.
- Also, some breeds are prone to more intense and frequent occurrence of this condition.
- This can also happen when spring arrives quite late. Or there are unfavorable weather conditions in a particular season.
- When there is poor flowering of honey plants in the immediate vicinity of the apiary, some of the workers are in a state of idleness, which encourages them to separate.
- But this can also happen when the house of the family and the bees overheats, for example, when the hot rays of the sun fall on it for too long and the space inside overheats. So this could happen in July.
- The aging of the uterus is also a fairly good reason for the occurrence of this process. Upon reaching the age of four, the female reduces the amount of pheromones produced, so the rest of the family ceases to perceive her as an individual for breeding new offspring. Therefore, the queen cells are lined up to produce a new queen.
How to recognize bee swarming
To correctly recognize the beginning and time of bee swarming, you need to know its main signs:
- There is a lot of drone brood in the honeycombs;
- The bee stops sowing brood;
- Queen cells appear on the honeycombs.
- There is increased noise in bee houses.
Process mechanics
Swarming is a certain state of a bee colony when some of the bees are about to leave the hive. The offspring shows determination to establish a new colony and live independently. In this case, up to two-thirds of the bees who previously lived in the same hive as a friendly family can leave the apiary.
Of course, it is in the interests of the beekeeper to completely control the process so as not to lose his hardworking workers who are going to seek happiness on the side.
You need to pay every attention to the following points:
- Laying queen cells;
- The appearance of many drones and young bees that do not participate in the main “production activity”. These bees will become the basis of the layering, and before the swarm departs, they hang in clusters on the honeycombs, accumulating strength and reserves of nutrients;
- The amount of honey collected has noticeably decreased, combs are being built less actively, and brood is being hatched. This means that the bees have already begun to scout out possible locations for a new nest;
- The presence of queen cells, signaling the family’s desire for separation.
Additional factors that stimulate the swarming process include increased air temperature, a cramped, poorly ventilated hive, an old queen, and a lack of good honey plants nearby.
Another way to recognize swarming
There are also certain ways to understand when swarming will begin. You need to take the control frame and divide it in half. It is filled with paper at the bottom and left empty at the top.
If the bees calmly react to this and continue to form honeycombs, filling them with honey, then there is no need to worry. But if drone broods appear on this frame, then you can begin preparing for the fight.
A week after the appearance of the queen cell, and only in calm weather, a swarm flies out. This method can also be used to create an artificial swarm of bees.
What happens when bees swarm?
We suggest that you first find photos of bees swarming on the Internet. Only after a clear picture, let’s figure out what’s going on:
- At the beginning, the bee family is divided into 2, almost identical, groups.
- Bees of different ages fly out in a swarm. Most of these insects are over 20 days old.
- Approximately 9% of males fled.
- During this period, the queen cells are sealed. A week should pass from the time the queen's eggs are laid in the bowls. After this the flight begins.
- If the weather is cold, the departure process may slow down. Consequently, young queens will fly out of the evidence, but the old one will remain.
- If you have made a house for young animals, then they will go to this place.
In what month do bees swarm?
If the bee family is strong enough, then swarming occurs in May or early June. Weakened bees begin to lay queen cells later than necessary. That's why they swarm in the fall. The main antecedent factor is that the queen stops laying eggs. Bees become less active, they fly out of the hive less and less often to collect nectar. Construction of honeycombs is also being stopped. Worker bees spend most of their time on the fly board.
When the bees release their last swarms
The swarming process occurs in stages. First, the first swarm leaves the hive. This happens in the first half of the day, from 10 to 14 hours. The swarm takes root in trees nearby while the scout bees are searching for a new home. The second swarm leaves the hive after 4-5 days.
When the bees stop swarming
Normally, the swarming process ends with the arrival of cold weather. The maximum possible swarming period is from September to October. The annual cycle of a bee colony largely depends on the climatic conditions of the area in which they are located.
Comment! In some southern parts of Russia, the last swarm may occur in November.
What happens after swarming?
After this, several bees and larvae remain in the family itself. The first young queen can be hatched only after a week. After 10 days, a second swarm of bees flies out.
The subsequent swarm, in which only infertile queens remain, will fly out a day later. In addition, there are fewer and fewer insects on each flight.
When swarming has come to an end, the bees gnaw the queen cells and destroy the queen bees. Next, the males mate with the young queen. After swarming, bees return to the ordinary course of life - collecting honey and building honeycombs.
Swarm of bees
A swarm of bees is a new colony of honey bees that has separated from the old colony, which is called the mother colony. Each bee swarm consists of a queen (sometimes several queens), several hundred drones and tens of thousands of worker bees. A swarm of bees can fly away from the mother colony 20 kilometers or more.
Swarming is a natural form of bee reproduction. When swarming, the bees of the swarming family quickly leave the hive, rise into the air with the attached queen, circle for a while and “graft” somewhere on a tree branch. In our apiary, the swarms “love” the nearest ash-leaved maple the most; sometimes the neighbor’s bird cherry, viburnum or plum are chosen as a scion.
a swarm of bees already grafted . They were then collected into a swarm and placed in a hive. How? They carefully brought the roar from below. Sharply, and again carefully, they shook the branch and most of the swarm fell into the swarm. The remaining bees fly into the swarm on their own within a few minutes...
It is believed that swarming bees do not sting. This is partly true; bees, before leaving the hive, collect honey in their honey crops so that they have something to eat for the first time. Therefore, they cannot bend their abdomen to sting. But in a bee swarm there may be bees without honey, so you shouldn’t relax. A kilogram of a bee swarm contains 6-7 thousand bees, although it is believed that 1 kg contains 10,000 bees. This is due to the honey collected by the bees.
This is how a swarm of bees enters its new home if it is poured onto a shield in front of the hive:
Bee swarm in Roevne:
It is very interesting to watch a swarm of bees. At first it seems like complete chaos, bees are flying back and forth. But it becomes clear that they fly “in circles,” gradually grouping at the scion site (that’s what they call the place where the swarm lands). A minute or two and only a few bees circle around the swarm, not daring to join. By the way, bees flying past can join the departing swarm, having smelled it; So in the body of a swarm you can find bees with pollen.
Bees are very organized. If you pour a swarm of bees in front of the hive, for example, on a sheet of plywood, and watch how they enter the hive, you can see how they literally line up and enter the hive. Look at the photographs, you can see how the bees are walking towards the entrance. And you should have seen how the swarming bees are circling! In circles. And not chaotic, but also quite organized. Someday I’ll take a video of a swarm hovering over the hives and add to the article.
After the first swarm emerges, a second, third, fourth may emerge... Such swarms are usually small, placed in a half-liter jar or a liter ladle. In the photo there is a small swarm of bees in Roevna:
There is no point in closing such a small swarm into a separate hive, since the bees simply will not be able to create a full-fledged bee colony before winter. There is this option: close it separately, but be sure to reinforce the resulting colony with two or three frames of bee brood, plus shake off the young bees from the same number of frames.
If the beekeeper does not need a new colony or a young queen, then the captured small swarm is “sifted” through a special grid (through which the queen does not fit) into any hive that can or needs to be strengthened. The queen that is in the swarm is usually destroyed in such cases. It happens that after collecting a swarm of bees, bees remain at the scion site and do not fly away. So they can sit on a branch for several days.
The 2011 beekeeping season turned out to be very busy and without Apiroy it would have been difficult.
