A new method of swarm control

Killing the queen larvae of a hive that is on the verge of swarming is not a practical swarm control system. This alternative system allows us to accomodate the natural swarming instinct of the hive in order to produce 2 hives that will continue honey production better than the mother hive would have done.

<this blog post was originally posted on Posterous  May 1 2010, 1:41 PM  by George Mu'ammar >





When your beehive wants to swarm
What happens when, while visiting your beehive in spring, you come across many swarm cells (queen cells) around the sides and bottom of some of the combs, some of which are already capped. The hive has to reproduce, like all things in nature, so what is there to be suprised about? And yet this find makes the beekeeper's hair stand on end, since it means that the colony is inexorably dedicated to swarming.

For the colony this means that the queen has stopped laying eggs in order to loose weight and be able to fly, and the worker bees have stopped making wax in preparation for the great event, when most foraging worker bees will leave the hive to find another home. For the beekeeper this means loosing a good colony and the season's honey production for that hive too. Another queen must be born and must mate successfully and this carries it's own risks (and who knows with what drones she will go with!). The beekeeper will have to invest in looking after the hive as if it were a swarm hoping for better luck in the next year.

Traditional beekeeping tells us that if we find swarm cells in the hive we must destroy them to stop the hive from swarming. If we destroy all the queen larvae, the colony will be put off swarming, and by the time it reverts to it's normal mode of operation, resumes laying eggs and creating new queen cells, the right moment for swarming would have passed, and it would be easier for the beekeeper to continue controlling the swarming phenomenon.Actually all experienced beekeepers know that this is wrong. The colony will eventually swarm, although it may take less workers with it, but it will do so in a moment that is harder for the new queen to mate successfully (the bee-eaters would have arrived by then, and they love to catch mating queens in flight), and the hive will have a harder time to recuperate from a late swarming. Reversing the tendency of the beehive by force is never a good thing, and although we may manage to do so, it never comes without a price. So what's the alternative?

An alternative way to control the swarming phenomenon Michele Campero, my favourite italian beekeeper, came out with a very nice solution. I have been using it for years and can certify that, when it works well, it really really works well. Here it is:
The concept is that if a hive wants to swarm, let it swarm. We want to obtain 2 hives from the mother hive, and we want to get 2 hives that will continue production better than the original hive. If we do not want to handle an increase during winter we can always re-unite the 2 hives at the end of the season.
Here is how:

1. When you notice that the beehive is in swarm fever, as described above, the first thing to do is locate the queen (it's not easy with a large beehive, see later for a trick)
2. Place the queen (with a handfull of bees) in a new hive with 5 frames with waxsheets, ready to be built, and an empty super. Place this new hive in the same place as the old hive. (contrary to Campero's instructions I usually leave a few built but empty combs, I do not start completely with waxsheets)
3. Move the old hive with all the bees, brood, queen cells, combs and supers to a nearby location within the apiary. It must be a few meters away, not right next to the new hive.
4. The old hive will continue to work for the next 2-3 weeks. Give a full 3 weeks for the queen to be born and to mate, and check them to make sure everything has gone ok. Treat it like a swarm, although it will be a fully grown beehive ready for summer honey.

The result is this: The foraging bees will return to the new hive in the old location, and will join the queen as if it had swarmed. They will have no brood to look after and will only have to build their home as if they had swarmed. They will collect a lot of honey! The original beehive will raise a new queen, but in the meantime the newborn bees will grow and forage. The worker bees are quite happy to continue without a queen for 2-3 weeks if they know that one is coming. Within a month that hive will be fully back to production, without ever actually stopping completely.
As I mentioned earlier this system tends to work pretty well. Sometimes it works just great and you do get 2 hives fully in production from the 1 you started with.

My thoughts
There is one point on which Campero did not convince me though. Bees build wax when they are very young, between 1-2 weeks old. It would make sense that they should be present in a natural swarm (we all know how quickly natural swarms can build their home). However I believe that with this system many young bees will actually remain in the old hive. This is why I put some combs that are already built, and I do not depend on the fact that such young bees will be foraging and will return to the previous location of the hive.

How to find the queen in a hive of 100,000 bees ?
A difficulty is to be able to locate the queen in a large colony that is about to swarm. Sometimes it is impossible. In this case, you can simply  put the new beehive empty in the old location. The foragers will be forced to return to it (in the old location). The next day at midday the old beehive in the new location will be much less crowded and it will be much simpler to locate the queen.
Another point worth considering is that it is sometimes hard to convince bees to enter a brand new hive, unless they are a natural swarm, and it would work to bring one comb from the original beehive. The bees will be happy to enter the hive and gather around this comb on the first day until the hive actually smells of their queen.

Contact me
I would love to have your feedback on this method. Feel free to write to me at the following address:
george <at> muammar.net
George Mu'ammar
For more tips on beekeeping, and on lots of other things, follow me on twitter: twitter.com/GeoMmm

A bee-built varroa trap and swarm indicator

This Varroa trap has 3 little combs that get cut, in rotation, one every week, and destroyed in order to control varroa mite proliferation and to provide early warning against problems that may be affected the hive.

The Varroa mite is the greatest threat to honeybees and to beekeeping today. The terrible Varroa Jacobsoni mites have been artificially brought to most countries in the world from Indonesia and are devastating our beehives. Varroa mites eat away at bees, reproduce in the larvae, and can kill a bee colony within a few months. There is no easy remedy to Varroa. Organic treatements exist but are quite traumatic to the bee colony. 

The TIT3 is an Varroa mite trap that acts as an indicator. It was invented by Italian beekeeper Michele Campero some years ago. Michele Campero was (hopefully still is) a very observant beekeeper with a very profound understanding of the bee colony's necessities and natural cycle.

TIT3 stands for "Telaino Indicatore Trappola a 3 finestre" which translates to "Indicator Trap Comb with 3 windows". (See photo)

The TIT3 as a varroa trap

As a trap, it takes advantage of the fact that Varroa prefer drone brood (male bee larvae) for reproduction (and in fact their reproduction is far more successful in drone brood, meaning that most of the baby varroa die in worker brood). Contrary to what many beekeepers think, it is not enough to have some drone brood on your combs, but it is necessary to create a rotation system for drone brood. Drone brood is receptive to Varroa mites only in the last few days before being capped. In the photo above the central comb is 1 week old, the comb on the left is 2 weeks old (and is currently receptive), and the comb on the right is 3 weeks old, and is trapping the varroa mites.

Since the queen will only lay some drone brood every day you get a natural rotation system in a drone brood comb. However drone brood lasts 23 days, and is capped on the 9th day, therefore you need to have 2-3 cycles of drone brood laying to create a system where there is always some brood in a receptive stage. Hence the 3 windows. In the photo above you can see the 2-week old comb has some larvae that are about to bee capped. These are the receptive ones at this time.

Every week the beekeeper will remove the comb that is 3 weeks old (before the drones are born) and destroy it, killing the varroa with it. In the photo below the comb on the left is 1 week old and will soon become receptive. The comb on the right is 2 weeks old and is currently receptive since some drone cells have been capped and others are being capped in these days. The central comb is completely capped and therefore should be removed. Note that some cells are empty. This is usually because the bees have removed dead or dying larvae (killed by the varroa).

Note that this is not a complete Varroa treatement. You will still have to treat your hive at the end of the honey season. However this system means that lower infestation levels, lower risk of catching other diseases as a result of varroa injuries to the bees, and that you can postpone the main treatment until after the hot season (which is important if using evaporant treatement such as esential oils or formic acid).

The TIT3 as an indicator
As an indicator, it takes advantage of the fact that, since the bees will continue need to build a comb, as the beekeeper removes one window every week, the beekeeper can monitor what kind of comb is being built.

• If the bees build a drone comb, then the hive is in pre-swarming state.This is normal.
• If the bees do not build a comb, then the hive is about to swarm (or is ill). EMERGENCY!
• If the bees build a worker comb, then the hive has given up on swarming this season and the TIT3 can be removed.
• Often the bees will build a swarm cell in the new window. Often however they won't. They will prefer that old black comb that has been in the hive from many years, so unfortunately you cannot count on that.

Cleaner combs, and drone control too!
Another advantage of this system is that the drone brood is built on these combs and is not built in the corners and the sides of the worker combs. This keeps the worker combs much cleaner and of the proper width. Also you will have far fewer drones with this system. You can raise drones from your selected beehives seperately to mate with your queens.

When and where to put it.

The TIT3 should be introduced into the hive 6 weeks before swarm period and removed when the bees stop building drone brood. It should be placed to one side of the brood, before the first comb of honey. There is no need to use it in swarms since they do not lay much drone brood (in theory). It can be removed at the end of the swarm season, when the bees build worker brood instead of drone brood.

Disadvantages

Since starting using this system I have never given it up. It does have some disadvantages though. You need to visit your bees every week to cut the comb. Otherwise you end up raising drones and varroa. Another disadvantage is that all the wax building costs some honey. However I assure you that the end result is well worth it.

Contact

For more tips on beekeeping, and on lots of other things, follow me on twitter: twitter.com/GeoMmm

George Mu'ammar

Note: This blog was originally posted here