Nature Notes and Swarm Control.

Tuning in to Changes.

For many years now, I’ve been keeping a nature diary and recording events like the arrival of the first swallow which never fails to bring joy. This year I saw my first one on April 11th which was 8 days earlier than last year. So what! the sceptic might suggest. Well, engaging with nature helps me connect more deeply to the land and this brings peace and calmness. This year even more so since Covid-19 has given such great cause for concern, and “lockdown” has allowed me more time to spend on just watching spring unfold. My nature diaries fill numerous notebooks but comparing years was not easy to do till I started using this wonderful diary called “The Naturalist’s Notebook”. It allows me to record 5 years on one page making comparisons dead easy. One on my main interests is recording the blooming of trees and plants which helps me assess the available bee forage. I can see patterns emerge over the years and can hopefully predict when swarming might start, or when there might be a dearth of nectar. For example, the OSR (oil seed rape) is flowering 2 weeks earlier this year and I’ve recorded a nearby field coming into bloom and yellowing on April 18th. This same field is just starting to fade now on 22nd May, the 142nd day of this year. Last week I had to start swarm control measures which links swarm preparation to the end of the OSR nectar flow in my area. Every year my bees want to swarm towards the end of this event.

Diary entry for February 2020 containing record of daily miles walked.

Bernd Heinrich.

One of this notebook’s authors is the world renowned entomologist Professor Bernd Heinrich. Heinrich has done important work on thermoregulation in insects and this has informed beekeeping in several ways, and especially regarding winter honey bee colony management. Currently, I’m reading his well known 1979 book called Bumblebee Economics which is a fascinating account of how these bees manage to maintain the challenging balance between energy intake and consumption. If you’ve ever wondered how bumble bees can forage long into our cool summer evenings, when honey bees are tucked up for the night, this work explains exactly how it happens. The ecological relationship between bees and plants is also covered in a way that is very useful for beekeepers.

Swarm Control.

I used to dread swarm season because it meant quite a kerfuffle getting together enough equipment to perform artificial swarms using the Padgen method of separating the queen and flying bees from the brood. My apiary used to get quite cluttered up with hives lined up fairly close to each other. Now that I try to keep colonies as far apart as possible, to reduce the risk of drifting and spread of infection, creating nuclei also makes this an easier swarm control option for me.

Last Saturday, one of the colonies was getting ready to swarm. I’d noticed scout bees sniffing around one of the bait hives and wondered where they came from. When I inspected this colony’s brood frames I noticed a decrease in egg laying and a backfilling with nectar of cells in the middle of some of the frames. When I came across the queen she looked slimmer. Then I found them!; four queen cells on two frames near the bottom, all unsealed and charged with royal jelly.

Making the Nuclei (Nuc).

I’d already gathered the 5 brood fames with undrawn foundation (to replace frames from parent colony) and got the polystyrene nuc box ready the previous week because I was pretty sure that this would be the week for action. The previous week had been very cold (5 degrees C) with rain and sleet. I blocked the nuc entrance with green sappy grass which would dry over the next few days releasing the bees. I placed 2 frames with stores against the nuc side walls. In the middle, I placed the queen on the frame that I found her on. I’d carefully checked that there were no queen cells on this frame. Wanting mostly nurse bees that wouldn’t fly off back home, I chose another frame that had open unsealed brood and placed that next to the one with the queen on it. Then I shook in more nurse bees by choosing 2 more brood frames (mostly unsealed). Firstly, I gently shook the frames to get the flying bees off back into the parent hive. Then I shook the nurse bees off these frames into the nuc and placed the frames back in parent colony. I added a frame of foundation and shut up the nuc then moved it from the back lawn to the side apiary near my bee shed about 20 yards away.

The Parent Colony.

I’d remembered which frames held the queen cells so I chose the best looking cell which was a guess really as they all looked nice and healthy (they were all opened and the larvae not more than a few days old). The chosen larva looked like it was around 5 days from when the egg was laid. I marked the frame with a blue drawing pin and removed the other 3 queen cells. My job tomorrow, 7 days later, is go back to the parent colony and remove any other queen cells that may have been created in response to the removal of the queen. After this time it is not possible for the bees to create any more queen cells.

Calculations.

I guessed that the larva was aged 5 days from egg laying on 17/5/20. If so, the cell would be sealed 3 days later on 21st. The new queen will emerge 8 days later on 29th April, and be ready for mating around 5th June. With a bit of good weather and luck she will be laying around 10-15th June. If not, then the original queen can be re-introduced if it all goes pear-shaped.

Next Blog.

Coming up next is another interesting guest blog. Carol Gunn from Caithness will share her experiences of completing an online beekeeping course.

7 thoughts on “Nature Notes and Swarm Control.”

  1. Thank you Ann for your fantastic account. It is refreshing my memory as I haven’t done it for a couple of years. I guess you will feed the nuc in a few days to help them with drawing out the foundation? I’m also wondering how the colony which had some virus issues is getting on? AnnaMaria xx

    1. Hello Anna Maria. Glad you found the nuc-making account useful. I placed almost 2 full frames of stores (deep frames) in the nuc which will hold nearly 10lbs honey. This should last them a couple of weeks so I will not feed them now. There is enough nectar coming in for them to draw the one empty frame. I try to reduce the risk of robbing which is high with nucs even though there is currently a nectar flow in progress. Very soon (2-3 weeks) the frames and bees from this nuc will be placed in a hive to be built up gradually to a full-sized colony, unless needed to unite back to original colony. I will place my large double-sized dummy boards at the sides of the nest when it goes into a full-sized hive and give them foundation (a frame at a time) to draw out. They may require feeding at this stage and this is where a frame feeder would be useful. There would also be plenty of room to accommodate such a feeder. If I had to feed them at this early nuc stage, I would use fondant as there is less risk of robbing with this method. The CBPV nuc is currently busy bringing in OSR nectar and pollen. There are only about 1- 2 dead bees/ day on the ground that I notice, but the OMF is clean when I look up from underneath so that is a change. It is just an experiment and too early to say if this colony can recover sufficiently to be viable. I’m still taking a great risk considering other colonies in the apiary might become infected.

      1. Thank you Ann for the helpful answer, the update and explanations how you continue to build up the nuc. My colony may be ready for swarm control on the next inspection on Monday. Your blog was a helpful preparation. Thanks ! 🙂👍

  2. We have only made splits of the colonies we rate the most highly this year, the rest have been allowed to swarm naturally. The apiary is isolated next to ancient parkland teeming with feral colonies and as all our bees originated from swarms collected from this area it feels like giving back to nature. The thing I dislike most about the swarm season is queenless colonies and their bad temper. Is it the lack of brood, queen or average age of the bees that contributes most to this?

    1. That is very interesting, Tristan. It sound like you live in a wonderful beekeeping area with lots of potential for bee-lining too in the ancient forest.
      I think that it must primarily be lack of circulating queen substance that increases the defensiveness of queenless colonies, but if I discover any other information I shall share it. I can’t find any research on defensive behaviour after swarming, but it may be because soon the temporarily queenless colony will have a queen going on a mating flight, and the bees are guarding their hive entrance extra carefully, to reduce the chance of loss of the new queen when she flies out on her mating flight(s).

      1. Thank you for your thoughts and I am sure you are right and hopefully their new queen gets them knocked into shape before we fall out. It is a great bee area and I have been watching 6 or so wild colonies in ancient oaks for over 10 years, though of course the gentlemen of the association would never accept the colonies were that age. I have noted hygienic behaviours in swarms collected from the area so perhaps it is a trait which is more developed in feral populations than we give them credit for.

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