Jim is a beekeeper I trust because his management ideas are always based on a solid knowledge of honey bee biology and colony life cycle, which he then combines with a good dose of economic sense. Although he has many hives, these steps would work for anyone who has both a strong overwintered colony and at least one new package. Below is the entire message:

I installed 20 packages this year and and bought 35 queens for splits bringing my hive count up to 150 . . . I know, crazy! One of the things I like to do to boost my packages and, at the same time, reduce swarming is to steal about 5 frames of bees and brood from my strong hives to combine with the package.

The procedure works like this:

1. First, I give the package time to release the queen and for her to start laying. Indeed, I wait until there is capped brood a couple of days from emerging. By this time the bees that came with the package are only a couple of weeks from expiring at best. This typically occurs around the end of April. This is also when the bees around these parts begin having visions of swarming.
2. I go through those strong hives and do a little thinning of their population by stealing about 4 frames with capped brood with the attendant bees and a nice frame of honey. Obviously, you must be certain not to take the queen when you do this. I checkerboard either empty drawn comb or new foundation in the place of those frames. In most cases, this slows the swarming instinct.
3. The bees I took are combined with the package bees by placing a sheet of newspaper over the box with the package and placing the box with the stolen brood and bees over top of that. It takes the bees a day or two to chew their way through the newspaper and, in the process, become accustomed to their new queen’s pheromone. I would guess the success rate of the combined bees accepting this new queen to be in the high 90′s percentile. I have seen times when the new bees, apparently, killed the queen and made an emergency queen cell but this is rare, likely because I make a point of taking only capped brood and larvae too old for them to make a queen out of.

This procedure super charges the new hive so that I can expect a honey crop from it and, perhaps, prevent an overwintered hive from swarming. It has worked well for me the last couple of years.

Jim
HoneyBeeSuite

Interesting idea. Many of us have wanted to move a hive only ten or twenty feet. Any of the standard methods such as moving them three miles away and then back again—or even locking them up for three days—seem like overkill. Tricia’s method takes advantage of visual clues that are close to the hive.

Jurgen Tautz in his book, The Buzz about Bees says, “Bees use earthbound and celestial cues as aids to orient themselves outside the nest, and will make their way from one landmark to the next along each part of the journey to their goal. For this they use trees, bushes, and other conspicuous features in the landscape . . .­ During [orientation flights] bees leave the hive each time in different directions, and so map the location of the nest relative to its surroundings” (p. 89).

Tautz also explains that, “Hive markings in the form of patterns, such as horizontal or vertical bars, better aid the bees to find the correct nest” (p. 79).

Also relevant is the fact that “Shape and color are not learned as quickly as odors, taking three to five training sessions to achieve proficiency” (p. 84).

Putting all this together, you can see how a long board painted a bright color might help the bees locate the correct hive if its new position is relatively close to its previous position, and if the bees have had sufficient time to accept the board as a landmark. It might be even more helpful to paint it with high-contrast stripes—such as black on white—much like a zebra crossing.

I haven’t tried this method, but next time I want to move a hive a short distance I will definitely give it a try and let you know the results.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Zebra crossing: will it work for bees? Flickr photo by Dan Crowther.

Here are the basic steps:

1. Remove the hive from the hive stand, leaving only the screened bottom board and slatted rack (if you are using one).
2. Above that, place a brood box filled with empty drawn comb.
3. Remove the center two frames of drawn comb and set aside.
4. Go back to the active brood boxes and find the queen.
5. Place the queen and two frames of sealed brood in the center of the new brood box.
6. Place a queen excluder above this box.
7. Above the queen excluder, place one or more empty honey supers and then the original brood box where you found the queen. Push the brood nest together in the center and put the two empty drawn frames (from step 3) on either end of the box.
8. Add your inner cover and telescoping lid.
9. After one week, go through the top brood box and remove any swarm cells.
10. If necessary, the entire procedure may be repeated after 9 or 10 days.

• The nurse bees stay with the brood and care for it.

• The field force continues to forage for honey and pollen.

• The queen continues to lay eggs and has lots of places to do so.

This situation is much like a hive that has already swarmed. The major difference is that both parts are in the same box. However,

• As soon as the queen scent decreases in the top box, the bees will try to raise a queen from young larvae.

• You may destroy these cells or remove them to a nuc.

• After the brood hatches, the brood cells will be backfilled with honey.

• In the end, the hive will not have swarmed, so it will contain lots of bees and lots of honey.

• The growing hive may once again develop the urge to swarm, which is why a second Demaree is often needed.

The Demaree method can be quite effective at swarm control, but as you can see, it is quite labor intensive. It involves a lot of manipulation, good opportunities to lose or damage your queen, and a lot of heavy lifting. On the other hand, not only can you prevent swarming, but you can obtain some queen cells in the process.

One more important point: When you set up the Demaree hive, be sure to remove any swarm cells that are already present. Any cell not removed may hatch and cause a problem within the hive.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Here are the basic steps:

1. At the first sign of new white wax on or near the top bars you can begin.
2. Remove one of the frames near the middle of the brood nest. It should fill with festooning bees within about five minutes. If it doesn’t, it’s too soon to open the nest because there aren’t enough bees to repair it.
3. Assuming the empty space fills with festooning bees, return the frame to the same position.
4. Take an outside frame (one with no brood) out of the box, and push the remaining frames to the side, leaving the empty slot near the middle of the brood nest.
5. Put a new foundationless frame in the empty slot. The bees will now direct their energy to building new comb and filling in the brood nest rather than swarming.

Other considerations:

• Depending on the strength of the hive, one or maybe two foundationless frames can be added to the brood box. Each empty frame must have filled brood comb on either side of it.

• If there is already brood on all the frames, the frames of brood you remove may be centered in a second brood box directly above the first.

• To be successful, you may have to re-open the nest and add frames every week or so throughout swarm season. Far from being a one-time manipulation, it requires constant monitoring.

Timing is everything with this technique. It must be done before the swarm impulse begins or it is completely ineffective. On the other hand, if you do it too soon you can chill the brood. When the nest is split up—and it will be for a period of time—it takes more bees to keep the brood warm. An unexpected cold night soon after spreading the nest could devastate the colony.

Just for the record, I do not like opening the brood nest for swarm control. I believe strongly that the integrity of the nest should be maintained. As I stated earlier, swarm control measures work by weakening the hive in some way. By changing the architecture of the nest, you are interfering with the bees’ judgment about what is best for the colony—and you are doing it repeatedly. So if you decide to try it, do so with caution: read colony strength carefully and pay close attention to the weather.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Pull out a frame of brood to test for festooning. Flickr photo by Justin Leonard.

I want to say, “Look around! What do you see besides seven billion humans?” Cats, rats, and mice tuck behind every garbage pail. Ants spill from your foundation. Termites dine on your sill plates. Mites suck bee blood. Bacteria vie for space in your gut and Occupy your kitchen sink. Weeds rend cracks in your driveway and ravage your garden. Reproduction happens, babe. Every living thing has the drive to reproduce itself. Why should bees be any different?

“How do I keep my bees from swarming?” is like asking, “How do I keep my [pick one: dog, cat, guppy, kid] from reproducing?” There are ways, of course, but the ways involve interference with a natural process. You can neuter your dog or cat. You can feed pills to your daughter or supply your son with condoms. You can tear apart your brood nest, split your hive, or cut swarm cells. Even checkerboarding interferes with the colony’s perception of its own strength.

Am I saying you shouldn’t do those things? Not at all. I’m saying that you will have a better chance of succeeding if you understand the reproductive imperative. Remember, when you try to prevent a swarm, you try to stop what a colony has an irrepressible urge to do. Swarmy bees are acting according to specs, working as designed. No manufacturer recall is needed.

That said, as beekeepers we want to prevent swarms. We want our bees to work for us, we want large strong colonies, we want to curb home invasions and spare children and old folks from marauding insects. So we try to prevent what nature is hell-bent on doing. It’s a little like building levees along the Mississippi or tsunami walls in Japan—it all works to a point.

The guy who says his bees don’t swarm because they are happy is naïve . . . and usually condescending. His words imply that your bees are unhappy and you are a bad beekeeper. BS. If all bees were as happy as his bees, the species would quickly go extinct.

I don’t believe bees experience happiness or lack thereof, but let’s use that language for a moment. Do you believe an animal is happier if it is neutered? Most pet owners swear their neutered pets are “happy and content.” Most humans want the same thing, yet they don’t get neutered in the pursuit of happiness. And a simple vasectomy or tubal ligation doesn’t prevent the reproductive urge any more than clipping a wing.

But reasonable management is not a bad thing, even if we wouldn’t go there ourselves. As humans, we can manage our animals and have compassion at the same time. My own pets are spoiled beyond measure and, yes, they are neutered and I am not. My point is simply that to be a successful beekeeper, you need to look at your colony through the eyes of a biologist, not a family therapist. Lose the idea that you must make your bees “happy” to keep them from swarming.

To prevent swarming you must interfere with the course of nature. Most swarm prevention measures weaken the colony in some way, lessening its bee-ness just as neutering your dog lessens his dog-ness. That’s okay as long as you realize that preventing reproduction enhances your goals—not the goals of bees or dogs or guppies—and not the goals of nature.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Related post: Romancing the swarm: the dream of wild bees

Swarm in a tree. Flickr photo by Frederick Knapp.

The following applies only to checkerboarding:

When:

Checkerboarding is done in the early spring before the bees begin swarm preparations. Since there is no disturbance to the brood nest, many beekeepers like to do it as early as possible. In any case, it needs to be completed before the expanding brood nest starts to contract due to backfilling.

Where:

Checkerboarding is done in the two supers that are directly above the brood nest. The boxes may be of any size—but they should be the same size.

What:

Alternate frames of honey are removed from one box and replaced with frames of drawn empty comb. For example, in your first super you may remove frames 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 (which are all full of honey) and replace them with frames of empty drawn comb. When you’re done, the even-numbered slots have honey, and the odd-numbered slots are empty.

You take the frames of honey you just took out of the first super and put them in the second super in the same position they had before, that is, in position 1, 3, 5, 7, And 9. This time, the even-numbered spots have frames of empty drawn comb, and the odd-numbered slots are full of honey. When stacked atop one another, the boxes look like this from the side:

Why:

Checkerboarding breaks up the solid band of honey that rings the top of the brood nest. This band of honey signals the bees that winter preparations are complete and it’s time to swarm. When the band is interrupted, more storage areas are exposed, and the bees defer swarming until the empty spaces are filled. Eventually, optimal swarming conditions pass and the colony may not swarm at all (see Checkerboarding).

How:

In my opinion, checkerboarding is easiest when you overwinter in three brood boxes. By early spring, the brood nest is usually in the middle box, with a box full of honey above and an empty box below. You can just put the brood box on the bottom and use the other two boxes to checkerboard. Your extracting supers can go above the checkerboarded boxes.

You can also checkerboard without three brood boxes, as long as you have a box of honey and a box of drawn comb to use for setting up the checkerboard.

Variations:

The original checkerboarding model used only empty drawn frames between the frames of honey—and the purists still do. Many beekeepers, however, have had good results using frames of undrawn foundation or even foundationless frames.

If a colony does not span the entire box, you can just checkerboard the middle frames, say 3 through 8, and leave the end frames alone.

Results:

Done properly and at the right time, checkerboarding will

• Prevent swarming
• Increase hive population
• Produce a larger crop of honey
• Eliminate the need for invasive swarm-control manipulations
• Prepare the hive for winter without supplementary feed

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite