Like nearly everything else in beekeeping, how you handle queen cups depends on a number of factors. It depends on what you are trying to accomplish and whether you are a commercial beekeeper or a hobbyist. It is also influenced by your general attitude toward messing with nature. Oddly enough, it also changes with time: […] Read more
It is totally presumptuous to say we know what’s going through a colony’s mind, but it seems that bees swarm for two reasons: the colony is crowded or the colony wants to reproduce. If the colony wants to reproduce, the “plans and preparations” have been going on for quite a while before it actually happens. […] Read more
During spring build-up, beekeepers often search for swarm cells in order to determine if the hive is preparing to swarm. But what is a swarm cell and how is it different from a supersedure cell? First of all, the term “cell” usually refers to an oversize structure attached to the comb in which a queen […] Read more
The first thing to remember about swarming is that it is a perfectly normal phenomenon. Swarming is nature’s way of reproducing a colony of bees. Without swarming, honey bees as they exist today would not have survived down through the ages. Swarm prevention turns out to be a duel between the beekeeper and the natural […] Read more
Yesterday a reader wrote, “You make it sound easy to catch a swarm of bees . . . Is it?” The answer depends on where it lands. When a European swarm first leaves a hive—whether it is an absconding swarm or a reproductive swarm—it usually lands somewhere nearby. It seems that the colony regroups while the […] Read more