# please explain multiple swarms from one hive



## NasalSponge (Jul 22, 2008)

Sometimes the hive will issue afterswarms with virgin queens and often more than one, I read once this happen when queens fight and there is no winner but I don't know if that is true. We are talking procreation here, powerful force!


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## wadehump (Sep 30, 2007)

I have a split that has thrown 3 swarms and am doing a trapout that has thrown 2 all in the last 2 days


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

As far as bee keepers are concerned that would be an extremely undesirable trait and in case it has any genetic component whatsoever (?) I would get rid of the queen and any drone brood that I could find.

In the wild it could be an effective survival adaptation. Once a hive gets strong enough if it casts many swarms even if the original hive is so depleted that it doesn't survive some of the swarms are likely to. The swarms would start over and leave behind any brood/comb diseases - which would be cleaned out by wax moths leaving a nice clean cavity for a swarm to move into next spring. A genetic line like that could come to genetically dominate an entire region - if it worked. 

African bees do something like that (I think) but it keeps them from being able to build up a large enough reserve of stores to survive a very long winter.


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## xC0000005 (Nov 17, 2004)

Think of it as a roll of the dice by nature - the investment in raising the extra queens has already been done, the number of bees to leave with most secondary swarms is small, and if the afterswarm succeeds the payoff is high. So a big healthy hive can afford to pitch a primary swarm and then buy the evolutionary equivalent of a scratch ticket.


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## Rick 1456 (Jun 22, 2010)

David LaFerney said:


> As far as bee keepers are concerned that would be an extremely undesirable trait and in case it has any genetic component whatsoever (?) I would get rid of the queen and any drone brood that I could find.
> maybe off topic a little
> 
> What if in addition to that trait, the bees, put away stores and wintered well, built up hive population and capped deep of honey, filled the brood nest , all before they swarmed, and no treatments? I have a hive like that and was a swarm. I made a split from her last season. The daughter hive is doing the same thing except no swarm cells as of yesterday.
> JUst me but I'll take that trait.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

What if they winter economically, build up very fast in the spring, produce lots of honey, are gentle to work with, and don't even try to swarm as long as you give them a little room? I'm currently taking grafts from *that* queen. If I have hives that swarm for no particular reason I requeen them. 

In our area you can produce honey between (about) May 1 and the end of June. If they swarm during the spring swarm period (about April 1 - May 10) you won't produce much honey. There is no profitable late flow - often not one at all. So swarminess is a bad trait here. 

Anyway, the thread subject is multiple after swarms that often cause the hive to dwindle away - unless you plan to replace your bees every year that is not a good thing.


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## Rick 1456 (Jun 22, 2010)

If I had a hive that swarmed for no reason, I agree. The thread was multiple swarms, same hive, within weeks. That's bees being bees. We try\can manage it. 
Perhaps I misunderstood. My bad


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