# bees getting ready to swarm??? What to do?



## blackdog (May 6, 2010)

two of my hive are very strong, i have been keeping an eye on them. They both have an entire box of undrawn comb on top of the brood nest, so i thought i was giving them enought room. i checked them out today and the both had swarm cell and a few of them were capped. my questions are "
1) why are they swarmy when they seem to have plenty of room?
2) if i remove all or the swarm cells will it keep them from swarming? 
3) What are some methods of controling swarms more proactively?

thank you


----------



## wildbill (Jan 9, 2011)

I am a newbee but as i have read and take this info with a grain of salt sc cells are your queens older or not performing well ???? thay may bee trying to requeen there tired queen


----------



## justinh83 (Aug 2, 2010)

Blackdog, I will do my best to answer accordingly

1) They are "swarmy" because they do not have plenty of room. Undrawn comb is not sufficient to stop the instinct. The comb must be drawn for them to have more room. This of course takes time.

2) If you remove all of the swarm cells it will not necessarily keep them from swarming. What may happen is that they swarm anyway, leaving you with a hive which is unable to produce an emergency queen.

2) Methods of controlling swarms include making splits or nucs, rotating boxes in the early spring, and giving your bees additional DRAWN comb before the swarming instinct is initiated.


----------



## geebob (Apr 4, 2011)

Check this about opening your broodnest. http://www.bushfarms.com/beesswarmcontrol.htm#opening

In short, you want to convince them that they don't need to swarm. When you stack on a second box, it is like adding an attic to their house. They might decide to use it or they might just continue their plans to move out. When you open the broodnest, you have essentially remodeled their house.

Since they are on their way toward swarming, though, you might want to make the split to avoid the risk of losing them. Check further in the article referenced.


----------



## jrbbees (Apr 4, 2010)

Make split!


----------



## Nabber86 (Apr 15, 2009)

Just be ready to catch the swarm when it occurs.


----------



## LookerBee (Dec 9, 2010)

"Room" means already drwn comb room--NEVER DESTROY ANY QUEEN CELLS!! They do it for many reasons,all surrounding survival--Once they have begun executing the program to swarm--they will no matter what you do... The key is to expand their room when they are assessing their cavity space--at the beginning of spring when they orient to the outside (they also eying up what they have to work with). After that time it does not matter how much room you give them...the time to expand for maximizing populations and harvest has past until next spring. Never reverse hive bodies--that will bring a swarm in the shortest order (14-16 days)--Even If you have given your bees growth room B4 they need it, An older queen prompts swarming--BUT HEY!!--swarming is our signal that bees are well enough to complete their life cycle--Let them do it...--OK so let's say they bearding when workers are supposed to be working in broad daylight--vacuum the swarm and install B4 they take off Or look like they starting), or set up a chair and send them off with "I Love You!!" OR if they take off leaving your cheese in the wind, make noise simulating thunderclap (pots and pans, shotgun blast away from cloud of bees) bees think "holy crap we gotta land NOW!"--so swarm doesnt get too far away if you're into capturing...


----------



## LookerBee (Dec 9, 2010)

reversing hive body moves the queen and the 'natural queen excluder' to the bottom box--queenie says "dis all the room we got?" and the colony will swarm guaranteed in about 16 days. Do not reverse hive bodies--Keep the orb of brood intact, add brood space to bottom, honey space above...let bees do their thing by giving what they want B4 they go looking for it--splits timed AFTER drone production B4 queen cells--and never around swarm time...the ratio of brood ages isn't at the right ratio to promote success...eggs, coiled, capped...honey and bread what needed to split--move old queen with split


----------



## blackdog (May 6, 2010)

i would like to say thank you to every one who replied to my post, the information has been very helpfull. From what has been said i believe i will split the colonies and hope for the best. I would like to ask what every one thinks is the best method i could use to prevent this issue from happening next time around (next spring). Thanks for all of the help !


----------



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>1) why are they swarmy when they seem to have plenty of room?

They swarm to reproduce. Room won't stop them, but it will help. Room in the brood nest may stop them if they haven't gotten that far. Once you have swarm cells I would split.

>2) if i remove all or the swarm cells will it keep them from swarming?

No. In fact they probably already swarmed. If you have capped queen cells she probably left yesterday.


----------

