Control of Swarming and Management During the Honeyflow*

The five essentials of practice already discussed have touched on swarm control and are a part of colony management for the honeyflow, but there remains some practices which pertain particularly to the busy season when the natural colony stores some honey and then swarms, while the managed colony continues to store honey.

*Appendix - 7.

If the system of management permits natural swarming, or if the individual colony is the unit of management, the apiary is visited or worked every eight or ten days during the swarming season.

Before swarming begins and to control swarming, one or two combs of pollen and honey or of brood, as the brood chambers become full, are taken away from a colony at each visit and replaced by foundation in the center of the hive, in order to keep plenty of room for the queen up to swarming time, or until no more of the eggs laid will produce bees useful in storing honey. In other words, to keep the brood nest "clear".

With a short honeyflow it may be necessary to keep the brood nest "clear" during the honeyflow since the beginning and end of the flow may come so close together that the brood chamber may be allowed to fill with honey and pollen, restricting egg laying.

When, however, the honeyflow is-long, or several flows cover a period of five or six weeks, the working force must be kept up by continuance of brood rearing or by adding bees, as by uniting colonies or by using package bees.

During the first two or three weeks of a long flow a good surplus may be stored. During that time many field bees die, but bees from the brood in the hive at the beginning of the flow replace the dead, and the working force is not greatly decreased. During the next two or three weeks the death rate goes on as usual, or increases, and if there are few replacements because the brood nest has become crowded with honey and the brood space lessened, the working force may diminish rapidly. The hive will then show little gain in weight, not because nectar is scarce, but because the field force is too small.

Proper use of a clear brood nest does much to prevent decrease in colony population and to keep the colony up to standard honey-storing strength through a long honeyflow, insuring that even during the height of the flow the brood chamber will be well filled with brood and will contain no honey except for fresh nectar which will be moved into the supers at night as evaporation goes on.

As the operator proceeds with the day's work during swarming time, combs of brood and of honey and pollen taken from brood nests accumulate and are used as needed. When a colony is found that insists on preparing to swarm in spite of cutting cells and taking away brood, then all of its brood is taken away and two or three combs of honey and pollen are placed on each side with four or five full sheets of foundation in the middle of the brood chamber. The bees soon empty these combs of honey and carry it into the supers to make room for the queen to lay. As rapidly as the foundation is drawn out she should also fill it with eggs if a good queen.

At times, instead of taking away brood, queens are taken out and replaced with cells or virgins. If the queens removed are good and of the previous year, they are saved and introduced where a virgin has failed to mate or in some other colony which is not queenright. This is an emergency practice and may be useful when the supply of queens in nuclei or "reservoir" is low.

If a swarm has come out between visits and returned because the queen was clipped, the operator knows this at once by the behavior of the colony. All brood is taken and the queen, if not already lost, is killed or caged for use as just described, and the brood is used in equalizing colonies or in strengthening nuclei. If it is desired to keep equipment to a minimum, or if increase is desired, the whole brood chamber may be set on a new stand and the parent colony provided with a new brood chamber, as is done when a colony is '"shaken" to control swarming.