May 2025
Swarm Time - Newsletter from Alan Riach
I expect a few of you will have seen the odd “charged” queen cell (queen cell with egg or royal jelly and larva) by now and hopefully have managed to Pagden or otherwise artificially swarm successfully.
The principle behind artificial swarming is to consider the bee colony comprised of three entities – the queen, the brood and the flying foragers. Separating any one of these from the other two will prevent swarming, The Pagden method separates the brood from the queen and flying foragers.
Of course, there are other ways of artificial swarming and whichever one you use, ensure that you follow through allthe required steps. This is particularly important if you use the Nucleus method whereby the queen is separated from the brood and flying foragers. In this instance the queen is put into a Nucleus box on a frame of brood, some frames of stores, some drawn comb, and some young bees. The parent hive is left with ONE queen cell – mark its location with a drawing pin on the top bar and treat that frame very carefully as the developing queen larva is only held onto the pool of royal jelly by surface tension. You MUST then go through the hive 6 days later, as the bees will have built lots of new queen cells on eggs and on young larvae. All of these must be destroyed leaving ONLY your originally chosen cell. If you miss a second cell (usually a scrubby little entity hidden in the corner of a frame), you will have guaranteed a subsequent swarm when the first of the two subsequent queens emerge. If your chosen queen is first to emerge, she will be sent off with the prime swarm – you will be left with the poor queen emerging from that scrubby little hidden cell. The reason for swarming in this case is because that strong parent hive is still of the opinion that it can throw off a swarm. This is the danger associated with the Nuc artificial swarming method, so if you are using this method be very careful to leave only ONE queen cell.
If using Demaree remember to put a queen excluder under the top broodbox (on top of the supers) to prevent the trapped drones from defecating in your honey.
Even after Pagdening, the bees occasionally continuing to produce queen cells. This may be supersedure due to a weak queen, but more likely a lack of space. If your colony is large during Pagdening and covering all frames on the super, then as well as the norm of putting the super back on the artificial swarm add another one or even better, two supers. If the bees were well advanced with queen cells when you Pagdened, put a queen excluder under the new broodbox for a week or so just in case they still try to take flight – insert a piece of card sticking out between this excluder and the floor to remind you to remove it.
If you have missed a swarming and find a much-reduced colony with lots of queen cells, some sealed, some open, do not panic and knock down all queen cells, this will leave the colony queenless. Reduce to one queen cell (preferably an open one with a nice fat grub therein as at least you know that is a good one). Reducing to one queen cell will prevent the bees throwing off a cast swarm once the new queen emerges.
Some of you may be inserting new brood frames with foundation in various manipulations and rescued swarms in particular are very keen to draw comb. So where to insert. If you are removing some old frames in a normal expanding brood nest, you will usually find on the outside there are frames of sealed honey, then a frame with some honey and some pollen, then the first frame of brood. This pattern will be repeated on the other side of the brood nest. The best place to put foundation is between the pollen & honey frame and the first frame of brood, because the bees are already heating this area and you are not splitting the brood nest and forcing the bees to spread their warmth. Warmth is needed for comb drawing as the wax being manipulated has to be kept at quite a high temperature. A slowly expanding nucleus colony should be given one frame of foundation at a time, a rapidly expanding full size colony can handle two. Once drawn and the queen laying in the newly drawn comb the process can be repeated. Throughout the season, identify the most decrepit frames, mark them with a drawing pin and gradually move them towards the sides of the hive. The following spring remove them – if they still have honey at
that time, break the cappings and the bees should remove it. If you are starting with a new 5 frame nucleus inserted into a full-size brood box, use the above rules of inserting foundation close to the warm brood area. You can restrict the space using dummy boards but do keep an eye on the colony’s progress and move the dummy boards out ahead of the advancing nest.
For a video clip of the Pagden method see : http://https://www.scottishbeekeepers.org.uk/advice/bee-basics/how-to- prevent-honey-bees-from-swarming
Some of you may be checking for varroa resistance in your bees. There is a Varroa Resistant EMBA WhatsApp group with valuable content from Nigel Hurst which will be of interest to you. Steve Riley’s book The Honey Bee Solution to Varroa -A Practical Guide for Beekeepers is also a valuable resource. However, continue to check for varroa and treat as necessary until you are sure that your bees are truly resistant.
