Beekeeping has recently become a very popular activity. For some, this is just a hobby and a pleasant pastime in peace and quiet, for others it is a fairly profitable business. In general, this is a very laborious and complex work, which, among other things, allows the beekeeper to instill many positive qualities, such as hard work, attention and ingenuity, accuracy. With the onset of heat, a tiring and long season for caring for bees begins, which will end no earlier than autumn. There is a lot of work ahead.
Swarm of bees
Today we will dwell in detail on such an important topic in beekeeping as bee swarming and measures to prevent it. This process takes place in the summer. It is simply impossible to name the exact date in this case, since it is influenced by many factors, which will be discussed later. Swarming of bees and measures to prevent it are described below.
What it is?
Before describing how to avoid bee swarming, you need to know what it is and why this process occurs?
At each apiary, new families are formed and their natural resettlement occurs. Beekeepers use them to replenish the apiary, to sell or replenish families lost for various reasons, as well as to replace unproductive bee families. Under natural conditions, insects breed and spread due to innate instincts.
So, we will consider what is the swarming of bees and measures to prevent it.
Swarming is a natural, natural reproduction and resettlement of bee families, developed in the process of evolution. To strengthen and preserve the family, new individuals are born. Then the existing bee family is divided in two to preserve the species. One part (swarm) leaves the hive with its uterus and drones and begins to live its own life. Having collected honey in the goiter, they leave their old housing and arrange a new nest in a previously prepared place.
Another part of the previously laid queen cells displays a new queen. During this period of time, they suspend the collection of nectar.
When the bee swarm begins
Depending on the region, swarming can occur up to 3 or more times a year, the duration of the swarm period is from 2 to 6 weeks. Bees in the family breed and emerge from the cells. Weaker bee colonies may swarm with some delay, since at the beginning of spring they do not yet have enough bees in the hive.
Swarm preparation
The bee family begins to prepare for swarming gradually. Experienced beekeepers at certain stages can identify signs and prevent the emergence of a swarm. Normally developed families already in the flowering period of plants begin to grow drones and lay uterine bowls, where the uterus lays eggs after a while. Gradually, the number of bees and brood begins to increase in the family. With the development of uterine larvae, harmony in the family is disturbed. The uterus no longer feels the same care from the bees. Due to the meager diet, she is forced to eat on her own, collecting honey directly from the cells. Her egg production decreases, she lays few eggs. The body becomes light, the ability to fly appears.
Other bees sharply decrease their working capacity, they stop flying, stop building their honeycombs, and the collection of pollen and nectar decreases sharply.
Bees who are not busy with work are crowded at the bottom of the hive, hanging down like a beard. One gets the impression that they are waiting for something. So they behave for 1-3 weeks.
Before swarming, the bees begin to build up body weight, and this is quite justified, because the swarm has a huge amount of work to do in a short period of time: to build a new nest, feed the brood and prepare food for the winter.
When considering our topic today, it’s important to know the reasons.
Reasons for swarming
There are many factors that influence the swarm behavior of bees. One of the main reasons is the crowding of insects caused by overpopulation of the nest by adults and brood. An imbalance in the temperature regime provoked by a large number of bees forces them to be divided into two halves.
It has been proven that families most prone to swarming, living in cramped conditions and located under the sun. To prevent the swarm state of bees, beekeepers proposed methods for keeping and breeding insects, including increasing the volume of the occupied nest and reducing the number of adults and brood. But in practice, the measures taken could not help stop the swarm process, but only reduced the number of swarm families. Therefore, it was concluded that crowding in the hive is not the main factor in the occurrence of swarming.
The suggestion of the causes of the swarm instinct of bees was put forward by Gerstung. He argued that at certain times in the nest there are many lactating individuals, giving more milk to feed the larvae than is necessary. According to him, excess milk is used by bees to grow larvae and encourages the family to breed. However, Gerstung did not explain why all the bee families have breadwinners, but far from all are prone to swarming.
Signs
What are the signs of bee swarming?
- The main sign of swarming is that the queen bee reduces egg production or completely stops it.
- Bees stop building honeycombs. They gnaw at the wax that is substituted for the detuning.
- An excess of unoccupied young bees appears in families. They hang in clusters at the extremes.
- Bees become unproductive. They stop their work and rarely fly out of the hive.
- In a bee nest, several swarm mother liquors are formed on several frames. Their number can reach 20 pcs.
The beekeeper should promptly notice the changes that occur in bee families and in time to carry out activities against swarming of bees.
Bee Swarming Prevention
Modern beekeeping methods try to exclude the process of swarming. Tracking a swarm and removing it from the trees is a rather laborious procedure. An apiary created from swarms is not very effective and will create many problems in the future. How to prevent the swarming of bees? There is a complex of anti-war measures to keep insects from swarming. Bees need to be loaded on time with the construction of honeycombs, to keep young productive queens. The breed of insects also matters.
Prevention
How to prevent the swarming of bees?
- Watch carefully that the bee hive is not crowded. Install a second floor if necessary.
- Always expand the socket. Insects must work actively - build a honeycomb.
- There should always be brood in the nest. This will stimulate the uterus to lay eggs all the time.
- When it is not the season and the bees do not collect nectar and pollen, they are fed.
- Hives must be protected from heat.
There are different ways to prevent swarming of bees. Let's consider them further.
Uterus wing trim
The old anti-war method is the cutting of one wing of the uterus, after which it cannot fly and will not fly out with a swarm. Its disadvantage is that bees often reject such queen bees and bring out a new queen bee. That is why it is better to use another method.
Closing letoka lattice
A grate can be installed on the letlet so that only bees can crawl through the cells, but the uterus is not. So she will not be able to fly out with a swarm, and a swarm without a uterus will come back.
The disadvantage of this method is that many insects injure the wings and die. In addition, the swarming process does not stop completely, but only slows down. After a while, the infertile young uterus, which destroys the fetal uterus, leaves the mother cells. In this case, the bee family swarms, more and more queens come out, a swarm without a uterus periodically flies out, but returns back to the hive. This continues for about a week. Then the bees choose one young uterus, the rest are destroyed. The lattice is removed, and a new uterus flies for mating with drones.
The family ceases to develop normally for a long time, the bees are inactive. Such a family at the main honey collection will not collect a lot of honey.
The convenience of this method is that when it is necessary to leave the apiary and there is no way to guard the departure of the swarm, such a grill can be installed for a day. Roy will not fly away.
Printed brood is taken
This method is suitable if insects are found in 12- and 16-frame single-hive hives.
When the family has already gained strength, and before the honey collection for a long time to prevent swarming, the frames with a sealed brood are taken from strong families and given to weaker ones. Instead, frames with eggs and open brood are placed. As a result, after the release of young bees, weak, dysfunctional families amplify, which are able to give market honey from the main honey collection. A strong family, whose frames were taken away, begins to feed open brood, the uterus has enough space for oviposition, and the bees do not enter the swarm.
Rearrange Hives
If queen cells have already been laid and the bees are preparing for swarming, this process can be interrupted by interchanging two hives. The one in which the bee family is about to swarm and has already laid the queen cells, is transferred to the place of a weak family, which needs to be strengthened. In its place, the weak is transferred.
With this rearrangement, part of the insects from a strong bee colony, which is preparing for swarming, after flying out of the hive, will return again to its old place, reinforcing a weak family. A swarm family after the loss of its bees will weaken, and as a result, swarming will stop.
But the mother liquors, if the bees have not bitten them, are likely to remain. They need to be cut. If the uterus needs to be replaced, some of the best queen cells are left. When the first uterus comes out, it will replace the old uterus.
Preventing swarming of bees by this method has one drawback. The uterus does not always change, and a small bee swarm can still fly out. Therefore, it is better to remove all the queen cells, and if necessary, change the uterus, you can plant a young one.
These methods can be used to combat bee swarming only with healthy bee colonies so as not to transfer parasites and pathogens to other hives.
Kostylev's method F. M.
We continue to consider the swarm of bees and measures to prevent it. It is impossible not to mention the Kostylev method.
In the evening, after the end of the flight of bees, the swarm bee family is transferred to the gangplains located far from the hive. All queen mothers are torn off, and the brood is rearranged for the night in a nest to an non-hero family. They give additional print and feed frames, and honey is taken completely from the hive. In the morning, the entire open brood is put back, a wax is added, and near the letok they put ganglings with the insects that have spent the night on them.
Bees, returning to their native hive, do not find honey there and begin to replenish supplies. Since there will be no closed brood, but only open, insects will be engaged in the cultivation of larvae. As a result, swarming will stop.
Demari Method
This method of dealing with bee swarming was invented by the American beekeeper Demari. Double-hive hives were used, and nests expanded in time. As a result, the uterus did not stop the laying of eggs due to a lack of space on the honeycombs, and its work was controlled by the installation of a separation lattice in the lower case.
The Demari method has 3 options for expanding a nest in a two-hive hive:
- The first option - in the lower case one frame with the uterus is left on the open brood, and all the others with the brood are moved to the upper case. Then the separation grid is installed. The place vacated in the hive is filled with frames with prepared honeycombs and wax.
- The second way to prevent bee swarming is to separate the uterus and young bees. All young growth is transferred to another building, while the queen bee remains on an empty honeycomb.
- The third option - only the printed brood is taken from the uterus, and the open brood and bees remain. As a result, young bees have a lot of work to grow brood, and swarming does not occur.
Methods M. A. Dernov
These methods can help if you do not want to allow the exit of the swarm when the queen cells are already laid:
- The first way. Flight bees are transplanted into an empty hive, which is installed in the place of a swarming family. Ahead of the family preparing for the swarm and laying the queen cells, an empty hive is placed. The main hive turns around. When flying insects return to an empty new hive, the bees left with the uterus begin to destroy the queen cells. When the swarming stops, the hive turns back, as before, and the empty one is carried away. Flight bees return to the uterus.
- The second way. The old uterus is caught and destroyed, or, if the uterus is good, layering is given. One printed mother liquor is left, and the rest are cut out. Within 5 days, new printed queen cells are checked, which are removed. Bees will not swarm, and a new queen bee will be hatched.
Witwitz method
This method was invented by the beekeeper N. M. Vitvitsky. It is quite simple, but very effective.
To prevent swarming of the bees, they are loaded with work. To do this, the nest is divided into two halves using an extension with empty honeycombs and a wax. Insects immediately begin to fill in the empty space, rebuild the wax, forgetting about the swarm.