Mother Nature, What's Up?

[Perry]

Does she know something we don't?
When trees produce cones in over abundance, when hornets build nests up high, you know the folklore I'm talking about. Winters going to be brutal, lots of snow, stuff like that.
Well, in that vein, what is with all the secondary swarms I'm seeing? This year has been a "swarmy" year, one like no other I've experienced before. Yes, some of it has to do with my inattention to some of my own hives, but it certainly doesn't seem to explain everything. I have seen multitudes of secondary or afterswarms this year. Hives that have "no business" swarming are throwing them. I can go through a yard, bring everything there up to speed, only to get a call a week later that a hive is swarming. Anything that I am letting requeen itself doesn't seem content unless each new queen hits the road!
Is this Mother Natures way of making up for lost ground (although we had good overwintering here in NS), or is it a preparation for what could be a tough winter?
I'm baffled.

[brooksbeefarm]

Like you, (did i say that?) i've been so busy with cows and garden i have neglected my bees. I didn't get my swarm traps out and when the flow came they were on there own, Out of 80+ hives i never seen or was called by close neighbors of a swarm? Early inspections i found swarm cells in some and broke them down into nucs, but i know some of the outyard hives swarmed because i ran out of supers. Jack

[Jen]

My one and only hive threw it first primary swarm on March 26th. 6 weeks later 9 more swarms were cast from the swarms themselves. I remember Perry, you being so baffled and not having an answer for my swarms gone crazy.

Your winter prediction certainly has weight. But I can't help wonder...    that there is a world wide cry amongst the bees, and inaudible bee sound, to populate as much as possible to make up for all the colony collapse and to prepare for the future depletion of bees. What creature on earth would know about the lack of bees... than the bees themselves ~ it's worth a ponder

[Woody Roberts]

I'm thinking along Jens line here. No swarms this year but my bees are acting funny. Could be the season. Me and a buddy were checking, Supering the hives at Sparta last night and I remarked that the girls were acting like its the end of May instead of the first of July.

[apisbees]

It was a brutal winter for bees. both managed and feral colonies sustained heave losses maybe every one praying to god to save the planet and the bees, he has reached out with divine intervention to help us save the planet thru replacing the lost and feral colonies.
Can't explain it but Nature seems to always balance itself out.   

[rodmaker]

  I had two hives with plenty of room empty frames in the brood chamber. One i caught in time and made a false swarm with the queen and the other i missed due to not expecting a weaker hive to swarm . By weaker i mean only seven frames of bees two weeks later they had swarmed. Something definately different this year.

[lazy shooter]

We are taught to look for internal causes of swarms, but maybe Mother Nature has the ability to send external requests for swarms.  Quite a few modern days farmers follow old sayings and folk lore like "the Farmer's Almanac."

As an aside, I am nine days out on total knee replacement, which means I have a huge bottle of hydroco/acetomin, pain pills.  They make beekeeping and other agriculture much more palatable.   

[barry42001]

There are the books we have read, and same books the bees didn't bother to read.

[LazyBkpr]

 What Barry said...   They seem to be following their own agenda..
   Had a few hives try to start swarm prep.. they had plenty of extra room and all precautions were taken..   Swarming them myself seems to have averted the problem without cutting the numbers down too far, but I am keeping close tabs just in case the problem has not been resolved...

[riverbee]

"This year has been a "swarmy" year, one like no other I've experienced before. Yes, some of it has to do with my inattention to some of my own hives but it certainly doesn't seem to explain everything."

"What creature on earth would know about the lack of bees... than the bees themselves ~ it's worth a ponder"

"It was a brutal winter for bees. both managed and feral colonies sustained heave losses maybe every one praying to god to save the planet and the bees, he has reached out with divine intervention to help us save the planet thru replacing the lost and feral colonies.
Can't explain it but Nature seems to always balance itself out. " 

and we will never know perry, only the 'teaching' or observation with questions that makes us pay attention and question ourselves; what's up with this?......what we did, what we didn't do.....queens, weather, etc.....  something of what jen said, something of what apis said....and we can only hope that nature balances out in favor of the bees, but sometimes it sure doesn't seem likely. 

[brooksbeefarm]

Hey Lazy, hows that knee coming along? Had mine done two weeks before Christmas last year and was back on the tractor in two weeks. I was layed a little longer on the first one, the secrete to a fast recovery is, do the therapy . I was back lifting feed bags in 3 months, never did have much pain for some reason? guess i've been stung in the head to many times. Good luck with yours. Jack
PS.The down side is,now i'm working my butt off catching up on the things i couldn't do before.

[lazy shooter]

Brooks:

The knee has worked like a charm.  I can freely walk and do anything I want to short of lifting.  I have a monday appointment to get the staples removed, and I am hoping the surgeon will turn me loose to drive at that time.  My JD5525 has soft controls and I would only be using my right knee for accelerating and braking, and I think that is workable today.  Hey, time will tell, but this knee has been twice as easy as the first one.

Thanks for asking and have a nice day,

Lazy