Re: Prevent spring-time swarming

[omnimirage]

Spring is approaching here in Australia. Last year, I had a number of my hives abscond on me, which I want to prevent this time.

My plan is, to go check on all my bees, before the warm spring weather hits. I believe I need to go through them, and look for drone laying activity, and queen laying activity. I need to kill excessive drones that have been laid, and remove extra queen cells. I need to then provide them with plenty of space to expand; I can do this by either adding a super, or removing some honey if there's an excess (unlikely as we're leaving winter). I also plan to set up a few traps hives in case any swarms want to set up in there.

Last year, the Spring weather hit a week before Winter. How common is that? Can I do anything to get more of a prediction on when it'll hit?

What do I do with extra queen cells that I find? It looks like one of my hives may be missing a queen. Can I put on in there? I'd be interested in trying to split some hives with them if I can.

Is there anything else I should be doing for my bees during the beginning stages of Spring?

[Bakersdozen]

What do I do with extra queen cells that I find? It looks like one of my hives may be missing a queen. Can I put on in there? I'd be interested in trying to split some hives with them if I can.

Hello, omnirage.  Good to hear from you.
Those extra queen cells can be used in any queenless colonies you might have.  They can also be used to make splits from overcrowded, aka strong, colonies.  That would be stop the urge to swarm.  You can also create a split by pulling frames from several colonies and combining them with a queen cell.  When creating  a split, you will want at least one frame of honey, at least two frames of brood with the nurse bees, and your frame with the queen cell.
I found this post by apisbees regarding splits.  His timing schedule is on target. 
"By buying a queen and introducing her you can have 2 honey producing hives cause you are gaining 30 days of brood production. Don't be to eager to get the splits done to early, talking to much away from the parent hive or not providing the split with enough resources can cause a major set back to the build up of the hives. split a week hive and you will end up with 2 week hives in 60 days, split a strong hive and in 60 days you will have 2 strong hives. Keeping this in mind you may be better off pulling a couple of frames from each colony to make one extra hive. You want to do the split 45-60 days before your main honey flow so the split has time to expand and have a good population of bees of foraging age."

[Perry]

I would urge caution when removing queen cells. If you see queen cells, particularly along the bottom of frames (as in swarm cells), simply removing them will not prevent swarming. Once the bees begin construction of those cells (loaded) they are going to go, and by removing cells you may simply be removing the heir apparent.
Also not sure why you would remove drone cells, particularly in spring when their services may be needed?

[rober]

1st i'm assuming you're talking about swarming not absconding. i'm with perry & bakers. sometimes you can prevent swarming by making splits with the frames that have swarm cells. sometimes no matter what you do they are going to swarm. there is no reason to kill drones. the hive will control their numbers as needed. I had a hive that  I made 5 nucs with frames with swarm cells & they continued making more. I finally put all of the newest swarm cell  frames in a deep & left the queen in the other deep & gave that hive another deep of drawn comb. that finally stopped them. keep in mind too that any splits will need to be taken to another yard so they do not go back home.

[apisbees]

In early spring on the first inspection before you see lots of capped drone brood in the hives in the bee yard, if you find a queenless hive requeen it if you can find and buy a mated queen. If you can't or want to raise your own queens, then combine it with another weak hive that could use the population and Waite till the drone population has grown so there are enough in the area for mating.

[omnimirage]

I meant swarming, got the terminology mixed up!

So should I let them keep their queen cells if I don't wish to use it in another hive? Should I only split strong hives, and leave the weak and moderate strength ones alone?

I was taught to remove excessive drones, as I was told they're not needed in such numbers, that they simply consume honey and contribute to swarming behaviour. Not sure how accurate that is.

Could simply giving my queenless hive an egg, or queen cells, be not enough to save it? It's been queenless for about a month and there's only maybe 200 bees there. Might it be best to just merge them with another hive? If I do so, should I simply put some newspaper on top of the hive frames, under the lid, and put the bees from the queenless hive on top of such?

[apisbees]

" It's been queenless for about a month and there's only maybe 200 bees there. Might it be best to just merge them with another hive? If I do so, should I simply put some newspaper on top of the hive frames, under the lid, and put the bees from the queenless hive on top of such?"
With only 200 bees, this hive is already dead. Just the last bee has not flew out of the hive and not come back yet.
Before you can mate queens you need mature drones to mate with them. It takes at least 45 days from when a egg is laid in the drone comb till it is mature enough to mate. So yes you can raise your own queens bet not till you have mature drones.  You are only 7 week past your shortest day so about our equivalent to the 2nd or 3rd week of February.

[Barbarian]

Omni  ..... When your mind is clear and you have some time you may wish to look at the Dave Cushman website    wwwdave-cushman.net

Under "Boards and Gadgets" the Horsley board might be used at your out apiary or a Snelgrove board at a home apiary.