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Author Topic: My swarm hive swarmed  (Read 1510 times)

Offline asprince

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My swarm hive swarmed
« on: April 26, 2009, 09:46:54 pm »
I have a swarm that I captured six weeks ago. It was huge; it took two deeps to hold them. Anyway, they drew out 20 frames of foundation and filled a super of honey in the six weeks, then they swarmed. They caught me off guard. I did not expect them to swarm this year.

Steve 
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Offline Brian D. Bray

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Re: My swarm hive swarmed
« Reply #1 on: April 27, 2009, 12:00:58 am »
I have a swarm that I captured six weeks ago. It was huge; it took two deeps to hold them. Anyway, they drew out 20 frames of foundation and filled a super of honey in the six weeks, then they swarmed. They caught me off guard. I did not expect them to swarm this year.

Steve 

That is a very large swarm if it took 2 deeps to hold all the bees.  The problem you encountered was that the bees were already crowded when they were hived.  The drawing of the comb , though necessary, just compounded the crowding problem.  So, to relieve the crowding stress on the hive as it built out it swarmed again.  The second most reason bees swarm is due to crowding, 1st is reproduction swarms.

The way to have avoided this would have been to super as soon as the bees began buillding comb.  It's hard to judge this and it is more from experience that one learns to super extra large swarms almost immediately upon hiving them.  If you don't super them soon, they will swarm again for the same reason, and then again.  Super them, regardless of howmuch comb they have drawn in the 2 deeps and then super them again when they start building comb in the new super.  Swarms that large are hard to keep ahead of but it is necessary to ward off swarming.

You're other option is to split it.
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