1. Swarm Prevention
Why
When
How

2. Why Control Swarming Keep backyard beekeeping socially acceptable
Honey for the bees and the beekeeper

3. Types of Swarms Absconding Swarms Reproductive Swarms
The whole colony departs
Lack of resources, unacceptable accommodations, parasites…
Reproductive Swarms
Natures way of prospering
Not enough room

4. Conditions that Promote Swarming
Decrease queen pheromone
Last years queen
Congestion
Lack of open cells in the brood nest for the queen to lay eggs
Crowding – bees, nectar, and pollen
Environmental conditions
Resources -Abundance of nectar and pollen
Weather - Sunny, warm, calm
Genetic strain

6. Timing Swarm Season
Drone brood rearing begins 4-6 weeks prior to swarming
4 weeks after dandelion bloom starts
(This year dandelion bloom started mid January)
Apple blossom peak
The warm calm day after the bees have been cooped up due to inclement weather
Swarming usually coincides with relatively good foraging periods and tends to occur from March to June, with a peak in early April
Last frost in Concord was end of February

7. Swarming is Eminent
If you see capped queen cells the colony has most likely swarmed.
If there are queen cells and no eggs the colony has likely swarmed.
Cutting out queen cells
If you destroy all the queen cells you may end up with no queen.
Does not prevent swarming
Is labor intensive
Your colony may need one of those queens
DOES prevent secondary swarms

8. Successful Swarm Prevention starts before you see queen cells
Provide room for the queen to lay within the brood nest
Provide room for pollen and nectar
Provide the equivalent of 2 deeps for brood

9. Swarm Prevention Methods (queen staying with brood)
Caging the queen - breaks the brood cycle
Add drawn comb in the brood area (Checker Boarding)
Reversing brood boxes
Do keep brood together with room to move up
Don’t if it splits the brood
Move frames of brood and nurse bees to a weaker colony replace with empty drawn comb

10. Checker Boarding
Deep frames fill in 2-3 days so 2 frames every 4-6 days? Too many empty frames on a cold night, bees can’t cover brood, brood die.
Labor intensive and need extra frames of empty drawn comb. Start 2 months prior and repeat until end of to swarm season
Useful technique for Top Bar Hives
J. Zawislak graphic S.J. Repasky

11. YES NO Reversing Brood Boxes J. Zawislak graphic S.J. Repasky
Still helps to break up honey cap by checkerboarding
J. Zawislak graphic S.J. Repasky

12. After using the preceding techniques to build a strong colony, Preempt the Swarm
Separate the brood from the queen.
A "true" swarm has an old queen, 20,000 or so workforce of bees of all ages, and no comb.
An artificial swarm is typically the foragers, the old queen, and empty comb.

13. Swarm Prevention Methods (separate queen from brood)
Splits or nucs (see resources)
Demaree - preceded Snelgrove
Set up is same as Snelgrove without SB
Queen cells are removed,
Every 7 days brood frames are moved up to top box and additional Queen cells are removed
(see resources)
Double Screen aka Snelgrove Board (SB)
Provides the queen with extra laying space
Maintains all the bees at full strength in the hive,
Ultimately reunite as one colony with a new queen
Do not have to manipulate the hive after Day 1

14. Double Screen Board aka Snelgrove Board
Better Bee Inc. 10 Frame Double Screen DSC1 Starting at $17.45 Swarming: Its Control and Prevention $29.95 by L E Snelgrove
The bees’ scent and heat pass through the entire hive via a patch of mesh in the center of the Snelgrove board, however the queen pheromones do not.

15. Snelgrove Board 3 (4) pairs of entrances
Each pair has an entrance above and below the board

16. Honey Bee Brood Development
All larva are fed royal jelly the first 3 days
Q larva are fed royal jelly all 8 days
virgin Q’s mating flight(s)
after 4 days old
Laying Queen

17. Metamorphosis of the Queen Bee
Egg
hatches on Day 3
Larva (several moltings)
Day 3 to Day 8 1⁄2
Queen cell capped
~ Day 7 1⁄2
Pupa
~ Day 8 until emergence
Emergence
~Day 15 1⁄2 - Day 17
Nuptial Flight(s)
~Day
Egg Laying
~Day 23 and up

18. Snelgrove Method Benefits
Queen continues to lay freely
Colony size is maintained
Foraging force is maintained
New queen is created
Minimal beekeeper labor

19. Snelgrove - Method I Day 1 – Rearrange the hive (a vertical split)
Box A
Combs containing Brood with adhering bees, (youngest brood in the center capped brood to the sides) with sufficient pollen and honey
Box B
Broodless mostly empty combs with adhering bees
One comb with a little unsealed brood
The Queen

20. Snelgrove - Method I Day 1 - continued
Build the hive in the following order
Bottom board, Box(s) B, Excluder, Super(s), Box(s) A
Day 4
(It just works better to wait a few days to add the SB, it is not about the nurse bees)
Place Snelgrove Board (SB) under Box A, the edge without entrances towards the front of the hive
Open only one top entrance(left side)
Day 7-8
Close top left entrance and open bottom left entrance
Open top right entrance (opposite side of hive)
Look for queen cells in Box A remove all but the best ones for requeening this colony or developing a second colony

21. Snelgrove - Method I Day 14-15 Close top entrance on right side
Open bottom entrance on right side
Open top entrance on back
If there are queen cells you can allow a new queen to emerge and mate (leave the top back entrance open until you know you have a lying queen) Then either start a nuc or requeen the hive.
Method II is used if Q cells are present

22. Snelgrove - Method I
An artificial swarm was created with the old queen and all the field bees in Box B.
The queen has been able to continue laying, field bees have been repeatedly diverted from Box A to Box B
There has been no break in the brood cycle
Colony size has been maintained
A new queen is available to re-queen the colony or use elsewhere
The timings of the entrance manipulations are only critical when using the technique to raise one or more new queens.

23. Separating the brood from the queen leads to the production of multiple emergency queen cells.
If the bees are naturally due to swarm, then the queens raised will generally be good ones.
If the procedure is performed too early in the season, the emergency cells are more likely to result in poor queens.

24. Now What?
Reunite the colony and re-queen or use the new queen elsewhere
Use the paper method if a new queen was produced
Raise a new colony from the top box
Once the queen is mated and laying, the top box can be relocated to form a new, separate colony.

25. Basic Swarm Prevention Split
On the original hive location
1 frame - the old queen with brood, honey, and pollen (no queen cells)
Drawn comb or foundation
Move the parent hive to a new location
Brood, honey and pollen
Wait 1-3 days then introduce fertile queen
If they have to make their own queen you will loose 2-3 weeks of brood production
May need to rebalance the number of foragers or brood in the hives

26. Taranov 4
inches
honeybeesuite.com

27. Swarm Bandit
Orr Bee Supply or Brushy Mountain Bee Supply

29. Resources
Splits -
Demaree –
Double Screen Board -
Swarming: It’s Control and Prevention
by L. E. Snelgrove
Swarm Essentials: Ecology, Management, Sustainability by Stephen J. Repasky
Taranov-