Beverley
Beekeepers' Association
The
local Beekeeping Association for East Yorkshire
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Artificial
Swarm
It
is quite possible, if your apiary is far from public gaze
and you are always present, to allow your bees to swarm,
catch the swarm, rehouse it in a new hive, and collect your
honey harvest over the remainder of the year. However this
is not an option for most of us. We need to carry out an
artificial swarm.
Most books describe the method, the first step being to
find the queen. The method below allows for those who find
it difficult to do this. A good warm day is required.
You will need a floor, brood box, crown board, roof, and
set of deep frames (preferably with drawn comb, but
otherwise foundation).
As soon as you find eggs or larvae in queen cells you must
do the following
1. Take the brood frames out of the box one by one
2. Brush or shake the bees off each comb back into the
brood box.
3. Put the cleared combs into your new brood box. Keep them
in the same order as before.
4. Select one with brood but no queen cells and return this
to the original box
5. Fill this (original) box with new combs with the one
brood comb in the middle of the box
6. Put on the queen excluder
7. Replace the supers
8. Examine the cleared combs in the new brood box. This
should also contain some food combs. Any sealed queen cells
should be cut off. If you have been checking regularly all
queen cells should be unsealed
9. Place this new brood box on top of the supers
10. The nurse bees will ascend through the supers to
repopulate the combs in the top box. The queen will be in
the bottom box below the queen excluder
11. Next day take off the top brood box, place it on a
floor, and add a crown board and roof. Position it 2 to 3
feet to one side of its original colony
12. You are now at the first stage of an artificial swarm
as described in many bee books. If all the queen cells were
unsealed the hives can remain in those relative positions
for 6 to 7 days.
13. After 6 to 7 days move the single brood box colony
elsewhere in the apiary, or just the other side of the
parent stock. The effect will be to divert recently emerged
flying bees which have orientated to this box back into the
parent stock. With no flying bees the chance of after
swarms from the single box is virtually nil.
If you do manage to find the queen then you start at (12)
simply placing the queen, one frame of brood (without queen
cells) and ten frames of drawn comb or foundation in a new
brood box on the original site of the colony. All the other
frames with adhering bees plus one new one to make up the
number are left in the original box and placed 2 to 3 feet
to the side of the new box.