Hobby Beekeepers - Honeybee Swarms & Swarm Behavior

SWARMS

It's a bee colony's natural reproductive behavior. Can you and should you stop it in your apiary? How to catch swarms, and more.

Swarming is the natural process by which colonies reproduce to form new colonies. Swarms usually take place during a spring nectar flow, but can also occur later in the summer. When a colony is at a point readying to swarm the queen's pheromones signal all of the other bees in the hive to get ready. Workers build swarm cells for new queens, the queen lays eggs in them, foraging slows, and eventually the queen quits laying and even reduces her weight so that she will be able to fly. At this point the queen leaves with around half of the worker bees in a massive cloud of flying bees. It looks like chaos, but in reality it's choreographed beauty.

Before finding a permanent home, swarms usually land in trees and wait while scouts search for their new home. This may even happen a few times on their way to a new permanent hive. And this is a great time for beekeepers to catch swarms. Swarms are easy to see and usually quite docile. In fact they can often be shaken off a limb into a hive box or even a cardboard box for transport to an apiary. See books below or these links.

https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=30352

https://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheet/frequently-asked-questions-about-honey-bee-swarms/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarming_(honey_bee)

https://www.queenandcolony.com/blog/2019/3/8/why-do-bees-swarm

https://extension.arizona.edu/bee-informed-warming-swarming

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkKupMl8aqI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcVX96ZUPy0

SWARM TRAPS

When bees are swarming they send out scouts to find the perfect new home. So if you want to catch a swarm why not build them the kind of house they are looking for. Swarm traps have been around for a long time and there are many different designs, but a few commonalities exist that seem to be key in catching swarms.

1. Volume: 10 - 14 gallons

2. Entrance Size: 2 inches in diameter

3. Bait: Lemon grass oil or formulated swarm baits

4. Height: Place traps 10-12 feet in the air

Catching swarms can be a lot of fun, especially if you actually see the swarm move in!

If you want to build your own swarm traps, here are links to free plans:

https://horizontalhive.com/how-to-build/swarm-trap-free-plans.shtml

https://hacknbuild.com/blog/posts/Swarm-Trap/index.html

https://www.revivalwoods.com/blog/2020/4/6/how-to-build-a-swarm-trap-for-free-bees

So you have built or bought some traps, now what do you do with them? Swarm traps can be hung from houses, trees, even flag poles. We have found the best success in hanging them in the kind of places where bees would naturally be looking, specifically large trees with the entrance facing East so that they catch the morning sun. Hang them during prime swarm season (late spring - early summer), depending on your climate, and check them every few days.

PREVENTING SWARMING

When your bees are ready to swarm you have decisions to make, should you split your hive or try to keep it from swarming? If you choose the latter, there are ways to prevent losing your queen and half of your bees to swarming. Think about why the bees are readying to swarm and what they are doing to prepare, then counter act these with intervention.

1. Give the bees more space by adding another honey super (preferably with drawn comb).

2. Remove swarm cells (those big peanut-shaped cells from the bottom of frames)

These two steps are often enough, but some beekeepers also recommend reversing the order of the brood boxes, changing the order of the brood frames and requeening. Or better yet, make a split!

More advice:

https://www.dummies.com/home-garden/hobby-farming/beekeeping/how-to-prevent-swarming-when-beekeeping/

https://www.theapiarist.org/swarm-prevention/

https://www.perfectbee.com/a-healthy-beehive/inspecting-your-hive/recognizing-and-avoiding-swarms

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GD0oKQSB-c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RX-JxsOvb80

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvQsI076MHs&t=231s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0FQvNA9o4o