Swarming Season
- williamteesd
- May 4
- 1 min read
Now is the time of year for hive growth which means more swarming and more work to stop it.
As temperatures rise and food sources start to sprout up, growth becomes the hive's goal. If the scaffolding of the hive has too little space for the queen it will begin laying replacement queen eggs.
If these queen eggs hatch they will take a sizable portion of the hive with them to start their own colony, and because 2 queens can't share the space the newborn queen will leave and "swarm". This can also come with bearding (a group of bees around the intake/outtake of the hive) which indicates a readiness to swarm.
To prevent this you must destroy the queen eggs before they can hatch and address the whys of the tendency; check if there are enough unused panels, it is warm enough, and if there are any infections/mites.
Queen eggs aren't all bad of course, they can be used to start colonies willingly by separating the panel with the queen egg from the original hive and placing it in its own space. Hopefully, this means the newborn queen will start a hive in it's new home.
Comments