Mauricio, in balmy Brisbane Australia wrote:
>I have been reading all this good ideas about how to control/prevent a
>colony to swarm. All of them are excellent, but I think the back-bone of the
>problem has not been discussed yet. This is genetics.
>We first have to recall that most apis mellifera behaviour is not learnt,
>but rather have a very high genetic component.
>And swarming behaviour is not the exception, I belive that swarming in
>european bees and absconding behaviour in african bees are controled by
>highly correlated genes (if not the same!!)
>Therefore we must be aware that we are responsible for the continuation of
>the swarming problem in our bees. This is, we usualy make our splits from
>colonies that are about to swarm or already did. <snip>
 
I would note that your locale Mauricio is quite warm and does not have a
really severe winter.  A similar thought was put forward by Peter Bray,
whose bees are airborne over Leeston, New Zealand.  Now I couldn't find
Leeston in my atlas, but unless it is up pretty darn high in the mountains
it probably doesn't have anything like the rigors of the Canadian winter.
What does this have to do with selecting for swarming by using swarm cells
for splits?  Let me try and explain my reasoning, and I hope I am not just
rationalizing lazy beekeeping for the busy dairy farmer.
 
For myself anyway, but I think for some other beekeepers as well,
survivability is the number one consideration, whether it be the ability to
survive winter, varroa mites, tracheal mites, etc.  Many of the other
desirable traits, such as strong foraging, good pollen gatherers, good egg
layers (and knowing when to quit!) are also involved in survivability.  I
figure that a hive that can come through the winter and build up to such a
strength that I can use its swarm cells to start several splits is worth
propagating, and if I am increasing my swarming tendency it may be a
necessary facet of survivability.  If I was to select from one or two of the
best survivors, who didn't make swarm cells, I might have chosen the best
survivability genes, but then again I might have missed them.  Maybe that
was a hive that had a young vigorous queen going into the winter and
happened to have perfect stores.  But by keeping the gene pool large and
just dividing vigorous spring colonies before they abscond mother nature is
sure to select for survivability.
 
I feel that the bees I have now are much better at wintering than their
parent stock, which was mostly from New Zealand and Australia.  And despite
using swarm cells as my main method of increase for many years now, I
actually notice very little increase in swarming tendency from the parent
stock.  Old queens, crowded brood chambers seem to be much more of a factor
than genetics, in my opinion.  So I'm coming out of the closet and telling
the list, I DON'T RAISE QUEENS.  The bees do.  And they seem to do a bloody
good job of it too!  For the last two winters I had 95% survival with no
packing.  (I'm not bragging; we do not have either varroa or tracheal mites
here yet.)  And in the previous two seasons I was able to increase my hives
by about 50% each season, which I wanted to do because the blueberry
industry is going gangbusters here.
 
I didn't plan this or even think it out that well.  I am now proudly
proclaiming my genetic responsibility in preserving the adaptive gene pool.
But actually I was just too busy getting ready for hay season and moving my
hives in and out of blueberries to ever take the time to raise queens.  It
was just so easy to tip up the boxes and if the hives were making q cells,
then divide them.  I was a bit embarrassed about it, but it seems to have
worked out well.
 
Regards from Stan on Milk and Honey Farm in Prince Edward Island where even
in July and August, I think it is still warmer in Brisbane!