Hi all
Earlier this week, I saw a reference to a book by Silberrad, called Beekeeping in Zambia. Well, you know me, I had to get a hold of it. Fortunately, I have access to one of the most complete beekeeping collections in the world, thanks to E F Philips and his successors. They are still buying up bee books almost as fast as they are printed. I now have a copy of Bees in Europe and Sustainable Honey Production (BEE SHOP) and -- Beekeeping in Zambia. The latter makes great reading:
> Adansonii do not die of starvation in the hive like European bees; they abscond before matters become so critical. Dwindling as a result of a poor queen or lack of the right kind of pollen is another cause of absconding. When a colony is reduced in size owing to its inability to breed, it not only absconds but also very readily unites with another.
>
> This is a two-edged factor, for although it makes it easy to boost such a colony by uniting another to it, it is also the cause of the formation of a multi-queen swarm. This is a menace to all the small swarms in the area and the very devil to disentangle.
>
> It is well known that certain European races, notably Carniolans, throw cast swarms containing several virgin queens, perhaps a couple dozen or so, which all must be picked out before the bees will stay in the hive. But this is nothing compared to a multi-queen swarm of Adansonii bees which may contain hundreds of queens and occupy a volume thirty feet by a foot thick. Such a swarm never clusters in a spherical shape.
>
> I have personally removed over five hundred queens from one such swarm over a period of four months, during which time more small swarms were constantly joining it. I have seen a Eucalyptus tree, six inches in diameter, fifty feet tall bend over and break under the weight of bees clustering on it. Such a swarm is a fearsome and frightful sight and can be heard from a considerable distance. Needless to say that any unprotected person encountering such a phenomenon would be well advised to keep away from it.
>
> The presence of so many queens completely unhinges the normal organization of the colony which as such, no longer exists. There is a constant flow of colonies arriving and departing. To say they are disorganised is technically true, but by popular definition it is an under-statement. There is so much queen substance around them that they do not know whether they are coming or going.
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> The cluster is in perpetual motion like the surface of boiling water and contains an infinite number of queenballs in each of which there are may be three or four queens. A multi-queen swam maintains itself by the constant absorption of more small swarms which in fact will be absconding or dwindling colonies. These not only restore the numbers lost in fighting but bring food. Normal foraging, like every other normal activity has totally ceased. The new comers are compelled to disgorge the contents of their honey stomachs by being pulled and pulled about, an action which quite different from fighting. When this action is predominant and there are fewer falling corpses, there is a better chance for some success in trying to hive at least part of the swarm.
See:
Beekeeping in Zambia
Roger E M Siberrad
Apimondia, Bucharest, Romania, 1976, 76 pp. (Available from IBRA.)
http://ibrastore.org.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=56
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