*ripped off the news group for you that don't get it.*
 
Newsgroups: sci.agriculture.beekeeping
Subject: Re: swarming in August?
Date: Sun, 09 Aug 1998 00:59:43 GMT
 
On Fri, 07 Aug 1998 14:49:17 -0400, Marc Andelman
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
 
>Can bees swarm in August?  How can you tell swarming
>behavior from mere mustering of the troops for a good
>honey flow?
 
Good Question from Marc,
 
1st swarming can take place anytime of the year that the bees are
active and they become crowed with bees, honey, and/or pollen. In many
areas the bees do swarm more then once and in some areas they do not
swarm in the spring but will swarm later in the summer because of the
timing of plants useful to bees.  Beekeepers who move their bees from
South to North many times increase the numbers of swarms and over the
years most have developed methods to prevent this swarming. The most
popular is by making divides with new queens before moving.
 
In some locations not necessarily the best for honey production such
as coastal areas with warm days alternating with cool fogy days the
bees will swarm out, that is they will keep swarming until nothing is
left behind but a queen cell and a few hundred bees. These yards are
excellent for making increase and if the bees are left alone and only
the swarms caught many times the number of swarms caught will exceed
the original number of hives. Some of these areas are notorious for
NOT catching back mated queens because of the same weather conditions
that may cause them to swarm.
 
Careful examination of commercial bee hives in California finds queen
cells present all season long. We think of these as supersedure cells
but all outward appearances of the hives will be normal. No signs of a
failing queen such as shot gun brood and the like. Most beekeepers do
not cut this type of cell and for sure queens are being replace
naturally all season long and some of these may swarm in the process
if they become crowded with pollen and/or nectar.
 
Most think of the swarming behaviors as being caused by crowding by
bees and it may be, we also think that a queen must be present but in
running queen banks of several hundred mated queens and young bees
added every few days from hatching brood I have had these hives swarm
without any queen in the swarm.. It is interesting and exciting, very
exciting if you know the value $$ of 250 queens in a full bank,  to
see them take wing filling the air and heading out of town only to
park in a big cluster on a tree limb 50 to 100 yards away.  They
usually rest there for up to an hour and then again take flight and
return to the hive. I once had a bank hive that you could set your
clock by as it would take off each afternoon about the same time and
always returned.
 
In time even an old drone can learn new tricks and all that was needed
to stop this brazer and dangerous activity was to remove one or all of
the gallon feed cans on these hives and cut the sugar with water so
they will blow most of it out each night and not become so crowded.
 
Old time beekeepers this area used to finish extracting and their bee
work for the year and take of for a month of hunting in October -
November. One year they all got back to find swarms hanging everywhere
as they hit a unheard of late cotton flow and had removed all the
supers so the bees blocked out and swarmed. They started up again and
did not finish extracting until Thanksgiving turkey time.
 
I once hit a crop of Golden Eye, a cool season wild sunflower, on the
Mexican boarder a flow that only hits every 17 years or so and I never
finished extracting but quit at Christmas as it was cold enough to
make it an impossible job in an area that having heat in the honey
house was never thought of, normally never needed, as the air
temperature is normally warm enough to extract and pump honey as fast
as you can extract it. We did well over 200 pounds per hive anyway and
had hives wanting to swarm to the last day of the flow which in total
was almost a year long and some of the different wild flowers bloomed
three times that normally only bloom once. Beekeeping on the higher
Snorian Desert is a different and as difficult beekeeping as can be
found. Most beekeepers in the area never were able to take real
advantage of this late flow as they had never experienced it before
and by the time they figured it out their bees were so weak from
swarming to do much.
 
ttul, the OLd Drone
http://beenet.com