> Sammataro and Avitabile point to “genetics or race of bees” as a reason
for swarming (presumably excessive swarm tendency)
So what is "excessive swarm tendency"?
In wild-type bees living in small tree cavities, swarming would have a huge
fitness value, since otherwise the species would go extinct.
On the other hand, when we run colonies in high stacks of Langstroth boxes,
breeders confer a fitness value upon colonies that do not swarm, despite
their experiencing the dilution of queen pheromone due to their huge
populations of workers. If colonies with strong non-swarming tendencies
were not artificially propagated, via mass queen rearing by the producers,
they would also go extinct. So we must strike a balance.
As a queen breeder, breeding bees for almond pollination and nuc sales in
the California environment, I select colonies that do not immediately hit
the trees after almond pollination, but most of our colonies will indeed
produce swarm cells in April once they've filled a double deep wall-to-wall
with bees. Most of us here shake bees, pull out nucs, or split the entire
hive to dampen the swarm impulse, yet still allow the parent colony to
remain strong enough to put on a spring honey crop.
It's all about timing and your economic goals. For many years, we blew off
our local May-June honey flow, using it instead to build nucs up to
strength for a strong July nectar flow in irrigated alfalfa in Nevada. We
used splitting in March-April to avert swarming, and made our money on nuc
sales rather than early-crop honey production.
This changed when I ceased moving to Nevada (when they started cutting
alfalfa before it bloomed). Now we are torn between having colonies that
are strong in May in order to produce a local honey crop, but that
don't swarm before it starts. So we don't breed off of colonies that are
ready to hit the trees in early April (as evidenced by building tons of
swarm cells).
I ran a couple of yards of pure Russian stock for a few years. They were a
far more "environmentally responsive" bee than were my Italians. They'd
build up like mad as soon as there was a pollen flow, and REALLY wanted to
swarm and swarm right after almond pollination. Great bees, but they
required a different management style.
My point is that if you want colonies that grow big and productive without
swarming, you as a beekeeper may need to intervene. Ensuring that the
queen always has DRAWN comb to easily move UPWARD or sideways into helps
greatly to avert the swarm impulse.
Apologies for the rambling post, and going somewhat off topic : )
--
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com
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