George,

>Alaska beekeeping is sure different that stateside.
>
snip

>Further, it has been WELL PROVEN by bee scientists that swarming almost
>never happens with a VERY YOUNG queen, because she is so capable of producing
>enough queen pheromone that inhibits worker bees from building queen cells
>that she can have a colony of 40,000-60,000 bees and no swarm cells.
>However, when that same queen is just 12 months old, she has lost much of her
>pheromone,and swarming becomes a real problem for the beekeeper, and GOD FORBID even
>talking about a 2 year old queen.
>
I appreciate your thoughts and experience.   I have kept bees about 25
years or so, but only as a hobbyist.   I have never had more than a half
dozen hives at once.   Things may be the same, overall, here in Alaska
but some details are different.  Swarming is a more complex thing than a
matter of age.   I have known of many swarms from queens only a few
months old.   I have always wondered if it was simply a reflection of
the individual beekeepers management (or lack thereof) or something to
do with the long daylight hours during the summer.   We import packages
as early as queens can be mated, and two to three months later they will
swarm.   Some of these come from inadequate brood space (In Alaska a
single brood chamber will reliably produce swarms come late June or
early July).   But, I am not sure of the reasons for many swarms.   I
have read the temperate climate wisdom that young queens do not swarm
readily, but I have always wondered why that seems to be different up here.

Tom Elliott
Chugiak, AK

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