In article <[log in to unmask]>, Ken Hoare <[log in to unmask]> writes >"Shook swarming, ................. >Is it I ask? I believe this method is being tried in the UK not as a swarm >control method but as a means of reducing disease, especially European Foul >Brood, by removing the pathogens in the old comb. We have tried this on a few occassions, indeed it was discussed here some time ago, I reckon about a year or so back. Sounds fine in theory, and is quite easy to do, but it has one huge drawback. The stress causes latent nosema to kick in badly, which does not appear initially to have caused a problem. It only really manifests itself in the winter ahead, when losses are sharply higher in the colonies from shook swarms than from normal splits. The last experiment we did on this was about 5 years ago, when we made up an apiary of 20 shook swarms and 20 normal splits. All was fine throughout the season, and the swarms roared ahead, but were soon caught up on by the splits. (It is just the same as for another version of the same, packages. They roar off quickly but then drop back as attrition accounts for adult bees before the first brood hatches.) In the winter which followed we lost most (16 out of 20 if I recall correctly) of the shaken swarms, and the rest of them were small, but only two of the conventional splits died, and most of the survivors were strong. I can almost hear the chorus of 'why didn't you feed fumidil'. Two reasons. In our part of Scotland your window for doing this operation inevitably coincides with a honey flow and supers are on, and secondly we really wanted to see how it affected the bees (hence the decent scale experiment). Thus we did not treat them in autumn either. I am very interested in the link between nosema and stress, as it is undoubtedly the problem most economically damaging factor to our enterprise, resulting in too many small colonies in spring (and a fair number of empty ones). In these days of mite problems, and hysteria about resistant mites etc, everyone seems too keen to blame the new(ish) pest for all their ills, and many forget about this old favourite which is still lurking out there. I have no doubt that, in areas without a pronounced winter, shook swarming will be fine, and in many other areas a spring and autumn fumidil treatment for at least the first whole year will help. After 50 years of experience between my father and I of experimentations with it we can safely say it is not an option we will take again without a seriously good reason. I know this does not answer your question about the practice of this method in the US (although the package trade is an equivalent) but our experience is probably slightly more relevant to English conditions. If you get a hold of the directions for dealing with packages, particularly the bit about feeding fumidil on hiving, you should be able to do this with fewer troubles than the untreated way. Murray -- Murray McGregor