Chapter 7 · Lesson 48 of 87

Lesson 48: Swarm Prevention and Swarm Control

Keeping your bees at home: what to do before they plan to swarm, and after

A colony that swarms loses half or more of its bees and much of the season's honey (lesson 12). Stopping swarms is one of the main jobs of spring. There are two stages:

Prevention is easier and works better. Once queen cells are capped, it's nearly impossible to stop a colony from trying to swarm.

When

Swarm season is usually spring, just before and during the main nectar flow. Extension guides advise having swarm prevention underway about four weeks before the main flow and monitoring colonies closely from early spring through the flow. Your Seasonal Guide gives the timing for your area.

A clue it's coming: when drones start appearing in numbers, swarm season is approaching.

Swarm prevention: take away the reasons

Crowding, too little room for the queen to lay, and a thin spread of queen pheromone are the main triggers (lesson 12). So:

1. Give them room, early. - Two-box brood nests: reverse the boxes. By late winter the cluster has usually moved into the top box, leaving the bottom box mostly empty, and bees don't like to move down. Swap the boxes so the crowded box is on the bottom and the empty one on top. The bees move up into the space. Don't reverse if the brood nest is spread across both boxes; you'd split the brood in two. - Single brood box: add space above (bees prefer empty space above them). - Add honey supers in good time, before the flow, so the bees have room for nectar (lesson 49). - Give empty drawn comb in the brood nest so the queen has room to lay.

2. Equalize colonies. As colonies come out of winter, move frames of brood (and food) from the strongest colonies into weaker ones, and give the strong colony empty comb in their place. The strong colony is less crowded, and the weak one gets a boost before the flow.

3. Make splits. Take 2–4 frames of bees and brood from a strong colony to start a new one (lesson 78). A split is essentially a controlled swarm: congestion drops, and you gain a colony instead of losing one. Make splits about 4 to 6 weeks before the main flow, so the parent colony has time to rebuild. This is the method commercial beekeepers use most.

4. Keep young queens. Young queens give off more pheromone, which holds back swarm preparations. Many beekeepers requeen yearly, partly for this reason (lesson 45).

Swarm control: once queen cells appear

If you find swarm cells (lesson 37):

Make a split or artificial swarm (most reliable). Move the old queen with a few frames of brood, food and bees into a new box (the "swarm"), and leave the queen cells in the old colony, or divide the queen cells among splits. The colony has "swarmed" into a box you own.

Cutting queen cells. Some beekeepers inspect every 7 to 9 days through swarm season and remove every queen cup and queen cell. It's time-consuming, and to work you must shake the bees off every brood frame to see every cell. If you miss a single cell and it's capped, the colony will swarm. It's best used together with other methods, not alone. And make sure there's a healthy laying queen first: if the colony is queenless, those cells are its only hope.

Clipping the queen's wing. Cutting off half of one front wing on a mated queen means she can't fly off with a swarm; the swarm returns to the hive. It's a safety net, not a cure: the colony may still try to swarm, may kill the clipped queen, or may leave with a virgin queen. Never clip a virgin queen; she couldn't fly to mate.

Once a colony has tried to swarm, it tends to keep trying until the crowding is dealt with.

A combination works best

Extension specialists recommend combining several measures: space, equalizing, splits, young queens, regular inspections, and cutting cells or clipping as backups.

What to remember

Quick check

  1. What's the difference between swarm prevention and swarm control?
  2. Why reverse the brood boxes in spring, and when shouldn't you?
  3. Why isn't cutting out queen cells, on its own, a reliable way to stop swarming?
Show answers

1. Prevention removes the reasons to swarm before preparations start; control deals with a colony that's already raising swarm cells. 2. The cluster moves to the top box over winter and bees don't like to move down; reversing gives them empty space above. Don't do it if the brood nest is spread across both boxes. 3. It must be done thoroughly every 7–9 days, and missing even one cell lets the colony swarm.

Adapted from: UF/IFAS Extension, Swarm Control for Managed Beehives (ENY-160/IN970, 2022) and Using Nucs in Beekeeping Operations (IN869); UGA Bee Program, Getting Started: Honey Bee Management and A Synopsis of Bee Management in Georgia; University of Arkansas, Complete Beekeeping Short Course, Part 8; Purdue Extension, Advanced Beekeeping (4-H-1059-W).

Adapted from university Extension sources. Experienced Georgia beekeepers are reviewing these lessons. See something that doesn't match your experience? Tell us.

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