Читать книгу Honey Bee Medicine for the Veterinary Practitioner - Группа авторов - Страница 104

Swarming is the natural reproductive process of the honey bee. It is challenging, but possible to manage colonies to minimize swarming. A colony swarms once it has grown to a certain size, or when it senses that it has grown too large for the cavity that it inhabits. The cues for those two factors are, respectively, the dilution of queen pheromone, and the lack of pheromones from young larvae.

Figure 5.20 A sharp‐eyed vet can really impress a beekeeper when they walk up to a hive, and with a glance at the ground pronounce that the colony has recently swarmed. The presence of a dead virgin queen in front of the hive, as in the photo above, is a sure sign of that occurrence.

Figure 5.21 An aged or damaged queen may not be able to fly far, and may land on the ground and not be able to return to the hive, in which case the swarm will return to the hive, only to leave again once a new queen emerges from a swarm cell. You may spot a flight‐impaired queen on the ground, sometimes surrounded by a few workers (note this aged queen's damaged wing).

Figure 5.22 A beekeeper about to shake a low‐hanging swarm into an empty box placed above a hive full of frames. A swarm will readily move into a box full of beeswax combs, and immediately begin foraging and establish a broodnest.

Practical application: The short version is that the swarm impulse can be kept in check by:

 Providing drawn comb directly in contact with the broodnest so that the queen doesn't run out of cells in which she can lay eggs, or

 “Shaking bees” to decrease the population size, or

 Splitting the colony to reduce its size.

 More details can be found at (Oliver 2015).

Practical application: Springtime swarm prevention can often be combined with requeening and varroa management.