Two queens. One hive. No room for sentiment in the bee world
News from the Fonmon Apiary:
With Harold Williams.
Swarms, swarms and more swarms. Will they ever stop?
In the past two weeks, Barbara and I have collected 12 swarms, all examples of what we call ‘prime swarms’ – consisting of some 30,000 bees. I have used two of these swarms to boost the numbers in two colonies at Fonmon that were starting to show signs of failing, possibly dying out.
How does this method work? The weak colony is well established in a hive and we add the swarm to this one. First, the roof and the crown board of the weak colony are removed and this exposes bees and frames. A sheet of newspaper is laid over the exposed frames and bees.
This becomes a temporary barrier between the existing colony and the soon-to-be-added swarm. Now the swarm has been readied for this uniting process by putting it into a hive box containing frames and they have become quite at home there. This box is the same dimensions as the receiving hive box so no complications arise.
The paper barrier has a few small slits cut into it before we complete the joining up of the two lots of bees; our swarm is in its box on a base and has a crown board on the top keeping them in. Barbara holds down the paper barrier by the edges and I then lift the swarm of its base and add it to our lesser colony.
Both groups of bees will proceed to remove the paper barrier; proof of this is to observe little bits of paper outside of the hive. This action could take a couple of days to complete, by which time the two lots of bees have accepted each other and the possibility of a now viable colony is in the offing. There is of course a Queen in each of the two lots of bees but only one can rule the roost. Our swarm Queen will be pretty vigorous, while our lesser Queen will become the loser.
Obviously, our failing colony was failing because the Queen was not performing as she should. This uniting process works very well and does not often fail.
Harold Williams
🌟 This article first appeared in the printed edition of the Glamorgan Star on 16.06.22 – read it in print first!
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