Beekeeping Basics
The Demaree Method of Swarm Control
It may be tempting not to bother trying to control the swarming instinct, but there are some very good reasons not to allow swarms to “go to the trees.” First, for yourself … if your colony swarms, a good portion of your honey production goes with it. Even if you don’t care about honey, the bees need you to help them do what they want to do in a better way.
This matters to your non-beekeeping neighbors, too, since the swarm may decide to take up residence in their attic or soffit, and it costs a lot of money to get a colony removed from a house (a structural hive removal) and then to get the house repaired. This gives a bad name to bees and beekeepers. You don’t need enemies to your beekeeping operation, and our bees don’t need enemies, either.
When a swarm issues from your hive, it usually finds a new home within flight range of its former apiary. The colony must build all new comb, but without foundation to guide them, they will build comb for and raise many more drones than a cared-for colony. These drones, unless the colony has a VSH or mite-resistant queen, will spread undesirable traits to your new queens and those of your neighbors. They will also increase the reproductive capacity of Varroa destructor in their new hive, which no longer has beekeeper help controlling the mites. The colony will collapse in the fall due to the mite pressure, whereupon your colonies at home will go to rob it. They bring home a bonanza of honey, and a bumper crop of mites, causing your colony to collapse, too. This is called a mite bomb, not good.
If you have been reading this column since last summer, you know that I recommend doing your splits in July, for several very good reasons. One of the best reasons is that it removes the crazy pressure in spring to do swarm control, since with a queen that was new in July, the colony won’t have such a strong desire to swarm. So right now, we need a system that will quell the swarming instinct without actually having to split the colony. Many books recommend the “walk-away split” where four frames of bees and brood, without the queen, are pulled out. This nuc is expected to raise a new queen. I tried this when I was a new-bee, and can attest to the fact that it does not keep the parent colony from swarming — it just takes a little longer for them to go since they first need to recover that population, which takes almost no time at all, since a swarmy colony is by definition full to the brim with emerging brood …
