Preparing for Bee Swarming: Knowing the signs.

The best place to begin when thinking about Spring Management of your beehive is knowing factors that lead to swarming.

What leads to swarming?

The first three factors are environmental, over which you have no control.

1. Lengthening daylight hours.

2. Warming weather of Spring.

3. Increase in flowering plants and nectar resources.

The five biological factors are:

1. Colony congestion. The beehive crowds with bees, and there is a lack of cells in which the Queen can lay.

2. As the bee number grow, there is a dilution of the Queen pheromones.

3. Drone production starts.

4. An aging Queen over one year old is in the colony. This Queen usually leaves with the first swarm of the season.

5. The presence of Queen cells in your beehive. The preparation of Queen cells is the last factor to emerge before swarming.

You can manage the biological factors to reduce swarming.

Want to learn more?

Read More...

So what can you do? The answers are in our next blog post.

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