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The Artificial Swarm

Last Updated (Tuesday, 30 November 1999 00:00) Written by Martin Peeks Sunday, 17 February 2008 16:58

Bees are a nuisance for swarming, and I am sure that many beekeepers wish that swarming was a rare occurrence.  Unfortunately it happens nearly every year, often more than once.  The artificial swarm is a technique to enable the beekeeper to satisfy the bees swarming urges by doing the swarm and keeping both halves of it, maybe for uniting later in the season.

To carry out an artificial swarm, the parent colony must be strong - at least seven frames of bees in the brood chamber and bees going into the first super.  There must also be queen cells in the colony.  Make sure you have a new hive of foundation (or drawn comb) ready and place this behind the hive from which you will take the artificial swarm, with the roof, crown board and the middle two frames of the brood chamber removed. 

Open the parent colony and methodically search for the queen until you find her.  Remove her and the frame which she is on (ensuring there are no queen cells on it) and place this frame into the space in the centre of the new hive and close the new hive. Also remove a frame of brood and bees from the parent hive and place it into the new hive.  Any supers from the parent hive should stay on the parent hive.  Place an empty comb (or foundation) in the gap in the parent hive.  Close the parent hive and move it about 2m (6 feet) from the original site.  Move the new hive forward onto the parent site.  Feed the new hive with a gallon of strong sugar syrup. 

I recommend that you do not place supers on the new hive so that the sugar syrup does not contaminate the honey in the supers of the new hive, which would make the honey not be honey, but sugar syrup.