BEEKEEPING
From page 18
queen.
The parent hive and the
remaining cells will settle quite
well and there will be
sufficient field force to make a
new start.
However the beekeeper soon
runs out of additional hives
and during his continued
inspections should he find
more than two queen cells in
each hive, he must remove
these excess cells. In the case
of strong swarms these
multiple queens escape and
take along with them small
swarms of a large cup full of
bees which depletes a strong
swarm with the loss of too
bees were
hanging and
immediately
places the
queen excluder
over the frames
and then the
lid, which he
off-sets to allow
the bees to
enter the box.
A comon sight at this time of year ... a swarm of bees
He
plugs up the
resting before flying to their newly-chosen home
two
bottom
many bees.
entrances to confine the
But all is not lost as the
queen in the brood box.
beekeeper catches these small
After a short while most of the
swarms in small boxes and
flying bees will be in the
unites them to his weaker
brood box, and he closes off
queen-headed hives to
the lid so that no bees can
replace these old queens.
escape, loads the box and
At the apiary site or at a
moves away to another site.
private residence the
The scout bees will have
beekeeper comes upon a
already selected a new abode
swarm hanging in a tree.
and by moving the hive away
Armed with an empty brood
the scouts are completely
box, a step ladder, a bee
bamboozled. However should
brush, a good quality queen
excluder, he shakes or brushes the beekeeper leave the new
brood box for a short time,
the bees into the box. He
places the box on the ground even within the hour, the
swarm flies out and resettles
under the branch where the
20
www.sasmallholder.co.za
in the tree in their original
position, but the queen and a
small number of bees are
caught up in the box behind
the queen excluder.
After a while, perhaps after a
half an hour, the swarm will
return to their queen in the
box.
The beekeeper, during his
inspections, will come across
a very strong swarm that has
not yet decided to swarm off.
To prevent swarming off this
swarm should be split to
create another new swarm.
This is a two day exercise. On
the first day, the beekeeper
smokes and opens the hive
and drives all the bees
downwards out of the super
to be sure that the queen is
below in the brood chamber.
Over the brood frames he
places a good quality queen
excluder and replaces the
super and lid. The bees will
soon return into the super.
This is the parent hive.
Continued on page 22