Honey Bee Swarm ebook US$15.00 I am currently changing the delivery system for my ebooks. Please email me from the 'Contact Me' form if you wish to purchase this ebook. One of natures most joyous sights is to have the opportunity to see a honey bee swarm. It’s as if the entire swarm has one mind and body as it moves through the air. How many trips does a bee make to fill its nectar sac? Worker bees have what's called a nectar sac, this is what they fill up when they visit florets / flowers. It takes between 1000 to 1500 individual visits to fill just one sac. It takes 60 full sacs to fill just one thimble with honey. That's a staggering 60,000 flower visits!!!!!! The size of the hive does matter. Workers - 30,000 Trips per worker - 167 Pound of Honey - 2 pounds OR Workers - 60,000 Trips per worker - 83 Pound of Honey - 2 pounds The more bees in a hive the less trips needed to produce 2 pounds of honey. Swarming reduces honey production. Every time you get a honey bee swarm approximately 60% of the bees leave the existing hive. This results in the new and existing hive not having enough time to rebuild its numbers. You will have little or no surplus honey that year as the swarming occurs just prior or during the prime nectar flow season. Why do bees swarm? When bees swarm it means they are actually dividing an existing colony in two thus creating a new hive. As a natural occurrence in the wild this swarming propagates the species. It is always a planned event and can be caused by the following. · Overcrowding · Starvation · Other internal hive problems Overcrowding is the main reason for a honey bee swarm though. All those white dots in the air in the photo above is a honey bee swarm descending into the bait hive on the left. I waded into the swarm to take this photo in June 1 2004.The bait was deliberately placed on a known flight path for bee swarms from the woods shown behind the hives.

On the planned day they swarm between 10.00am and 3.00pm as that time of day offers the maximum sunlight hours. The swarm emerges and swirls en masse in the air, then they cluster generally in the shade on a nearby branch or bush. The scouts go out and look for a new location while the hive waits for their return. They always choose a warm, sunny light day with little or no wind.

Variations of the Demaree system usually allow for swarm control.
· Ensure you always leave in the brood nest an empty brood comb
· By placing just one or two of these empty combs at the right time you can inhibit swarming.

During the cold winter the honeybee will instinctively move up to where the honey (food) is stored, generally the queen will stay there, so by spring the brood chamber has reached to the very top of the hive.

It's pointless to add supers or a queen excluder to enlarge the brood chamber. Even if the bees have 9-10 frames of drawn - but empty combs below them they will still feel crowded.

When you reverse the hive bodies the queen will immediately start travelling right up to the top and into the empty comb and start laying thousands and thousands of eggs.

When you are in the process of reversing the hive take the opportunity to firstly replace the bottom board. By now it will need cleaning from wax particles, pollen etc.

I follow this procedure for my own hives.
· Quickly replace the bottom board with a clean one.
· Replace the slatted rack.
· Then reverse the hive bodies.
The bottom boards can be scrubbed, washed, repaired, repainted and reused.

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