Swarming Season Is Upon Us!

Mid-April onwards signals the beginning of swarming season. It's the busiest time in the beekeeping year.

When the time is right, a honeybee colony will swarm. As beekeepers, we try and keep one step ahead of this by managing our colonies, watching for the signs of swarm preparation and performing such actions as splitting the colony to ensure that swarming is managed and that our bees don't become a nuisance to our neighbours and the general public.

So the best way to usher in this part of the season is a refresher for us all, with a Beekeeping Master Class on swarm prevention with Andy Gowdy.

Andy demonstrated how the colony can be manipulated for the most common method of swarm prevention. The crux of this method is to separate the queen from the most mature flying bees. The bees will only swarm with a queen. So if this can be achieved it is usually very effective.