Swarming
Swarming is a natural phenomenon and is the honey bee colony’s method of reproduction and ensures the survival of their species.
Honey Bee Reproduction
The queen bee, her life and how the colony reproduces is fascinating to everyone, especially beekeepers. The genetics of the queen bee determines many things from the temperament of the colony, how productive, how hygienic, how mite resistant and many other qualities.
Swarm Queen
When a colony is preparing to swarm, bees build about 6 to 12 queen cells. Some strains build 20 or more. They are built on the sides or along the bottom of the comb in successive batches and are found in various stages of development. This generally occurs in spring up to midsummer, depending on the weather, the strength of the hive and the swarming tendency of the bees. Some beekeepers use swarm cells to re-queen colonies or to introduce to new colonies when making splits. This practice is not recommended in modern beekeeping, as it perpetuates the propensity of swarming in bee colonies from one generation to another.
Emergency Queen
Emergency cells may not have the best quality, as bees sometimes select larvae more than three days sold resulting in undersized queens with small ovaries. In that case, they are unsatisfactory as production queens. Queens produced under the supersedure impulse are usually better than emergency queens, as they have received a larger quantity of royal jelly during development.
Emergency queen cells are distinguishable from the queen cells of supersedure or swarming by being raised in enlarged worker cells on the comb face and are often smaller in size than queen cells raised from queen cups.
Emergency cells may not have the best quality as bees sometimes select older larvae than three days old resulting in undersized queens with small ovaries, in that case, are unsatisfactory as production queens. Queen produced under the superseder impulse are usually better than emergency queens, since they have received larger quantity of royal jelly during development.
Sometimes emergency queen cells are mistaken for swarming cells and, if destroyed by the beekeeper, the bees will be queen less and laying workers may develop the hive.
Supersedure Queen
When the queen becomes too old or infertile, has a physical mishap or is diseased, the bees decide to raise a new queen to replace her with a more efficient young one. They build only one to three queen cells in the center of the comb in which the original queen laid eggs. These are usually raised on the face of the comb and built as one hatch, all in a period of a few days. If a few cells are found on the face of a comb and there are eggs present, these are supersedure cells and indicate a dud queen.
When the new queen emerges, the two queens exist together and do not fight with each other. The old queen will disappear from the hive within a few weeks.
Queens raised from supersedure impulse are excellent queens and the cells can be utilized for replacement or making new colonies when they are sealed and ripe. A strong colony having supersedure queen cells may be divided into nuclei, each given a queen cell.
Queens Raised by a Beekeeper
Knowing how queens are raised by the colony allows a beekeeper to raise queens by grafting larvae and by artificial insemination. Here are some good reasons for a beekeeper tp raise queens.
By raising queens the beekeeper can change the blood of his stock and improve his bees. Unwanted traits in the honeybee colony, such as bad temper, running on the comb when manipulating the colony, swarming, robbing, etc., can be bred out by avoiding rearing queens from colonies which exhibit them, and replacing the queens with ones that have been selected for their ability to pass good traits on to their progeny.
Raising queens is important because young queens are more prolific egg-layers and swarm less than older queens, which usually results in more honey.
Raising queen to replace failing queens, lost queens and for making nuclei for sale and expanding the apiary are excellent reasons to raise your own queens.
Queen honey bees are delicate creatures and many things can happen to them. It is handy to have a few spare young queens raised in the season to be available for immediate use in an emergency.
The beekeeper saves money by raising queens in his apiary. Ordering queens from a queen breeder is expensive. They often arrive late in the season, may be injured or infected by disease, and some do not perform well in a particular region or climate.
Raising queens is easy and can be mastered by any beekeeper with knowledge in beekeeping and biology of honeybee. There is no mystery in raising queens.
Here is a short video about rearing queen honey bees. We do not use this method in southwestern New Mexico because the natural mating flight may be with africanized strains of honey bees. However, the video does give one an idea of how beekeepers can and do manage to raise queen bees. In southwestern New Mexico, beekeepers rely on artificial insemination to guarantee the genetics of the queen bee.
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