How to do artificial swarming in beekeeping? A detailed guide to the methods
Artificial swarming means taking several honey-and-pollen combs, brood combs, and adult-bee combs from a colony to form a new colony. After artificial swarming, by the main honey flow period, both the original colony and the split colony must develop into strong production colonies, thereby achieving the goals of increasing the number of colonies, expanding production capacity, and raising the output of bee products.
(1) Equal split method for a single colonyOne of the common artificial swarming methods. The specific procedure is: divide the bees and brood combs (pupae, larvae, and eggs) of one colony into two roughly equal halves. Move the original colony to one side by one hive position, then place a clean empty hive box on the other side of the original colony, then take out half of the brood combs, honey combs, and pollen combs along with the honey from the original colony and put them into the empty hive box. The queen of one colony is the original old queen, and the queen of the other colony is a newly introduced young laying queen after splitting.
(2) Unequal split method for a single colonyDivide one colony into two unequal colonies, one of which remains a strong colony and the other a small colony. Keep the old queen in the strong colony, and introduce a laying queen into the small colony. You can also introduce a mature queen cell, or a virgin queen. During the operation, take 3-4 old sealed brood combs and honey and pollen combs from a strong colony, and put them together with the bees into an empty box to form a queenless small colony, move it farther away from the original colony, reduce the entrance, and after 1 day, introduce a high-quality laying queen or a mature queen cell, or a virgin queen. On the 2nd day after splitting, an inspection should be carried out; if it is found that old bees have flown back to the original colony and the bee population is insufficient, some young bees can be transferred from the original colony to supplement it. Supplementing bees is best done in the evening to reduce robbing.
(3) Method of splitting multiple colonies from a single colonyDivide one strong colony into several small colonies, each with 2-3 combs, including one honey and pollen comb and 1-2 brood combs. The original colony with the old queen stays in the original location, and the other small colonies are each given a virgin queen or a mature queen cell. After the virgin queen successfully mates, they become independent colonies. (4) Combined splitting method: use some mature sealed brood combs with bees from several strong colonies and combine them together to form a new split colony. The original colony with the old queen stays in the original location, and the other small colonies are each given a virgin queen or a mature queen cell. After the virgin queen successfully mates, they become independent colonies!