too many honey bees

[yellow belly]

the bee farmer on my farm is struggling to keep up with his bees
he is getting 12 to 15 swarms per day

they swarm when there is an excess of worker bees

I am getting very irritated because every report in the media is that bees are struggling and endangered

in my view and the bee farmers the bees biggest problem will be when farmers cannot grow beans and oilseed rape because of uncontrollable pests

my flowering crops are all alive with insects of particular note is the number of lady birds

hoping I do not have to spray spring rape for pollen beetles if it survives the flea beetle
we need a seed dressing that allows use to grow these crops without spraying indiscriminate insecticide

 

[bovrill]

This does seem to be quite a swarmy year for bees.
It annoys me too when people go on about 'saving the endangered bees', referring to honey bees, and using 25+ year old figures (there was a big problem with varroa killing colonies back then). And the 'Seven types of bee on the critical list', five of which are in Hawaii, a rather fast changing environment.

Beekeeper's forums are full of contradictory stuff about celebrating the banning of a "bee killing pesticide" one minute, and then bemoaning the use of sprayed insecticides, blaming it on the abandonment of treating the seed like in the old days (I couldn't believe I was reading that one the other day!)

 

[Dry Rot]

I thought swarming was caused by too many queens? Not that I know anything about it. When I was a partner in a bee enterprise, my contribution was a small piece of land and someone for them to sting.

 

[Bogweevil]

the bee farmer on my farm is struggling to keep up with his bees
he is getting 12 to 15 swarms per day

they swarm when there is an excess of worker bees

I am getting very irritated because every report in the media is that bees are struggling and endangered

in my view and the bee farmers the bees biggest problem will be when farmers cannot grow beans and oilseed rape because of uncontrollable pests

my flowering crops are all alive with insects of particular note is the number of lady birds

hoping I do not have to spray spring rape for pollen beetles if it survives the flea beetle
we need a seed dressing that allows use to grow these crops without spraying indiscriminate insecticide

Many hives have died out over winter round here with keepers on the lookout for swarms to fill the many empty hives. Disease reported to be rife and the cause of weak colonies.

 

[Boysground]

My bee man in the village has had a number of swarms this year. He spent half of last weekend up a tree trying to collect one. He says it’s to do with the warm weather earlier in the spring.

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[bovrill]

I thought swarming was caused by too many queens? Not that I know anything about it. When I was a partner in a bee enterprise, my contribution was a small piece of land and someone for them to sting.

It's the other way round: when a colony wants to swarm, they produce an extra queen. That's ridiculously simplifying it, but is essentially what happens!
Again over simplifying it is to say that the lack of space for the colony in their hive (man-made or natural) causes swarming, but again that's the basics of what happens. Usually!!

 

[spin cycle]

cos' there's more bees this year....the neo nics bin banned

 

[radar]

See a beekeeper in Bingham, Notts looking for fields for 14 hives cos not enough rape survived CSFB to provide pollen.

 

[willy]

Is it a good year for bees because neinics have not been used in the autumn....just being devils advocate. Lots of bees is good what ever.

 

[pauld]

Swarming is completely natural and is necessary to produce new colonies. Bees as social insects can only survive as a colony. When conditions are right (good weather, adequate population, food reserves and a honey flow) then the colony will split with the old queen leading a proportion of the adult bees and the remaining ones continuing to rear brood and a new queen. Typically the swarming season only lasts a few weeks.

 

[ollie989898]

See a beekeeper in Bingham, Notts looking for fields for 14 hives cos not enough rape survived CSFB to provide pollen.

So you are saying neonics are good for bees?

 

[radar]

So you are saying neonics are good for bees?

Plenty of bee keepers saying they have never had a problem with hives sited in a neonic treated field. They now have a problem finding fields because of CSFB damage. So yes neonics are good for bees!!

 

[Boysground]

As I understand it swarming is the how the bees expand their population.

Decision made here no OSR next year. That’s 140 ac less flowers, I only have half of what I planted last autumn left. It’s is just too much risk for me.

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[tw15]

Probably the mild winter has meant that they didn't have so many natural deaths in the colonies and now got too many in the hives and when two queens are in there they are split in which one to support so they swarm with one of them .
The more bees the better as for spraying repeated insecticides for csf beetle. I can see that there is a argument that a seed treatment is better than blanket sprays that would kill not just the target pests but others as well .
Take bydv protection spray in cereals for example . Haven't done it for years now here. With October drillings with the agronomist coming in nov/dec and saying well seed dressing is running out you better put on a spray for the aphids to protect you from getting bydv . A big no thanks from me is the reply .
The can ain't always the answer.

 

[yellow belly]

Many hives have died out over winter round here with keepers on the lookout for swarms to fill the many empty hives. Disease reported to be rife and the cause of weak colonies.

The bee farmer here had the more strong colonies than he has had since before varroa
Feeding bees early enough in the late summer keeps colonies strong but also making sure that the feed is close enough to the bees within the hive when cold weather strikes

Treating for varroa is also very important


He never had problems when neonics were in use of bees getting lost
( one of the symptoms of bees treated with neonics in trials )

This year because of cold weather a few weeks ago the honey is getting hard to separate from the honey comb

 

[texelburger]

I have never seen so many bees and insects in general ,they are everywhere.Large parts of our garden are inhabited by ground bees,something I have never seen before.Our bee keeper said he has had a couple of fantastic years of honey production,interestingly he also claimed that neonics never had an adverse affect on his bee numbers. I do wonder,sometimes,where these environmentalists /conservationists get there figures from.

 

[Lofty1984]

I have never seen so many bees and insects in general ,they are everywhere.Large parts of our garden are inhabited by ground bees,something I have never seen before.Our bee keeper said he has had a couple of fantastic years of honey production,interestingly he also claimed that neonics never had an adverse affect on his bee numbers. I do wonder,sometimes,where these environmentalists /conservationists get there figures from.

They create the figures to suit their agenda more than likely

 

[Old Boar]

A hive will swarm for two main reasons - 1. it is such a healthy hive that it needs more room and the bees know this, feed a grub so it becomes a queen and half the hive fly off with this queen to make a new hive. The bees eat a lot of the stored honey before they swarm, so swarms (with the queen in the middle) are usually very docile and easy to rehouse if you can get to them.
or 2 - the hive is under attack by something, quite often wasps, sometimes rats. These swarms can be more lively...

I have more honey bees and bumbles this year than ever before. Two bumble nests in the loft, and very busy. Both black tail bumbles, but there is a red tail nest in a hole in the bank. The dry and still weather and the flowering Sycamore meant that the trees were alive with sound.