Reasons of swarming development
The process of swarming of a bee family can be divided into four periods: the appearance of a drone brood; detaching the bowls; pulling away the queen cells; very swarming.
The first two periods are preterm. They are associated with the natural instinct of bees to reproduce, which can not be suppressed, but it is possible to delay its development.
To do this, it is necessary to load the bees with the work on the detachment of the honeycomb, timely expand the volume of the nest, strengthen the ventilation during the period of honey collection, and shade the hives from overheating. Particular attention should be paid to the size of the vents.
The third period, when the egg appears in the bowl, corresponds to the beginning of the swarming. At this time, activities conducted in the first two pre-war periods, can no longer lead the family out of the swarm state, but they need to continue.
What causes made the uterus to lay eggs in bowls?
It is believed that swarming is preceded by the accumulation of inactive bees. This happens during a small supporting bribe, when the intensive development of the family is going on, a large number of young bees are accumulating – more than necessary for rearing the brood.
Inactive bees appear also in the event that the beekeeper did not have time to expand the nest in a timely manner, or increased the size of the tapes with the onset of a bribe, or did not attract the hives.
The accumulation of a large number of inactive individuals will lead to the transition of bees to a new qualitative state, that is, to their physiological change. They will begin to develop ovaries and the instinct of swarming will be clearly manifested. What are the theories explaining the cause of swarming during this period?
One of them is the following: pheromones secreted by the uterus, each bee in the family will get less and less, and
The accumulation of nutrients in the body of bees is considered to be the main reason for swarming, which they can not fully realize, since the larvae are not enough for all the wet bees and this encourages the bees to lay queen cells. With this statement, you can not agree too, because with the onset of a copious bribe, as a rule, swarming stops at any stage. In my opinion, none of the existing hypotheses provides an answer to the question posed.
The answer lies in the behavior of the bees themselves. In the process of evolutionary development, they have established those behavioral traits that lead to the preservation of the genus. Let’s take a complex case in which the family may turn out. Bees do not have any honey reserves, and a small amount of honey can stop at any time. Under these conditions, the family must perish, and if it does, the swarm will be able to find areas where it will collect a lot of honey and survive, although the mother’s family will die.
Another case. A good bribe has begun, it is more profitable for bees to destroy queen cells and switch to the accumulation of honey reserves, which guarantee survival. If the family at this time comes off and suddenly the impotent period sets in, both the swarm and the maternal family are doomed to perish.
In any of these situations, the accumulation of food reserves dominates and determines the behavior of bees.
Choosing the best solution in this complex stress situation, the bees will be guided by him with the help of strictly programmed behavior. From inactive bees, an excited suite of 20-25 insects appears, which will push the uterus to the bowls until it puts eggs in them. In this state, the bees keep the uterus for three days, after which the suite calms down and disintegrates.
The bees become lazy, they cease to delay the wax, nectar and pergue are brought in small quantities. To the uterus show various elements of aggressive behavior. They jump on her, push her head, grab the leg and wings with her mandibles. Over time, these attacks increase and reach the day of the departure of the uterus of its maximum.
To suppress the arisen state of swarming, I propose to cut out all queen cells and increase the number of frames with an open brood.
For this, I delete all the sealed brood from the swarm family and transfer it to other families. They select the frames with their open brood and transmit the swarming one.
Bees will have to switch to feeding a large number of larvae. As a result, the body of insects will disappear those nutrients that caused the development of genital organs and aggression to their uterus.
The normal distribution of the number of pheromones in the uterus between bees in the family will proceed slowly parallel to a decrease in the number of individuals in the nest.
Ultimately, the method I proposed will lead to the termination of swarming and the return of the family to working condition.
Silent change of the uterus is caused by some hidden defects and differs from swarming in that there is no accumulation of inactive bees, which necessarily precede swarming.
In contrast to the swarm period, when the uterus is quietly replaced, the development of the genital organs in bees reaches a second degree, which causes them to be more aggressive towards their 1 uterus, right up to its destruction or expulsion. Then, due to the weakened effect of the two main inhibitory factors – open brood and pheromone of the uterus – all bees that have been in contact with it will be destroyed. This strictly programmed behavior of the bee was acquired in the process of evolutionary development.
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