Swarms and Swarming

Volunteers required!

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The PBKA has been very successful in recent years with its ever increasing membership, the development of the Pembrokeshire Beekeeping Centre and the continuing popularity of its training sessions at the Association apiaries. We also have other developments in the pipeline for 2022, including our new training apiary at Scolton, which we will be advising you on further in due course.

It all takes a lot of work to keep the Association running however and we are currently looking for additional volunteers to help!

Roles which currently need filling include:

  • Membership Secretary
  • Swarm Coordinators
  • Undertaking routine hive inspections, maintenance, etc. at the Association apiaries

If you are interested in becoming a PBKA volunteer, please email the Chair, Paul Eades, at pbkaapiarymanager@live.co.uk

Many thanks!

Warning!!

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Our bee inspector has issued a warning about colony starvation so please ensure that you urgently check your hives for stores and act appropriately.

Also note, that with the weather warming up over the weekend, there is a high risk of swarming, so get in there asap and check your colonies before they fly away!!

 

Swarming!!

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With the warmer weather, ample forage and growing colonies, the threat of swarming looms ever larger!

Please ensure that you are inspecting your colonies regularly for swarming activity (e.g. every 5 days for unclipped queens) and do not imagine that by merely cutting out any queen cells you will solve the problem.  You need to take the correct remedial action to avoid losing your queen and half of your bees!!

We therefore recommend that you read the PBKA’s leaflets:

Simplified Artificial Swarm Guide

and

Artificial Swarm without finding the Queen

Do you really have a swarm of bees?

apiarymanager Swarms and Swarming

At this time of year we get a lot of queries from members of the public about swarms of bees. One noticeable trend, has been the number of reports concerning bees found in the roof or facias of buildings, bird boxes, etc. This may well be the Tree Bumblebee (Bombus Hypnorum) which is a recent visitor to the UK, but is becoming more common.

Unlike other bumblebees which tend to nest in the ground, the Tree Bumblebee (see picture below) likes to live higher up, typically in bird boxes and roof spaces. In general, they are not aggressive unless disturbed and will naturally disappear later in the summer. Most of the flight activity outside the nest is by the males (Drones) which do not sting and are trying to mate with a virgin queen.

Please note that we do not remove bumble bee or wasp nests. For more information on swarms please click here.