This document discusses various methods for checking for and preventing swarming in bee hives, including checkerboarding and splitting hives. It also provides information on treatments for varroa mites, including Mite Away Quick Strips, HopGuard, and oxalic acid vaporization. Finally, it discusses signs of robbing, how to prevent robbing, and advantages of fall requeening.

3. Checking for
swarm cells:

6. Splits
– Many different types
– What they have in common:
- you are moving brood & bees to new hive
- both hives have queen or ability to make queen
– Don't worry about moving to another location
- foragers will return to their old hive
- nurse bees will stay with brood

7. Checkerboarding
Counters two factors that lead to swarming:
– hive thinks it has plenty of stores
– queen has no room to lay

9. Keep ahead of honey production.
Any hive can swarm if it feels crowded.

10. Your bees have varroa mites . . .

14. Mite Away Quick Strips (MAQS) –
Uses formic acid which naturally
occurs in honey.
Can be used with honey supers on.
Kills 95% of mites that are capped.
Only one treatment required.

15.  HopGuard – This is a beta acid and is generally recognized as
a safe food additive.
Hopguard is an extract from the Hop plant.
Cardboard strips impregnated with the extract are hung
between frames using two strips per 10 frames.
Up to three applications can be applied per year..

16. OAV
Oxalic Acid Vaporization

18. Signs of robbing:
-- bees fighting
-- bees trying to get in
everywhere
-- bees heavier leaving
-- bees on outside of
closed up hive in
morning

19. Signs of robbing:
-- comb with rough
surface
-- wax cappings on
floor/entrance of
hive

20. Workers reuse wax—robbers tear off cappings and let them drop

21. To help prevent robbing:
– strong hives (requeen, give capped brood, or
combine weak hives with strong ones)
– entrance reducers/robber screens
– stay out of hives as much as possible
– no open feeding
– beware of spilling syrup and leaky feeders

23. Robbing Screen

24. Entrance Reducers

25. Provide water for bees if no source
within a half-mile.

26. Evaluate your queens. Requeen
if poor layer.
Some also routinely requeen if
queen is 2 years old.

27. Poor
laying
pattern
Good brood
pattern

28. Advantages of “Fall” Requeening
– go into winter with better laying queen
– hive has better chance of surviving winter
– easier to get a well-mated queen from a local
source
– hive less likely to swarm next spring (maybe)
* If you requeen late in the year, you must be
successful