Swarm Cells
Reducing swarm cells to mitigate cast swarms
When performing manipulations with swarms, you’ll often be told to “reduce queen cells to two”. This is important for managing cast swarms by managing the number of virgins in the hive.
There’s lots of differing views on how to reduce cells. The simplest method to reliably prevent a swarm is:
If the colony has open queen cells:
1. Find an open one that's well positioned, has visible larvae with a good puddle of royal jelly
1. Remove all queen cells except this one
1. Mark the frame with this cell, so that you know where it is
1. Come back in one week and ensure that this queen cell is the only one remaining in the hive
1. Close the hive for a minimum of 3 weeks
If the colony has entirely closed all cells:
You have two choices. You can either remove all but one well built cell that’s not too long and not too short, and protrudes nicely from the comb around it - This comes with a bit of gamble as you can’t be sure that the cell is properly charged with healthy larvae. The alternative is to find two cells that are close together, ideally right next door to one another, and reduce all but these two queen cells - this method also comes with a bit of a gamble, as you can’t be sure that the colony won’t throw a large cast swarm on one of the virgins.
Leave the colony alone for a minimum of 3 weeks.
If you do leave a whole host of queen cells in the hive, you will lose countless swarms. Once the prime swarm leaves, more swarms will occur with less and less bees as virgin queens emerge.
All of these methods come to a bit of a gamble. You either risk throwing cast swarms, or you risk rendering them queenless. If you are running a single colony, leaving them with 2 viable options is a good idea. If you’re running more than one colony, reducing to one cell is wise. If you render them queenless, this can be easily fixed by providing frames of eggs to the colony from another.
As with all beekeeping, it’s risk management.