Apiary Notes (May 2026) By Wally Thrale

We are roughly a quarter way through the active season already and many colonies are in swarm mode. The earliest swarm I heard about was on 3^rd April so we have another very early season.

Most of my bees are on OSR (rape) and have 3 or 4 supers. It looks as if the rape will flower for another week or so there is the potential for a good crop this year. Removing supers with OSR is always a tricky decision – do it too soon and the honey is not ripe; do it too late and it starts to set in the comb. I try to remove the supers when the OSR looks mainly green and just a small amount of yellow is still showing.

As mentioned above we are in swarming season already so keep checking for queen cells and carry out an artificial swarm if any are found. As the bees have bult up strongly (at least two supers full of bees) an option is to carry out a pre-emptive artificial swarm. Essentially the colony is split into two as normal so another complete set of kit is needed.

If the queen is found place her in a new box on the old site with a couple of frames of sealed brood (making sure there are no queen cells on them). Fill the box with drawn frames and/or foundation and return the supers.

If the queen is not found place a frame containing mainly eggs in the new box on the old site. Do look at this frame carefully for the queen. Return the supers to the old site and the bees will produce queen cells. Inspect the colony after a week and leave a single, good looking queen cell.

Now, the queen should be in the old box on the new site so will require an empty super. As there are very few flying bees this colony should not attempt to swarm for quite a while if at all this season. But it is prudent to inspect it occasionally for queen cells.

If there is not enough equipment to carry out a conventional artificial swarm there is another option using a nuc. If the queen can be found place her in a nuc with a frame of sealed brood and add a frame of stores. Fill the nuc with either frames that are drawn or foundation. Shake bees into the nuc from at least 2 or 3 brood frames to ensure there are enough nurse bees present. If most of the frames contain foundation then light feeding is probably needed so the bees can draw the new frames.

This option is normally a temporary fix as the nuc can build up quite quickly. When the new queen in the old brood box is up and running then the old queen can be dispatched if no longer needed. Or keep the nuc to overwinter but it will need regular checks. It is often necessary to remove a frame of food and / or brood to prevent overcrowding. The frame of brood can be added to an existing hive; the frame of food can be kept for winter to feed a light colony (but keep away from wax moths!).

A final point about artificial swarms. New queens in strong colonies often take quite a while before they start laying – often several weeks. New queens in nucs however come into lay much quicker. Some of the nucs I have made this year have new queens laying within two weeks. They can build up between now and the summer flow.