Swarm Pre-emption
Lexikon
Swarm pre-emption is a method that imitates a colony's natural swarm departure instead of simply preventing it.
Swarm pre-emption is a method that imitates a colony's natural swarm departure instead of simply preventing it. Unlike classic swarm prevention measures, swarming mood is here deliberately given free rein, right up until shortly before the point at which the colony would leave naturally anyway.
The right moment is reached shortly before the oldest swarm cell is capped, since that is also the earliest possible date for a natural swarm departure. The old queen is then found, and together with about half the bees, which corresponds to roughly one and a half to two kilograms, a so-called pre-empted prime swarm is formed, similar to an artificial swarm. This is kept for one to three days in a cool, dark room and fed there, before being hived like a natural swarm into a new hive, if necessary even at the same location as the original colony.
In the remainder colony left behind, all capped queen cells must then be broken out down to one, or two for safety, in order to avoid an unwanted afterswarm. A further check should follow after about nine days at the latest, because by then it must be clear whether the remaining cell actually produces a viable queen.
In practice, the appeal of swarm pre-emption lies in how closely it comes to natural swarming behaviour, without uncontrolled loss of bees or having to constantly hunt for swarms. It is regarded as the preferred method above all in nature-based beekeeping. A common mistake is to carry out the intervention too early, while the bees have not yet fully gone through swarming mood, or too late, when a cell is already capped and the swarm departure is imminent.