28/05/2026
Let's continue talking about the core reasons why bees decide to swarm.
I've previously talked about heat and mite infestation, and now it's time to address another beekeeping mistake.
The Hanemann bars.
My first swarm was because of these bars, so I kinda feel emotionally attached to this topic.
Nothing compares with the feeling of taking a chair after a long day of ripping apart queen cells and watching the hives like you're watching a fishing raft, just to see when and where they leave 😅.
Let's get on with it.
Hanemann bars are meant to manage your honey production, but installing them incorrectly is practically handing your colony a roadmap for a mass departure.
I strongly think that the uneducated use of queen excluders is one of the most prominent triggers for swarming.
This grid acts as a physical barrier that restricts the larger queen to the lower brood chamber while allowing smaller worker bees to pass through to the upper supers (sounds ideal, right? No brood in the supers, resulting in more honey).
The disaster occurs when a beekeeper slaps this barrier down before the bees have actually accepted and drawn out the wax foundation in the boxes above.
Workers often treat a blank, undrawn super sitting behind a cold metal or plastic grid as empty space that does not belong to the hive.
It's lifeless.
Instead of passing through the slots, they congest the lower brood nest, clogging every available cell with incoming nectar because they refuse to move upstairs.
You think that you gave them space by adding another super? Think again.
In my opinion, this artificial congestion instantly halts the vertical distribution of the queen's mandatory footprint pheromones.
There is literally no reason for bees to squeeze between those bars.
So why do they swarm?
When the nurse bees downstairs stop receiving a sufficient daily dose of her stabilizing scent due to the sheer density of the crowd, they assume the queen is failing or that the space is entirely exhausted.
The colony immediately initiates its swarming protocol, building swarm cells on the lower edges of the combs while your expensive honey supers sit completely abandoned.
In my opinion, you should never install a Hanemann grid during the spring expansion phase until the colony has fully drawn out at least two or three frames in the upper super and actively begun storing nectar there.
I believe the correct play is to let the queen move up into the second box naturally early in the season to expand her brood nest, then push her back down and insert the grid only when the main nectar flow begins.
If you are using brand new, undrawn plastic or wax foundations, you should omit the grid entirely until the bees have broken the initial barrier and committed to working that upper chamber.
The truth is that if it's not used right, a queen excluder can easily become a "honey excluder".
Take care.
Thank you for reading 📖
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic 🧡
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Happy beekeeping and full barrels 🐝🍯
