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If you've gotten your beehive through its first winter in Colorado, congratulations! You're about to have a second-year hive! With a second-year hive comes all new adventures in beekeeping, one of the most important of which is swarming. When a colony swarms, not only does a beekeeper lose their valuable, experienced queen, but other issues, such as a failure to produce a new queen or swarms moving into dangerous locations, can occur. It is in a beekeeper³ best interest to learn how to artificially create a swarm by doing a split to prevent their bees from becoming a community nuisance. It is also beneficial for new beekeepers to learn about swarm behavior and how they can get themselves free bees by becoming a swarm catcher.

In this workshop, we'll learn all about swarms, including signs that a colony is going to swarm, how to prevent your hive from swarming, how to make more hives by making splits, and basic swarm catching techniques. The workshop will start with a classroom lesson then move to Butterfly Pavilion's on-site apiary for a demonstration of how to split a hive.