The great dilemma of mine

In 2012 I purchased my first bee colony in form of a split which came with a 2 year old Queen and bees on 3 combs of capped brood and 2 combs of honey. After a month I was blessed with the experience of catching a prime swarm from this very colony. This experience in itself was enchanting even though I've got stung 5 times and got a fever from it the next day to the point of staying in bed all day.

My very first prime swarm

That swarm was placed into an empty top bar hive and in just 2 weeks they have built 12 sparkling white new wax combs :) No man-made split has the urge to build that fast. A swarm is composed of forager bees which are very experienced. They have all the experienced scout bees to find new pastures quickly, and they have bellies filled with honey from the mother colony before the departure which will provide lots of energy for comb building in their new home. But most importantly they have that strong sense of urgency knowing that they must build sufficient amount of combs before the winter.

Shaking the collected swarm into an empty top bar hive

On the other hand there is the man-made created method of splitting hives where the old queen is transferred to a new hive on 3 capped brood combs and 2 honey combs and all the bees that accompany her are young house bees which did not start flying just yet. Sure do they get a great start with 5 combs and brood in them but they are missing the great ingredient called the sense of urgency. They develop much slower in comparison to a swarm.

The good side about splits is that neighbors will not be agitated with swarms hanging around their house or moving into their chimney :) and the beekeeper will not lose a colony. When bees swarm they hang as a cluster close to the mother hive and are waiting for the scout bees to find their new home. Sometimes they hang there for 2 days but at times they can fly of to the new location on the same day. 

Both ways have their pros and cons when it comes to human perspective but when it comes to the colonies perspective swarming is the only option. So if I'm to respect the bee biology swarming is to be encouraged as much as possible. There could be something more about swarming than just the urgency. Maybe some vital energy is being formed within the colony when allowed to swarm? I mean bees have swarmed for more than 40 million years. There could be more to it than just propagation?

From my experience it is easy to fall into a habit of splitting hives if one has hives with movable frames/top bars but not so if one has bees in lets say Skeps or Log Hives. In such hives with fixed combs there is NO OTHER CHOICE but to develop a habit of letting them swarm and then collect the swarm. 

Old day skep beekeepers let their colonies swarm and then collect them

I don't know about you but letting the bees swarm and then try to collect them before they fly to their new location resonates much better with my inner feeling than making man-made splits which look sluggish in comparison to an energetic swarm.

I've already split my colonies and now its too late to try natural swarming but next year I will try to do just that.