# Confining queen



## GaryG74 (Apr 9, 2014)

It would also get blocked by drones trying to exit the hive, possibly leading to the whole entrance getting blocked and the hive overheating and dying.


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## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

Not to mention that a queen in swarming trim can usually fit through a queen excluder. As a general rule trying to prevent swarming by locking the queen in the tower, equates to placing a cork in a volcano, Something is going to blow somewhere!


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## whiskers (Aug 28, 2011)

Even if you could prevent the old queen from leaving wouldn't they just leave with one of the soon to emerge virgins?
Bill


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Tenbears said:


> As a general rule trying to prevent swarming by locking the queen in the tower, equates to placing a cork in a volcano, Something is going to blow somewhere!


I like that


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## Richard Cryberg (May 24, 2013)

Tenbears said:


> Not to mention that a queen in swarming trim can usually fit through a queen excluder. As a general rule trying to prevent swarming by locking the queen in the tower, equates to placing a cork in a volcano, Something is going to blow somewhere!


An excluder blocks the queens thorax. I have never seen a queens thorax slim down when she is not laying. None the less I agree 100% with the volcano analogy.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

To prevent a swarm from leaving a nuc', separate and wing clip the queen and a 32-ounce cup full of her bees into a well-stocked and fed nuc', locked in with #8 hardware cloth. Place this in a dark room. 

The rest get put onto drawn comb over a newspaper-combine with a strong colony. Let them combine for a week. They won't take off. Then split the strong colony, queen in her original place, the queenless half gets "reunited" with the swarm queen and placed in another yard 10 miles or more away, especially where there is a bloom in progress. Feed them a patty and liquid.

So far, I have not lost a colony this way - I lost 24 swarms in the last 2 years of drought, then learned this way from a long-time beekeeper. He just let the queens fight and kept the winner, and split ans added a bought queen later. We discussed this, and tried the method above. The last 4 swarms & cutouts have stayed. One vacuum job cutout turned out queenless, so they stayed with the big colony.


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## Georgiabeeman (Dec 10, 2015)

The easiest way to prevent swarming will be cutting out any queen cells. Also make sure your box has plenty of space for the bees to grow. Do not add to much space as this could allow the bee's to be overtaken by hive beetles or wax moths. Hive management is the best solution for swarm prevention. I have never liked the excluder method because at times you would want a queen to be able to leave, for example you have a failed queen the new emerging queen would need to leave to make.


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## oldiron56 (Mar 9, 2009)

I tried that once


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