# Simple Effective Swarm Management for Beginners?



## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

I am working on material for our local association beginner short course in February, and would like some input on this topic.

Beginners coming out of their first winter with strong colonies are really challenged to keep their bees from swarming.

It seems that most of the swarm management strategies that I have heard of or tried mostly boil down to these things:

*1) Keep the bees from getting to (filling up all of) what they see as the top of the "hive."* Reversing boxes, supering, checkerboarding, opening the broodnest (to some extent), swapping brood frames up - all of those put open comb in or above the nest. When successful the bees start storing nectar overhead instead of in the brood nest - leaving sufficient area for the queen to lay.

*2) Keeping the hive in expansion mode* - primarily by splitting, although checkerboarding may use this as well. In my opinion keeping them weak by removing resources is just splitting by another name.

*3) Making them think they have already swarmed* - Demaree method, shook swarms, removing the queen etc.

*4) Queen cell removal* 

For beginners who typically do not have any extra comb - and no offense, but have never had to deal with swarming much yet - the options are much more limited.

I tend to favor splitting as early as possible as being the way to go for those second year beekeepers - for several reasons. I would appreciate input about the type of split, and timing of for swarm prevention.

What do you think?


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## rhaldridge (Dec 17, 2012)

I don't know if this is a worthwhile observation, but a couple of time last summer I found swarm cells in my boomer hive. This was a long hive. I just added empty foundationless frames into the brood nest, and they tore the cells down.

Long hives make this extremely convenient.


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## DPBsbees (Apr 14, 2011)

I'd be concerned with splitting being the primary method for beginners as it is effective in preventing swarming, but it can also be very effective at guaranteeing no honey crop. I like reversing and supering early. If they have several hives they could split the dud and take the queen from the boomer for one of the splits. If timed when there is a lot of brood in the hive, it may even make a larger crop.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

*#3)* If you are advising a new beekeeper with no extra brood comb, and no drawn supers, I think a timely split is the best way to go. My advice would be for them to have another box ready to go for each colony. About 2-3 weeks before swarms typically are cast in your area, move a few frames, the queen, and extra bees to the new box. 

That saves their good overwintered queen and keeps her out of the trees. If the original colony is not successful in producing a new viable queen then the original queen can be combined back into the hive. Later in the season colonies can be recombined if they do not want to keep additional colonies for the future.

I know there will be a loss in honey yield by splitting, but if the colony ends up swarming the losses could be even greater. The Spring following their first overwintered season should be the year they focus on getting the bees to draw more comb for future use.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

good work david. if a second year beek in my area having just a few hives asked me for a recommendation i would suggest doing 'cut down' splits prior to the main flow. swarming will be prevented, more comb will get drawn for future use, they may get surplus honey, and some nucs would be available for 'spares' and/or recombines.

there is a good description of cut down splits here:

http://www.bushfarms.com/beessplits.htm


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## burns375 (Jul 15, 2013)

Splitting is a great lesson(s). Emphasis in teaching how to leave the queenless hive for best cell building of quality queen(s), plenty of pollen, open nectar, same site vs new site, feeding if necessary. And how to know timing and if a hive is a good candidate or not, etc. Comb notching and expansion splits, multiple splits out of one hive. All the little important details you take for granted.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

rhaldridge said:


> I don't know if this is a worthwhile observation... added empty foundationless frames into the brood nest, and they tore the cells down...Long hives make this extremely convenient.


Of course it's worthwhile - but If you can't super your long hives then you need to have a plan ready come spring in case they fill them up - hopefully they will.



DPBsbees said:


> I'd be concerned with splitting ... can also be very effective at guaranteeing no honey crop...


People are going to take this as advice, and I would rather advise beginners to take the simplest route to get what they need - more comb and more hives typically. Those who are more pro-active will no doubt research and go their own way - which is great. But I need to keep it as simple as possible for this purpose.



Mike Gillmore said:


> *#3)*About 2-3 weeks before swarms typically are cast in your area, move a few frames, the queen, and extra bees to the new box.


Absolutely agree with all of that. Timing is still a bit of a quandry though. Typical Swarm season here would be Around late April/early May, but I've had swarms on April 1, and mid March swarms aren't too unusual. April 15 is frost free most years - May 1 is when the more cautious set out tomatoes - and the main flow starts. I'd *like* to say something like "on April 15 or when you spot a queen cell - whichever comes first - it's time to split your strong hives." 

If they are ready to act, and diligent with inspections what should they look for in the hive (or environment) as a sign that it's time? Drone Brood? Back filling? Queen cells for sure. Something else?



squarepeg said:


> i would suggest doing 'cut down' splits...
> http://www.bushfarms.com/beessplits.htm


It's a good option if they can find the queen or are willing and able to do the manipulations to do it using an excluder. Watch out though to anyone doing a cut down - if either hive has already started queen cells it's likely to swarm if it's strong enough. I found that out.




burns375 said:


> Splitting is a great lesson(s)...All the little important details you take for granted.


Splitting IS a great lesson - It has been my observation that new bee keepers who make their own increase are much more likely to stick with it. It builds skills and experience and gives them the resources to deal with problems.

But I don't take those details for granted. Making increase is probably my favorite part of keeping bees.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

David LaFerney said:


> Timing is still a bit of a quandry though.


so true. there was almost a month's difference in swarming from when spring came early in 2012 and then late in 2013. after journaling the blooms vs. swarm issue here, i'll be paying closest attention when the locusts start and the tulip poplars are getting ready.



David LaFerney said:


> If they are ready to act, and diligent with inspections what should they look for in the hive (or environment) as a sign that it's time? Drone Brood? Back filling? Queen cells for sure. Something else?


all of the above, although i see drones long before swarming here. walt wright describes looking for a band of 'dry cells' between the brood and the open nectar and pollen. they may appear polished or they may have a very small amount of nectar in them. this indicates that the bees are expanding (opposite of backfilling) the broodnest. it's easy to see even for a beginner. if there are no open cells there, and if the bees are filling cells in the nest after brood emerges instead of getting them ready for more brood then swarm preps are well underway.



David LaFerney said:


> It's a good option if they can find the queen or are willing and able to do the manipulations to do it using an excluder. Watch out though to anyone doing a cut down - if either hive has already started queen cells it's likely to swarm if it's strong enough. I found that out.


in my opinion being able to find the queen is more basic than splitting or swarm prevention, and should be one of the first things on the beginner's list of things to become proficient at. if i don't find the queen and need to, i'll try again the next day. if there are already queen cells, all but one or two of them could be destroyed and a 50/50 split could be made instead. i may have been lucky but none of my cut downs swarmed.



David LaFerney said:


> Splitting IS a great lesson - It has been my observation that new bee keepers who make their own increase are much more likely to stick with it. It builds skills and experience and gives them the resources to deal with problems.


couldn't agree more. i very grateful to mike palmer for driving that point home for me. i commend you david for taking the time to help guide these beginners. what they need most of all is experience looking into hives. i would encourage them to join up with each other and with seasoned club members whenever possible for inspections prior to swarm season to get them accustomed as possible looking in the hive, practice finding the queen, ect.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

David LaFerney said:


> If they are ready to act, and diligent with inspections what should they look for in the hive (or environment) as a sign that it's time? Drone Brood? Back filling? Queen cells for sure. Something else?


I think for most new beekeepers, if they find developed swarm cells, they've waited way too long. At that point the colony is dead set on swarming and it is so much harder to control what they do. That can be a newbee's worst nightmare in the Spring. 

In order to keep it as simple as possible for a diligent new beekeeper who is checking their colonies each week in the Spring I would urge them to keep a very close eye on the brood area. There is a point prior to swarm prep when they will inspect their colony and find a LOT of new "capped" brood on several frames. The next inspection might find an explosion in population and many of those cells now empty. If at that point they notice some of the brood cells are being backfilled with nectar it's time for them to think about doing the split. 

I know it's much more complicated than that, but I'm trying to think of the most obvious changes that a new beekeeper will detect to indicate that the time is getting close to intervene.


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## Kamon A. Reynolds (Apr 15, 2012)

It's hard to know what to do in these circumstances. You always have those who are ahead of the class and those who are behind. I agree simple is the best, but that fine line of what works best and what beginners can comprehend (and complete properly) is difficult to know sometimes. 

(Hate the feeling when I see new folks eyes just glaze over.)

It comes down to who is going to get in there every time it is necessary what ever the method. Hard to control when you don't know its coming. 

I like adding empty frames or foundation in each brood nest once they have filled two deeps of bees. Then if needed I will make a 2 frame split with the old queen in late April if they still try to swarm.

Crop is still secured, they raise a new queen (on the cells they make after I crushed the swarm cells).

I haven't effected the worker force during the flow hardly at all. 2 frame with queen goes in a nuc and I have a new hive and my honey crop.

BUT trying explaining that to a beginner and ........


You'll do great the ones who want it will get it, and those who won't do it won't take the time to understand that is the way it often goes.


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## GLOCK (Dec 29, 2009)

This past year was my first year for SPM and what I did was In the first week of MAY I flipped my boxes{10DBL.deeps} If the bottom box had no brood and everything was in the top box and put 2 blank frames in the brood nest then the first week of JUNE I pulled all my queens and put them in a nuc {10} and added another deep. got a great honey crop and all hives re queened themselves and I did not have one swarm out of 10 DBL. deeps. the year before that out of 3 hives I ended up with 8 swarms so I was very happy with this past years SPM 100 %


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## rhaldridge (Dec 17, 2012)

David LaFerney said:


> Of course it's worthwhile - but If you can't super your long hives then you need to have a plan ready come spring in case they fill them up - hopefully they will.


Yes, they can be supered. In fact, I could stack 9 medium 8-frame supers on them without having to use a ladder... another advantage of long hives. I doubt that's going to happen. Later on I took so many resources from that hive to make splits and shore up weak colonies that it's now one of my smaller colonies. Live and learn, I guess.


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

I would forget the shook swarm method..... first year people are not ready for that. checkerboarding with new undrawn frames is a good way to get more comb. middle supering works well also


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## NeilV (Nov 18, 2006)

Any chance your talk could be filmed and put on Youtube? Sounds like good stuff to me.


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## MattDavey (Dec 16, 2011)

David, I would show beginners "Opening the Sides". It's really worth giving it a go.

It's specifically for beekeepers who don't have spare drawn comb.

Steps:

*1. Several weeks before swarm season, move each outside frame up into a new box and checkerboard them with new frames, directly above the Broodnest.

2. Insert a new frame on each outside edge of the Broodnest. (Brood only on one side of the frame.)*

*3. Check them in 2-3 weeks and repeat if frames are drawn.*

(This is assuming all frames are the same size.)

The new frames have only a *strip of foundation* as a guide. Bees will often build only drone comb before swarm season if the frame is completely foundationless. But with the foundation strip it ends up being about 2/3 worker to 1/3 drone comb. (The comb needs support, such as wire, fishing line, or in my case bamboo skewers.)

Its good for beginners because it gets them to identify the outside edge of the Broodnest, looking for eggs and larvae.


I prefer to Open the OUTSIDE of the Broodnest for the following reasons:

- Inserting new frames inside the Broodnest forces the bees to have to cover a larger area in order to heat the Broodnest. So if bad weather sets in you can have chilled brood. On the outside doesn't.

- If there are not enough bees to completely fill the gaps inside the Broodnest, it's possible that a group of nurse bees could become isolated from the queen and experience lower pheromone levels for a time, causing them to start emergency queen cells. (This is very rare, but I believe it happened to me once, may have been a cold night.) On the outside bees don't get isolated

- The response to fill the HOLE in the Broodnest is the same even if the new frame is on the outside edge of the Broodnest, with brood only on one side


In my opinion Splitting should only be done if the hive is already in swarm mode, or you want more hives. If you are doing it purely to prevent swarming, it's not ideal.

Splitting is best done after the main flow before a dearth, so as to reduce population. It's best if the old queen is moved to a Nuc and the main hive is left to produce a new queen as it has all the resources.

Here's links to more information:
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?290784-Opening-the-Sides-of-the-Broodnest

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?290814-Swarm-managment


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

david, i think matt's method could very well work here, but it's critical that only foundationless frames or frames with a small starter strip be used. frames with full foundation tend to get ignored prior to swarm season. i found full foundation to be more of a barrier than anything else to getting the broodnest expanded and putting it in actually accelerated swarm preps. the 'hole' created by foundationless frames on the other hand tends to get filled with comb, even it is earlier in the season than new comb is usually drawn. that has been my experience with it, but it based on only a few attempts on a few colonies, your mileage may vary.


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## McBee7 (Dec 25, 2013)

Mr. Glock..
Can you expand on your SPM system.....It sounds like the MDA splitter method of hive
management ...I'm all for more hives and more honey... the perfect storm
Also what is your lattitude? I'm on the 49th parralell

==McBee7==


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## MattDavey (Dec 16, 2011)

When you pull a queen and make a split, you are effectively simulating a swarm. So the population stops growing from then on (obviously max population 21 days later once all brood has emerged.) As wax is made by young bees, before they become foragers you are also limiting the amount of comb that can be drawn. Yes, they will store more honey as they have no brood to take care of.

In my area, with "Opening the Sides" a hive can draw out nearly a complete 10 frame deep BEFORE swarm season and fill it with brood. 

If you want to do a split later in the season you could use these frames. (Also, wouldn't a brood break later in the season help with reducing Varroa mite populations before winter?)

An extra deep before swarm season means more comb to store nectar and a larger population to collect it.

With the new frames in "Opening the Sides", as Squarepeg mentioned, it is important that they only have a strip of foundation. The maximum I would have is half a sheet of foundation. (I only use a 1 inch strip, but I also don't wire my frames.)


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

Having just passed my second year. that first year of managing hives that would swarm is extremely fresh for me.

1. removing queen cells does not work. even if they do not want to save all those cells they need to remove the old queen from the hive. At least for a while. Even fall you do is remove her to a 5 frame box. I removed queen cells as a knee jerk reaction. ended up with a colony that swarmed anyway and was then queenless.

2. Explain how a queenless hive (within limits) can be utilized in producing queens. salvaging some of those queen cells etc. Options Options Options.

3. Stress making choices in regard to your losses. Such as above where someone mentioned that splitting may loose honey but swarming looses even more. A new person can often be so geared toward forward momentum I think they have an exceptionally hard time making choices that look like a step backward. I know I struggled with it when it came to selling my first hives. I believe there is a strong tendency in a new person to not do anything or maybe expand the hive space in one way or another with blind optimism. That is the sort of thing that leads to the idea you can just cut out the queen cells and all is well.

Doing nothing is actually choosing nothing as the thing to do. It sounds like not such a smart choice more often when you think of it that way.

Finally point out. no method works all the time. Last spring I think I could have split. then I woudl have had to split the splits.

I woudl add be prepared with the equipment needed. but i did that part. and it was not enough. I tripled the equipment I have on hand. and it did not even keep up in the time frame it took to make it. I could literally have filled equipment faster than I could make it.
Spring is a very wild out of control period for the new beekeeper. stress that they have their plan based upon sound methods. and then stick to it.


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## Dan. NY (Apr 15, 2011)

To the OP:

I wonder why you dont simply tell students to watch for queen cells on their hive checks. Once one is seen, take half the boxes and make a new hive (walk away split). This seems quite simple to me and quite easy to follow. No need for drawn comb. For those not interested in another hive, you could offer another solution such as checkerboarding or something more challenging. Last spring I was actually in the position you are gearing this lecture to. One strong hive came out of winter and I really was not sure how to best deal with it. I did the walk away split and it worked out great. I did need to supplement it (the split) though with a frame or two from the main hive after a few weeks. That worked out great though as it kept the main from swarming and getting large. I had a reasonable honey crop from the main and a very nice honey crop from the split. Granted I had drawn frames, but did not need them. 

If you dont like this idea, I would appreciate explaining why its not good, as I was planning on this again if any of my hives survive this frigid winter. Thanks!


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## Kamon A. Reynolds (Apr 15, 2012)

Its a fine idea. Honey yields will not be great. I want (and most newbies want) to attain the most honey per hive. 

Unless they sell the bees how is this hobby going to pay for itself.

My main goal and David Laferney's (I am pretty sure) is to teach new beekeepers how to make their beekeeping pay for itself...... or possibly more.

Making a split is great and they need to learn that too. But bottom line what can make my potentially expensive hobby pay for itself or generate a couple extra bucks for more bee stuff.

Once they get to that point, 9 out of 10 stick to it.

New Beekeepers need to make their hobby justified by that cash.

If you can sell those extra bees you split than maybe its not such a big deal.

Just my take on it.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>4) Queen cell removal 

It is, in my experience, neither simple, nor effective at preventing swarming. It is very effective at making hives hoplessly queenless. If you are removing capped queen cells, odds are they swarmed yesterday or before...


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

This is very helpful. I am thinking along these lines:

No matter what prepare yourself with woodenware for splitting and supering - well in advance. That is by say March 15 in our area.

Do inspections faithfully throughout the season to stay on top of it and gain experience.

Do you want/need new hives?

If yes then split strong hives on April 15 or as soon as you see a queen cell.

If no more colonies are desired then try opening the broodnest (side or middle - read about it to decide.) Or one of the other options which I will list and provide links to.

If either you discover that you can't or Don' t keep up with inspections then split.

If you discover queen cells split.

If fall arrives and you have more colonies than you want (few will) combine.

How to split is another topic.

How's that sound?


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Michael Bush said:


> >4) Queen cell removal
> 
> It is, in my experience, neither simple, nor effective at preventing swarming. It is very effective at making hives hoplessly queenless. If you are removing capped queen cells, odds are they swarmed yesterday or before...


Several of those options I wouldn't recommend to a beginner - including that one. But I've done it and it does work if you do your part. For me it's just way too much work - but I did make $1800.00 worth of honey with 3 hives by cutting down cells every week last spring. Rain or shine. Sickness or health. My mind is open to other ways.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

David LaFerney said:


> Several of those options I wouldn't recommend to a beginner - including that one. But I've done it and it does work if you do your part. For me it's just way too much work - but I did make $1800.00 worth of honey with 3 hives by cutting down cells every week last spring. Rain or shine. Sickness or health. My mind is open to other ways.


i have been wondering how that experiment turned out david, thanks for sharing. are you saying that you probably won't repeat?


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

I wouldn't say that i'll never do it again - if I only had by few hives I might - but I'm going to thoroughly explore other options. It's not even fun to unstack 8 or 10 heavy boxes from a really big really strong hive to carefully inspect every frame below the excluder - and then put them back. Every week to 10 days. And ten days is stretching it. Then if you miss just one queen cell they are in the trees. Awful easy to miss one too. I think I might rather make 30 lbs or so each from several less intensively managed hives. On the other hand if the ordinance said I could only have 2-3.... 

BTW, I made the Most honey from a hive that never even tried to swarm. Made a couple of cells around May 1 and never made another. That hive stayed strong all season, and still is. Might graft from that queen if she makes it.

Made the least from one that had many cells every time and got one by me around memorial day. Still averaged 120lb per hive from the three.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

nice. did you remove those couple of cells from the best hive thinking swarm cells vs. leaving them thinking supercedure?

i found a couple in my best hive last spring and left them, the gamble paid off. these are the calls that might be guided when there is a clear indication of nest expansion vs. reduction.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

I removed them after verifying that the hive had eggs and young brood - first step of every inspection. If they superceded it was after I stopped with the full weekly inspections - around Memorial day.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

understood. were there any inspections during which you found queen cells and no eggs? 

i wonder at what point in the swarm prep timeline the queen quits laying. if the old queen usually leaves before the new queen hatches, and if the old queen stops laying to slim down for flight, at some point in that 14 days you would expect to find no eggs.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Kamon Reynolds said:


> Unless they sell the bees how is this hobby going to pay for itself.


No hobby ever pays for itself.
By the second season you should have learned to set up your hives with all the same size box.
For my area what I think a newbie should do is go to a February bee club meeting in your area and ask them when to reverse. Reverse when they tell you to and then wait for the hive to start expanding. It will be obvious by the increase in activity. I will say two to three weeks after reversal. Now add a box of foundation and hopefully you can pull up a couple of filled frames. Let that box fill up and then split by the box. Next year you can decide if you want to keep expanding or go for a great honey crop. Whether you get honey this year or not is going to depend on where you live. Where I live you can split and still get honey.


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## MattDavey (Dec 16, 2011)

I don't understand this "Split them" by default attitude.

You realise that you can split the wrong way?

The wrong way is to leave the old queen in the original hive and to have the new hive at the same site. This is because the foragers go back to the original hive and the new hive has to make a new queen.

If there is not enough pollen, and with little or no pollen coming in, the bees will eat any eggs or young larvae to get enough protein to produce the royal jelly for raising queens.

A telltale sign is dysentery. It looks like squiggly lines of excrement.

They raise a queen, but you have just sacrificed hundreds or even thousands of bees doing so.


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## DPBsbees (Apr 14, 2011)

MattDavey said:


> I don't understand this "Split them" by default attitude. The wrong way is to leave the old queen in the original hive and to have the new hive at the same site. This is because the foragers go back to the original hive and the new hive has to make a new queen.


MattDavey, Unless I'm mistaken, people are suggesting removing the original queen from the hive to make a split. I agree that it wouldn't be wise to make a walk away split from a hive to keep it from swarming.


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## MattDavey (Dec 16, 2011)

My point is that this is for beginners. Things they should know.

Also, many beginners find it hard to find the queen and so end up just splitting anyway, not knowing where the queen is.

I've seen many posts where people have split their hives and one or both hives still swarmed anyway.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

squarepeg said:


> understood. were there any inspections during which you found queen cells and no eggs?
> 
> i wonder at what point in the swarm prep timeline the queen quits laying. if the old queen usually leaves before the new queen hatches, and if the old queen stops laying to slim down for flight, at some point in that 14 days you would expect to find no eggs.


Sometimes you find a relatively huge amount of capped brood, and a lot less young brood and eggs - and queen cells lined up on the bottom of the frames. If you tear them all down the queen will continue to lay as brood emerges and they will move stores out from below the excluder to make more room for her. It is clearly against their will, and probably somewhat stressful. It's kind of interesting though, and it can make a good honey crop - but you have to really be dedicated. It was worth doing to me for the experience. Once anyway.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

MattDavey said:


> My point is that this is for beginners. Things they should know.
> 
> Also, many beginners find it hard to find the queen and so end up just splitting anyway, not knowing where the queen is.
> 
> I've seen many posts where people have split their hives and one or both hives still swarmed anyway.


Sure, nothing is 100% sure fire. I've split and had them swarm anyway - because the split was too strong and I left a queen cell (or several) in the qr split. User error. It happens. You learn, and try to do better next time - and hopefully enjoy the process. I've also dequeened a monster hive to keep it from swarming and had it then issue a monster swarm with a virgin queen. Then a couple of smaller ones too. Once a really strong hive decides to swarm it's not easy (for me anyway) to stop it. Maybe if you chopped it down into many weak parts - i've never tried that. Yet.


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## MattDavey (Dec 16, 2011)

Sorry David, not trying to be a pest, just want to make a point.

Whether a split swarms is also determined by the number of queen cells that are made.

More than 5 or 6 queen cells puts the bees in swarm mode, where less than that is treated more like supersedure. So I would suggest going in 7 days after the split and culling the number of queen cells down to 2 or 3 is also necessary.

So to do a Split well and to avoid swarming is actually not that simple:

- Requires additional equipment such as a base and lid or a Nuc.
- Requires the queen to be found and moved to the split, or the split moved to a new site.
- Requires that adequate stores are given, but not too much so that it is not too strong.
- Requires queen cells to be culled to 2-3 cells after 7 days.


Where Opening the Sides only requires the beginner to be able to:

- Cut foundation into strips.
- Identify the outside edge of the Broodnest.

For me it only needs to be done 2 or 3 times before we are we into the main flow.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

MattDavey said:


> So to do a Split well and to avoid swarming is actually not that simple:
> 
> - Requires additional equipment such as a base and lid or a Nuc.
> - Requires the queen to be found and moved to the split, or the split moved to a new site.
> ...


Walk away's couldn't be simpler. I don't agree with most of what you listed with the exception of more equipment which you will need anyway because second year queens will take off like crazy. Almost anything will do for a top and bottom board especially if it is temporary.



> Where Opening the Sides only requires the beginner to be able to:
> 
> - Cut foundation into strips.
> - Identify the outside edge of the Broodnest.
> ...


You need to go in and manipulate on a regular basis if the flow is strong.

When you split by the box the split is much stronger than the traditional nuc split, so it doesn't matter that the foragers go back. You can wait a couple weeks after the split and split again or just keep up with the strong hive. You can also wait a couple of days and see where all the foragers go and swap positions with the split and that will add foragers to the queenless hive. All any hive needs is space to prevent a swarm and all the successful methods for discouraging a swarm is providing space in one fashion or another.

Some people will never be able to find an unmarked queen. It may be a disadvantage but it isn't the end of the world.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

MattDavey said:


> So to do a Split well and to avoid swarming is actually not that simple:
> 
> - Requires additional equipment such as a base and lid or a Nuc.


Not if you use an excluder to make the split. 

Remove two frames of sealed brood, one frame of unsealed brood, a pollen frame and frame or two of honey. Shake ALL the bees from the combs...back into the hive. Center any brood left in the parent box and fill in with foundation or drawn comb. Add excluder. Place empty body on excluder and them the combs of brood and honey this way: Honey, sealed, sealed, open, pollen, honey. Center in box.

Depending on how many bees you want to harvest from the colony, you and fill in around the split with drawn comb, or leave it as is. If you add empty drawn comb, you'll harvest more bees for the nuc. If you don't, you'll harvest just what the nucs needs. Cover and leave overnight. Next day, remove the nuc to a new stand or another apiary. 

You don't have to look for the queen this way, because of the excluder. You don't have to move the split to another yard, because mostly nurse bees and house bees will go up to take care of the brood...nurse bees on the open brood. 

You can use the same technique to re-queen a colony. Use the entire top brood box as the nuc. Instead of putting it on a new stand the next day after excluding, place it above the inner cover...escape hole closed and entrance notch to the rear of the hive. Give it a queen. Three weeks later, kill old queen and unite.

Lots of good reasons to use a queen excluder other than keeping the queen out of the honey supers.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Michael Palmer said:


> You don't have to look for the queen this way, because of the excluder. You don't have to move the split to another yard, because mostly nurse bees and house bees will go up to take care of the brood...nurse bees on the open brood.


Are the bees in the top box making another queen or are you adding another queen or neither, just a swarm prevention?


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

I give them a queen.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Now we are back to timing critical for a newbie. Do you feel it would not work if you didn't add a queen?


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

What does work mean to you? They would raise a new queen? Usually they will, but not always. I would rather give them a queen raised under ideal conditions, with almost 100% chance of acceptance, than allow them to raise a queen under emergency condition, where there may be 20-30% that don't wind up with a mated queen.


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## MattDavey (Dec 16, 2011)

But in terms of simpler for a beginner? Compared to just moving the outside frames up and placing new frames on the edge of the Broodnest?

For that split the begineer needs to obtain another queen and a queen that's not raised under the emergency response. So that would typically mean buying a queen. Probably one not from their area, (if it's early in the swarm season.) Then they need to introduce the queen... Also, need a queen excluder to do the split.

And they are going to move the split off the original hive eventually, still needing the extra Lid, Base or Nuc.

Also, what if the beginner doesn't want another hive, for example: their residential block is legally meant to only have the one hive? Splitting is then not the preferred option.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

MattDavey said:


> For that split the begineer needs to obtain another queen and a queen that's not raised under the emergency response. So that would typically mean buying a queen. Probably one not from their area, (if it's early in the swarm season.)


This is far from easy or even realistic. Now if you are not a beginner and have 20 hives or so it is not so much a problem but obtaining a queen at the right time and introducing it I don't think is realistic for a second year beek with one or two hives without a mentor that has a supply of queens.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

MattDavey said:


> Also, what if the beginner doesn't want another hive, for example: their residential block is legally meant to only have the one hive? Splitting is then not the preferred option.


Then MP's method is the answer. The split would never be noticed and if the split did not raise it's own queen you combine in 30 or so days. If it does raise a queen you give it to someone and make a friend. How hard is that?


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## NeilV (Nov 18, 2006)

Edited to add: deleted due to wrongness by poster.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Matthew - I don't think anyone is particularly disrespecting your method. No one tactic is best for every situation including splitting. But splitting has several points in favor of it. For one, trying to keep bees with only one or two hives is a losing proposition. You probably need much more beekeeping skill to pull that off than most people have. The frustration of being beeless causes many to give up, and no matter what else you do the best insurance is another hive or two. 

As swarm preventing goes splitting is *almost* a do it once and forget it technique - opening the brood nest is not. A strong hive can fill an opening with comb remarkably quickly. And it requires either judgment or luck to determine what is enough but not too much - and when to start and stop the manipulations. I've done it and it works, but it also requires digging down through a constantly growing hive - work which is easy to put off when spring weather becons one to other activities. Still it's a good option it you don't want to expand.

But I *want* "our" beginners to expand. I think it will help keep them involved, and make them better beekeepers. And more likely to make a honey crop *next* year.

So yes in my opinion - for *most* people managing their first overwintered hives I'm generally going to consider splitting as the first swarm prevention option to consider. There are a lot of what ifs that might change that, but not in most cases. In My Opinion.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

NeilV said:


> Any chance your talk could be filmed and put on Youtube? Sounds like good stuff to me.


Probably not, but I will post it as a web article on our website - www.Cookevillebeekeepers.com


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

David LaFerney said:


> But I *want* "our" beginners to expand. I think it will help keep them involved, and make them better beekeepers. And more likely to make a honey crop *next* year.


You have to expand to stay at a fixed number. I know it doesn't make sense but it does. The more hives you have in your apiary the easier it is to stay at a fixed number. For the person who only wants one or two hives you have to plan on expansion and if you are successful you give the hive away or form your own co-op so the co-op increases the hive count while each member maintains one or two hives. The co-op is also the answer for extracting.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

If one really had their heart set on making some honey their second spring - if the weather co-operates, and you have more than one strong overwintered hive, and luck smiles upon you you could split all of your hives and still make some honey.

For example: 
You have 2 strong hives. 

Make queenright splits as early as you can get queens - say April 1.

Keep all of the hives on one long hive stand.

Supply supplemental feeding to keep them thriving if required - April weather can be iffy.

Push all of the hives together on the hive stand until they are almost touching.

Around the last week of April choose one hive to be your honey producer.

Take a frame of capped brood and clinging bees from each of the other nucs and give it to the honey hive. More than one if they can afford it.

On May 1st (the beginning of the main nectar flow) Move all but the designated honey hive to a new stand. Slide the honey hive to the middle of the old stand.

Keep the honey hive from swarming by whatever means you choose. Choose well. 

It is a long and generous honey season.

If all goes well you should make at least a super or two off of the one hive. Not a glut of riches, but enough to convince Grandma that you really are a beekeeper now.

In the meantime the other 3 hives built up nicely on the main flow, and did not swarm.

And they all live happily ever after.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Why do you have to move the hives around?


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

I would guess that by moving the smaller hives to new locations in the yard, and leaving the production hive behind in the center of the original stand, you will have many foragers from the other hives return to the old location and join the production hive. An instant boost in forager population in the production colony during the main flow. 

The colonies that you moved will still have all of their younger bees for growth, and some of the foragers to take advantage of the nectar flow for their colony.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Exactly.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

OK if I just split by the box isn't the same thing going to happen without all the dancing around? Not only will the mother hive produce honey the queenless hive will too because there is no brood to take care of. I am going for simple here folks.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

You would have to be a bit more specific. But if you make queenless splits you weaken both halves. The qr half loses population and the queenless half goes downhill mostly for about 6 weeks until they make a queen, she starts laying and her progeny have time to emerge. 

When you make a qr split in a few days you have 2 queens laying eggs so the total growth between the two is probably more than if you didn't split. The point of moving the hives is that the honey hive gets all of the foragers from all 4 right when the flow starts. One strong hive makes more honey than 2 mediocre - or 4 week - hives.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

One extremely strong colony will far outproduce the combined yield of the 4 individual splits. That's about as simple as I can think to explain it. 

You could just do walk away splits, but I think David was trying to explain a method to maximize your honey production and still make colony increase with splits.

*** - David, you beat me to it.


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## jmgi (Jan 15, 2009)

David, your outline of making a honey hive above is another new twist to doing a cut down split for me, interesting. Only difference is that your honey hive keeps all the open brood, instead of (the way I did it) giving it all to the split/splits except one frame of eggs so they can raise a queen. Adding sealed brood and bees from the other splits will no doubt make this a monster of a honey producing hive, but I would give the open brood to the splits in return for the sealed brood from the start, then the honey hive would not have to take care of hardly any brood except the one frame that the queen is being raised on. I may try this one myself.:banana:


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## MattDavey (Dec 16, 2011)

I don't have a problem with splits. How else do you make more hives? Just don't see that it needs to be the main swarm prevention method. Anyway, I'll leave it alone now.

In terms of digging around in the Broodnest, as I said, I only need to open the sides the first 2 or 3 times. Only that new box to take off the second or third time. After that I'm only concerned in the supers, making sure comb continues to be drawn (so it's above the Broodnest.) *The swarm prevention is all about triggering wax production and then maintaining wax production into the main flow.* (I've been checking in the the Broodnest to see if the method was working, but haven't needed to as they have shown no interest in swarming.) I've only got a small amount of hives, so would like more to test it.

If I want to split, I do it just after the Summer Solstice. Moving the old queen to a Nuc. That first box that was added at the start can be used for the split. This means the original hive makes the queens while there is still plenty of pollen coming in. (I'm notching cells, OTS). Queens are mated and the hive population has decreased in time for the late summer dearth. The broodless period also means more honey is stored.


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## Andrew Dewey (Aug 23, 2005)

I think the most important thing an instructor can do is help the student understand what is going on in the hive. Descriptions of the bees' motives for reproductive swarming, congestive swarms and of absconding are important for the new beekeeper to understand what they are seeing in their inspections. Certain techniques like walk away splits work better at different times of the year and are more often used in certain geographic areas. In my classes I describe the different types of swarming, very basic techniques for limiting swarms - (brood box reversal if the colony if all the brood is in the upper box, rearranging frames to give the queen room to lay, etc) and hold out something like the newly published "Swarm Essentials" as a resource for those who want to learn more on the subject.

I am leery of teaching making splits as swarm prevention for two primary reasons - I try to break my new beekeepers of the habit of having to lay eyes on the queen each inspection (instead look for signs that she is there) and in my opinion loosing a swarm can be part of the educational experience. Not a pleasant part to be sure, but there is a real consequence to be learned from.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

In the OP's first post there is no mention of maximizing honey but there is a preference for splitting and I agree.


David LaFerney said:


> I tend to favor splitting as early as possible as being the way to go for those second year beekeepers - for several reasons.


The quicker the newbie learns to expand the quicker he/she can stop buying bees. The walk away is by far the simplest and easiest split to do. Can you get more complicated? Absolutely. You can rear queens and be as advanced as you please. But simple, you can't beat a walk away. The newbie can just do a standard reversal as a swarm preventing measure but I feel he/she should then take it one step further and split if not the second season then the third. Choose whatever splitting method you feel comfortable doing and don't pay attention to all the beekeepers pointing fingers at you because you chose the easy way. Learning to expand is key to sustaining your apiary on an independent level.


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## laketrout (Mar 5, 2013)

David ,I'm glad your doing a how to on this subject . I have been following it closely and wondered if you could include what to do when queen cells or supercedure cells are found and how they would affect the splits that your suggesting , thanks .


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

It depends. If it is a honey production hive and they are trying to supercede you might let them if it is late enough in the nectar flow. If it is earlier and a brood break would be detrimental then you might want to move the cell to a mating nuc - or destroy it. If a strong honey hive starts building a lot of swarm cells it's going to be hard to head off unless you are really dedicated. 

The main thing is to have some nucs going with backup queens as insurance. Then if that queen actually needed superceding and fails you can just give them one from a nuc. Or if one swarms and doesn't requeen.

If you split and one of the splits tries to swarm then it probably already had a cell started - or was just too strong. Usually though splitting puts them in expansion mode and they build up and draw comb instead of trying to swarm right away. If the split doesn't already contain swarm cells.

I'm repeating myself - I guess it should be clear that you don't want a queen right split to have swarm cells in it. You also don't want a queenless split to have too many cells or for the cells it has to be widely separated inside the hive. Either condition can result in multiple virgin swarms - but that is more likely to be a problem in bigger stronger hives than in a nuc.


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## ChuckReburn (Dec 17, 2013)

I've been reading and rereading and as a 2nd year beek the information is quite valuable. 

By the end of last year, I identified the lack of drawn comb as my limiting factor (have 3 supers stored). We've got 10 multiple box hives, 6 nucs and 3 top bar hives, all looking healthy. My langs are mostly 8 frame mediums and we're moving towards all mediums. Our intention this year is to grow to 15-20 honey production hives and 10-20 nucs. I'd also like as much drawn comb as possible to better capture next years honey.

We have 3 or 4 small outyards available in addition to our own backyard. Forage is such here that I intend to limit outyards to 6 production hives. Equipment is not a limiting factor as I make what I need and have plenty of boxes and foundation. I am pretty good at finding queens having worked these hives and hives in several other yards.

I've ordered 10 queens for April 11 (earliest available date from the local breeder). I intend to pull the existing queens and 4 frames and requeen the biggest hives when the queens are available. In the meantime, as with last year, if I find queen cells, I pull the existing queen and some frames into a nuc.

One outyard is in the city (limited to 2 hives and a nuc). I intend to requeen and I'd like to use my limited amount of drawn comb there to maximize honey production this year.

Thoughts and input on a real life example are appreciated.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

It sounds to me like you are on your way. I can only make a couple of observations based on my own limited experience.

As long as I was aggressively growing my hive count it was hard to make a honey crop - growth absorbed all of the comb that my bees could create.

When I reduced my hive count lo and behold I had enough comb to work with and life became much easier as far as honey production and swarm management.

So, last year I took a dual approach:

1) I limited the number of hives that I (intensively) managed for honey to match the combined amt of comb I already had. 
2) I split the rest aggressively to make increase, control swarming, and produce more comb.

This resulted in my best honey crop so far, far fewer swarms, and all the increase that I wanted to make. At the end of the honey season I moved around resources to equalize and get all hives where I wanted them to go into winter. 

BTW, Swarming of the big strong honey hives was (predictably) a constant concern during the swarm season - 2 out of 3 of them ultimately did swarm before it was over. But none of the hives that I managed for increase (splitting, queen rearing, etc) even tried to swarm. Some were small and I combined them in September though - but that's part of the process.

This coming year I am going to try to make the same (or a little more  ) honey from twice as many honey hives - in other words Instead of trying to make 8-10 supers of honey per monster hive I hope to make 4-5 supers per hive from about twice as many less formidable hives. And leave the stepladder in the garage.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

David LaFerney said:


> So, last year I took a dual approach:
> 
> 1) I limited the number of hives that I (intensively) managed for honey to match the combined amt of comb I already had.
> 2) I split the rest aggressively to make increase, control swarming, and produce more comb.


same here david, and i was also pleased with the results. partially filled supers from the split hives were given to the nonswarming hives to finish. i was also able to catch several swarms which helped with the splits and queen rearing. i'll attempt the same this year, with hopes of ending up with surplus nucs for sale.


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## WBVC (Apr 25, 2013)

GLOCK said:


> This past year was my first year for SPM and what I did was In the first week of MAY I flipped my boxes{10DBL.deeps} If the bottom box had no brood and everything was in the top box and put 2 blank frames in the brood nest then the first week of JUNE I pulled all my queens and put them in a nuc {10} and added another deep. got a great honey crop and all hives re queened themselves and I did not have one swarm out of 10 DBL. deeps. the year before that out of 3 hives I ended up with 8 swarms so I was very happy with this past years SPM 100 %


For the beginner...what is SPM???

So you doubled your hives to 20...did you use the 2 frames you removed to make room for the blank frames to make up the nuc from the original hive? Did you crease the early larval cells in the hive you left Queenless at the time you destroyed Queen cells hanging at the bottom of frames or simply leave them to their own devices?

For hives that had brood in the bottom (were there any) did leave them alone to add brood in the upper brood deep and simply add on a third deep for honey harvesting?

Sorry for so many questions but I am one of those with tiny weak hives through to full hives coming into my second season. I want to avoid swarms, would be happy with a moderate increase in hive numbers and really want to strengthen honey production.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

I cant comment on the original topic of preventing swarms for beginners, we haven't been very successful at that. But, I can pass on our experiences as we went from raw beginners, to where we are at today. Hopefully somebody can learn a bit from our experience, and maybe prevent somebody from re-learning our lessons the hard way. Let me dig a few holes explaining our lessons to beginners. I offer no advice, just our experience, and, what i would do differently if starting over today, with the knowledge gained from our experience.

:digging:My take on adding boxes (undrawn frames) as a swarm prevention method.

In our first year, everybody told us, hives started from packages would not swarm, and if you want them to build comb, feed your bees. So, our packages started in single deeps, and when they were built out covering 7 frames, we added another box of frames. 3 hives, and not one of them looked at the second box. As the flow ramped up in June, they took all that feed, combined with the incoming nectar, filled the brood nest with nectar, and swarmed, and then afterswarms. Yay, we learned something. We caught some of the swarms, not all made it. After swarming, the hives did build out the second box, filled it with honey, all except one of the swarms which was small, and barely got one box half full. We helped them in the fall, by giving them built out frames from the swarms that didn't make it and feeding.

Year two, we put another box of frames on the single deep hive, we put it on early so they would get into it early. They started to draw some comb in there, and when the dandies got going, once again, backfilled brood nest and swarm, followed by numerous afterswarms. At one inspection, we were going to just dismantle this one, only a few hundred bees left, and we saw 4 open queen cells. But, as we started pulling out frames, my wife spotted another queen cell that was in the process of emerging. We buttoned it all back together and didn't go back for a month, it was at a friends place, a 20 minute drive. When we got back a month later, 4 frames mostly capped. By fall, they had built out the second box, and filled it up, didn't even need to feed them.

In our third year, we knew up front there would be little / no time to tend our bees. My wife had a new job to go to, so we were busy packing up a house and preparing for a move during the heart of swarm season, moving vans scheduled to show up on June 1. But we did do a little bit, and one of the things we did, was to put a brand new green drone frame into each hive, just beside the brood nest, at the beginning of what most around here would call swarm season. The original plan was to cull drone brood as a way of knocking down mites, but, we ended up just leaving them due to the short notice move. The strong hive, number 1 above, had that frame fully built, both sides, and laid full in a week. The rest of our hives, had one side drawn and laid full in a week. The lesson here, maybe there is something to this 'add a frame in the brood nest' concept to get them building comb. As the move approached, I didn't really have a lot of options for tending to bees, we would be 250km up the road, so we moved all of our bees into a single location, piled up all the supers, some drawn, some bare frames, and left them. I know of at least 5 swarms that came out of those hives just from the ones various folks saw, there were 5 hives in that location.

To date, heading now into our fourth year, the success percentage for adding a box of undrawn frames as an SPM (swarm prevention method) is running right about 0.0%. I have no interest in trying again to just add a box of new frames on top of a single deep hive, and hope they will build up and not swarm.

:digging:My take on cutting queen cells to prevent swarms.

We have never tried this, so no first hand experience. We had an acquaintance in the location before we moved, who was very dilligent in cutting queen cells when he saw them. Two years running, same story. Cut all queen cells during inspections. About a month later, looking to find a queen, because the hive was queenless. This year, he was over to help us with some of the heavy work prepping for the moving vans to arrive. Got a call, a swarm was coming out of one of the hives in the orchard. He immediately piped up, would love to have the swarm, because his hive was once again queenless, after cutting all the cells a few weeks earlier.

I dont have a lot of interest in trying to cut queen cells for swarm prevention. Starting to agree with what I read, once you see a capped cell, it's to late anyways, and by cutting them all out, you just leave the donor hive hopelessly queenless.

:digging:My take on expanding the brood nest as a swarm prevention method. Bit of a drawn out story, but, probably worth the detail for a beginner trying to understand some of this.

In our second year, we had two hives side by side, I'll label them 1 and 2. 1 was VERY strong, and doing well. 2 arrived into the spring with a drone laying queen  After much reading here on beesource, we decided to try the 'add a frame of brood once a week' method of getting them queenright. On the first round of adding a frame of brood, I dispatched the queen that was still there laying drones, and scraped a bunch of the drone brood. Then we put a frame of open brood and eggs from hive 1, and took an empty undrawn frame from hive 2 to fill that hole in the first hive. A week later, still no cell, repeat the process. Third week, still no cell, repeat the process again. When we went back to check a week later, still no cell, and drone brood scattered all over. Conclusion at that point, probably a laying worker, and, it was getting pointless, the main flow was now only 2 weeks away. So, I took the hive to the far side of the field, and shook every bee off of every frame. By the time I got back to the hive stand, there was quite a cloud of bees hovering there. We decided to give it one more try, and opened hive 1 to find another frame of eggs/brood. The first frame we pulled, there she was, a nice fat big queen. My wife made an instant change in the plan, we put that frame with a queen into hive 2, and put another empty drawn frame into hive 1 to fill the hole.

In hindsight, looking at what we did, and it was totally by accident, was this. Thru the heart of swarm season, we kept opening the brood nest on hive 1 to take a frame with eggs, and putting in an empty drawn frame. The queen never ran out of space to lay because of it. On the 4th go around, we did the equivalent of a 'cut down split', by putting the queen into the weak / dwindling hive, and leaving our strong hive to raise the queen as the blackberry bloom approached. Hive 2 recovered fully, and went into the winter as a pretty decent strong colony. Hive 1 did not swarm, produced 3 mediums of honey, and arrived into the fall as a very strong hive headed for winter. Second year, learned a lot, and finally had some buckets of honey for the efforts.

By accidentally expanding the brood nest with drawn comb, we did get one very strong hive that did not throw a swarm that we know of. Success rate is 1 out of 1, not a statistically significant sample, but leaves me hopeful.

I am not an expert, and my thoughts will be considered 'bad' by many folks. So be it, I can only go by what I have learned in the school of knocks.

If I had to do it over again, from scratch, knowing what I know now, I'd completely ignore all the chatter about how bad old comb is, and I would buy a couple boxes of drawn comb in year one. My packages would have got one frame of drawn comb to give them a better start, queen has a place to lay right away. I would let them build out as per what folks say, and think about a second box of frames, when they have 7 covered. When I put the second box of frames on, it would contain mostly drawn frames. The bees will move up, and suddenly there is LOTS of space to store nectar, and for a queen to lay. That amount of drawn comb, will keep them busy right thru till swarm season is over, and they are headed into the mode of winter buildup. Now my wife is partial to not wanting old comb from someone else in the hives, so, to address her concern I'd go a couple steps farther. Once we are well past swarmy season, I'd lift all the old frames into a third box, placing a new box of new frames in between, and an excluder between 2 and 3. Let all the brood emerge from the old comb, then remove the box of old frames, and replace with a feeder if necessary. Done early enough will give plenty of time for the bees to build out what is now the second box, and we head into winter with no remnants of the old comb in the hives, and a built out double deep well stocked.

Would that plan work as I expect, dunno. What I do know, it'll certainly have a far better chance of working that what we did, because what we did just resulted in swarm after swarm, and the biggest lesson I've taken from that is, 'give them space' does NOT mean a box of fresh new frames, it means drawn comb. I am now firmly of the belief, for a newbie just starting out, a box of drawn comb is WAY more valuable than some pedigree queen. We are past that phase now, have plenty of drawn comb at the ready in boxes stacked in the garage. In hindisght, I sure wish I had two of those boxes during our first season with bees.


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## WBVC (Apr 25, 2013)

For Grozzie....could give approximates dates for "early",dandelion flow, swarms saeson start and end and blackberry flow. I am vaguely in your region and some idea of dates would be helpful.
Last year was my first season..started late...packages early May, nucs early June. No drawn frames. I do not believe we had issues with swarms...at least I saw none and the bees are in my yard...perhaps because we stated so late. Bees all drew out a bottom deep, most but not all a second deep and we got some dadant honey supers to give the single deeps over winter and some for us. I expect this year will be our intro to swarms we still don't have extra drawn deep frames but do have some extracted dadant frames. Having some idea of what might happen and when would be helpful...rather than saying "we must be in the swarm season as there is a huge ball of bees up in the neighbours tree!"


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

Grozzie,
Very nice detailed account of your experience! You are not alone.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

WBVC said:


> packages early May, nucs early June


Late start, probably why you didn't have issues, your hives never got strong enough to swarm before it was time to get into winter prep mode.

I dont have notes on start bloom dates from our first year, we got our packages on April 19. We had the first swarms come out 6 weeks later, near the end of June. It was a sunday morning, we had gone down to do an inspection. We saw the first swarm hanging in a tree when we walked into the orchard. While working to get that one into a box, we watched the other hive swarm. By the end of the day, we had hived both of them. Both hives threw afterswarms in the first week of July, one of which we got into a hive.

The next year, we saw dandelions blooming in the first week of april. March was to cold for the bees to fly, so, we didn't see much activity during that month. I hived a swarm on June 14, about 6 weeks after the weather turned nice.

This past year, I'm told things were very early. Our bees were working the maples hard in March. We saw the first dandelion blooming on March 24. We watched the first swarm depart during the third week of april, so roughly 3 weeks after the first dandelion, or about the same time we saw blooms on the apples. Our bees were in an orchard then, so they got to work hazelnuts for very early pollen, then maples, then apples, then holly (the orchard had 4 acres of apples, and 14 of holly). After the holly was done, blackberries started, and in that area, just about any untended land is overrun by the blackberries, which bloom from as early as late June, thru till early September. The blackberries we had beside the house before we moved, showed a first bloom in the third week of June every year, and, last flower wasn't until september, but the bulk of the bloom was done by the end of July.

My guess is, over in Vancouver, your high risk period for swarms begins roughly when the apples start to bloom, sometime in April, and continues till early July. After 3 years of doing it, we've seen them as early as third week of april, and as late as July 8. I'm going to be watching things carefully this year, starting with the first dandelions, and inspecting brood nests weekly after that looking for signs of swarm prep. I plan to pull queens out of the producing hives about a week before the blackberries, so roughly middle of June, and after that wont be watching for swarm stuff anymore.

This year I think it's going to be much easier for us. We went into the fall with 10 colonies, and I realized earlier this week, one of them didn't make it. I've seen activity at the entrance quite regularily on nice days, turns out, that was the other hives robbing it out. The dead hive was a small cluster, and they froze in the extended cold snap we had in December. They did great last winter, in a similar small cluster, but, it didn't get to -15C once last winter, never mind every night for 2 weeks like it did this year. So, now I have a couple boxes of drawn comb to work with, the tools I need for doing swarm prevention.


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## WBVC (Apr 25, 2013)

grozzie2 said:


> Late start, probably why you didn't have issues, your hives never got strong enough to swarm before it was time to get into winter prep mode.
> 
> I dont have notes on start bloom dates from our first year, we got our packages on April 19. We had the first swarms come out 6 weeks later, near the end of June. It was a sunday morning, we had gone down to do an inspection. We saw the first swarm hanging in a tree when we walked into the orchard. While working to get that one into a box, we watched the other hive swarm. By the end of the day, we had hived both of them. Both hives threw afterswarms in the first week of July, one of which we got into a hive.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the specific info.
What do you mean when you say you pull the queens out of the producing hives...what constitutes a producing hive? Do you make split with the pulled queen, do you kill her, do you put another queen in the hive you pulled her from or let it make another from open brood left in the hive?


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

grozzie2 said:


> I am now firmly of the belief, for a newbie just starting out, a box of drawn comb is WAY more valuable than some pedigree queen.


That may be true for the first year. When you get to the point that all you have is drawn comb you will experience another problem. There is nothing for the wax maker to do. So your swarm problems are not over.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

Acebird said:


> When you get to the point that all you have is drawn comb you will experience another problem. There is nothing for the wax maker to do. So your swarm problems are not over.


Huh? That's the easy part. Slide in empty frames and let them go to town.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Mike Gillmore said:


> Huh? That's the easy part. Slide in empty frames and let them go to town.


Everything is easy if you are aware. Now you have to melt down frames, clean them up and reinstall foundation or prepare them for foundationless. Some might even rewire the frames. Bees naturally draw comb. I didn't see not having drawn comb an issue for swarm prevention on my first hive. I did see an issue using the QE right off the bat.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

It really doesn't have to be that complicated. 
Remove a couple frames that don't have brood, replace with either empty frames or frames with foundation. That's it. Save the removed drawn frames for a nuc, split, swarm, super, etc. 

Didn't you split your overwintered hive in the Spring?


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Acebird said:


> Everything is easy if you are aware. Now you have to melt down frames, clean them up and reinstall foundation or prepare them for foundationless. Some might even rewire the frames. Bees naturally draw comb. I didn't see not having drawn comb an issue for swarm prevention on my first hive. I did see an issue using the QE right off the bat.


A new hive is usually in "expansion mode" and not inclined to swarm - comb or not. That is one reason that people have problem with splits (esp qr splits) from strong hives swarming. The split wasn't drastic enough to force them back to expansion mode. Or it already contained swarm cells. I think I already mentioned that.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Mike Gillmore said:


> Didn't you split your overwintered hive in the Spring?


I split two of them but I didn't have any empty frames or foundation. One split I gave away and that made me really short on equipment. Then there was the lack of time. 20-20 hindsight, I should have borrowed the guys plastic hive and drawn out some comb for him but I didn't. Dumb mistake, I know.


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## J.Lee (Jan 19, 2014)

Has anyone every used a snelgrove board for swarm control. I recently read Swarming: Its control and prevention by L.E. Snelgrove. I know online its says his research was disproved in the 1950s by other research but his method is listed in Richard E. Bonney's book entitled "Hive Management" published in 1990. The method is alot more simple in Bonney's book compared to Snelgrove's. This board is also known as a double screen board. Thanks.


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## Bob J (Feb 25, 2013)

grozzie2 said:


> :digging:My take on expanding the brood nest as a swarm prevention method. Bit of a drawn out story, but, probably worth the detail for a beginner trying to understand some of this.
> 
> In our second year, we had two hives side by side, I'll label them 1 and 2. 1 was VERY strong, and doing well. 2 arrived into the spring with a drone laying queen  After much reading here on beesource, we decided to try the 'add a frame of brood once a week' method of getting them queenright. On the first round of adding a frame of brood, I dispatched the queen that was still there laying drones, and scraped a bunch of the drone brood. Then we put a frame of open brood and eggs from hive 1, and took an empty undrawn frame from hive 2 to fill that hole in the first hive. A week later, still no cell, repeat the process. Third week, still no cell, repeat the process again. When we went back to check a week later, still no cell, and drone brood scattered all over. Conclusion at that point, probably a laying worker, and, it was getting pointless, the main flow was now only 2 weeks away. So, I took the hive to the far side of the field, and shook every bee off of every frame. By the time I got back to the hive stand, there was quite a cloud of bees hovering there. We decided to give it one more try, and opened hive 1 to find another frame of eggs/brood. The first frame we pulled, there she was, a nice fat big queen. My wife made an instant change in the plan, we put that frame with a queen into hive 2, and put another empty drawn frame into hive 1 to fill the hole.
> 
> ...


Removing the queen from the hive just before swarm season reminds me of Mel Disselkoen's OTS methodology:

OTS


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

J.Lee said:


> Has anyone every used a snelgrove board for swarm control. Thanks.


I am thinking of making up a couple of the boards to try out the idea. It does seem to require some regular timing critical manipulation. Having to take the top brood box off to get at central honey supers might seem a bit of a pain but the top box should not be heavy. People seem more focused on making splits as a main form of swarm control but this might be a good way for someone who wants to maintain a small number of hives with limited space.


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## dogismycopilot (Jan 26, 2014)

Hi. This will be my first spring with an overwintered hive. I started with a package last spring, and by the end of fall, they were occupying a single deep, with another full deep of capped honey above. I didn't remove a drop, just to make sure they would have enough to make it through the winter.
We have had a few days in the high 50s lately (including today), and I have been seeing a lot of activity in front of the hive. I opened it up this afternoon, and the top box is still mostly full, but there were roughly three frames with brood. Mostly capped, but some not. There are not a lot of open cells available, so I added a super that was partially drawn out last fall, but never filled.
Was this a mistake? I know it's going to get cold again before spring really sets in. In fact, the temps are going to be swinging from high 50s to low 20s this week. Will this extra space above affect their ability to stay warm?
Sorry if this is getting a little off topic, but my intention in adding the box was to prevent swarming. Am I worrying about this too early?
Thanks very much for any input.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

welcome to beesource!

you shouldn't have to worry about swarming for at least another month and more likely two, but you probably didn't hurt anything by adding the box. did you look into the bottom box? if it is empty, you may want to consider reversing the two deeps when it warms back up again. you just have to make sure that the brood nest isn't straddling the two boxes.


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## dogismycopilot (Jan 26, 2014)

Thanks! I didn't get into the bottom box today. I remembered the tip about the brood nest possibly straddling, and a lot of the brood I saw today was on the bottom half of the frames. If it was a little warmer, I would have taken a peek, but I felt like I was taking too long, checking every frame of the top box.
I appreciate the help, and reassurance I didn't doom them!


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

:thumbsup:

you are a little bit south of me, and probably two or three weeks ahead regarding temperatures, blooms, swarm season, ect. i'll be looking forward to your posts, they will be like a heads up for me. 

reproductive swarming here usually starts about the time the black locusts are in bloom and the tulip poplars are getting ready to bloom. it lasts for about a month or so, but there can be exceptions.


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## dogismycopilot (Jan 26, 2014)

Haha, hope I can help. 

That's great info, about swarm season timing with what's blooming. Much more helpful than dates!


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

I am just saying. In my area it would be a bad move. They can't run out of room because as they consume honey and pollen it provides space. Adding a box that is not chucked full of food could draw the nest up and cause them to starve if it gets cold. This is a crazy year weather wise. I think you should hold off from adding boxes until you are near swarm season in your area.


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## dogismycopilot (Jan 26, 2014)

Thanks for the input, Brian. You hit on my concern about them staying warm (and fed), and since I'm hearing that it's still early, I removed the box today. 
Although the temps are dropping again, and they're predicting a small amount of snow tomorrow, today was in the low 60s, and I saw quite few pollen laden legs returning to the hive. No idea what type. 
You are absolutely correct about this year being crazy, weather-wise.


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## Drone Bee (Jan 26, 2014)

Acebird said:


> In the OP's first post there is no mention of maximizing honey but there is a preference for splitting and I agree.
> 
> The quicker the newbie learns to expand the quicker he/she can stop buying bees. The walk away is by far the simplest and easiest split to do. Can you get more complicated? Absolutely. You can rear queens and be as advanced as you please. But simple, you can't beat a walk away. The newbie can just do a standard reversal as a swarm preventing measure but I feel he/she should then take it one step further and split if not the second season then the third. Choose whatever splitting method you feel comfortable doing and don't pay attention to all the beekeepers pointing fingers at you because you chose the easy way. Learning to expand is key to sustaining your apiary on an independent level.


Acebird, I concur with your KISS approach for new beeks. TMI is the standard most everywhere and while excellence is hard to find you know it when you hear it and I hear it from you. 

"Some people try to find things in this game that don't exist but football is only two things - blocking and tackling."

Vince Lombardi

1. A Lombardi mentor who teaches the new beekeeper to: (rare and the result is a lot of do nothing bee clubs where people sit around and visit and talk)

Locate and identify the queen. (Tell your people they can't consider themselves beekeepers until they can locate and identify the queen. And plant the seed now that one day they will learn how to graft queen cells and raise their own queens!)
Diligent inspections. (Drill the newbie that beekeeping requires lots of sweating. Don't be afraid to make mistakes, to get knocked on your . . . and get back up.)
Emphasis on frame manipulation/inspection respecting the brood nest as sacred, identifying eggs, identifying young brood, identifying swarm cells, identifying pollen, identifying too much pollen, identifying nectar, identifying too much nectar, identifying drones, etc.

Tell the newbie that his hive will swarm unless he splits the hive. Period.
Insist the newbie own one nuc for every hive and to have extra hives on hand.

"You have to expand to stay at a fixed number. I know it doesn't make sense but it does. The more hives you have in your apiary the easier it is to stay at a fixed number."

Drill the newbie into being an aggressive beekeeper, suiting up and lighting that smoker and not a talker.

Keep it simple and radical.

Like boot camp, most aren't cut out for beekeeping but recognize you might reach one or two who might become hall of famers and all because you taught them the basics from the beginning.

Or you could be nice and try not to scare off the non-serious folk.


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## Jackson (Aug 5, 2013)

Michael Palmer said:


> I give them a queen.


When or after how long before you add a new Queen in the case of : 
1. After moving it to a new stand ?
2. To re-queen ? 

Thank you


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