# Warre swarm management - a guide please!



## dapab (Jan 4, 2014)

My Warre hive had expanded over a number of weeks to 7 boxes 16 days before I saw a vast prime swarm issue from the hive which I've now hived in a second hive -it weighed 5kg!
I had hoped that enlarging the hive would lessen swarming and this seems to have been the case since this is the first time it's swarmed in 4 years (and last year it got to 6 boxes and a 42lb harvest - so it was busy last year too).

The hive now has the 4 top boxes full of wax and bees and I found some torn down queen cells in boxes 2 and 3 - but also a few excess queen cells on the base of combs which I decided to remove leaving two uncapped cells.

Since finding the queen in a Warre hive isn't a trivial exercise and Warre himself didn't offer much advice on preventing swarming (beyond talking about increase in hive numbers via splits) I was hoping to get some advice on how to manage Warre hives without increase in hive numbers.

Although it looks like the bees have regulated the number of queen cells already - is it a good idea to wait at least 4 days after the prime swarm issues before thinning queen cells to prevent emergency queen cells being created, which may be on the comb faces and hard to find? (rather than on the base of combs)

Can swarms / cast swarms (hope I won't get any!) be reunited without finding the queen? e.g. newspaper method or will they fight...

And how do I increase the chances of no more prime swarms next year - I'd have to donate the swarms since we don't have space or spare hives.
Thanks
David


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## lostboy (Feb 20, 2016)

Wow 7 boxes, I wish I could provide some answers but you are above my grade as far as warre management goes. One of my first, of two hives just swarmed, no luck in catching it. I agree, finding the queen in a warre can be a challenge, I have yet to locate mine and my hives are only three boxes high. I'll be watching this thread with interest. Good luck.


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## grantsbees (May 9, 2016)

Wowzers! 7 boxes!!! I've got 3 full and I don't have any more to add. I'm new this year and if it were me I'd probably just let them swarm. Warre hives are designed to let bees be bees and if you can't add any more boxes, it's time for them to split up and prosper


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