Doing a llittle research on swarm control. This is interesting

[Yankee11]

OK, I completely understand the splitting thing, I seem to be very good at that, as I am looking through my hives this weekend. So now I have to focus on keeping them from splitting in the hives I want Honey from. I could spend today and increase my 20 hives into a gazilllion nucs if I wanted but wouldn't have Honey.

I found this on the web today. Sounds like it would work and still make honey and start a nuc.

Once you find capped swarm cells and before queen leaves.

You split colony in half, leaving 2 capped queen cells in the original position. Take the other half away set it up with the mother queen. Then after the queen hatches and mates, in the original position. You can then remove one of the queens and put in a nuc. Then combine both hives back together.

To me, this seems like it would work. They think they swarmed, then when you combine them back together, they are strong enough to make Honey.

I am thinking I would pull out old queen and start the nuc. Leave the new queen that hatched out.

Thoughts on this?

Whats the difference in this and just removing the old queen and a couple frames of brood and leaving the original hive in tact with 2 queen cells?

[LazyBkpr]

Once you find capped swarm cells and before queen leaves.

   The only problem I have is that in my experience the queen DOES leave about the time the cell is capped.  so it is hard to find both queen and capped queen cells.
   I have seen swarms leave a hive before the cells were capped, and I have seen weather hold up a swarm until nearly emergence day.   

   Even better is to artificially swarm them, so they think they swarmed. YOU give them a queen you have purchased. You keep the nuc  AS  a nuc, pulling excess brood from that nuc and putting it back into the main production hive.. you get a very strong production hive making you honey, AND a nuc to overwinter to replace loss or sell for added income!!   no loss scenario there.

[Yankee11]

Lazy,

Give me more details on how you do this.

How do you time it to where you have queens ready to go when you need to perform the artificial swarm? I thought all was good a week ago and now I am seeing capped queen cells.

I assume if I have a big hive and find capped swarm cells and I cant find the queen or eggs, I assume she has already gone and can remove all cells but 2. This should keep them from secondary swarming anyway? I have a hive like that today. I couldn't find queen yesterday. Will look again today and remove all cells but 2.

[pistolpete]

A 1/2 year old queen is quite unlikely to swarm, so even simply re-queening in the spring is good swarm prevention.    Last year I pulled two nucs from one strong hive and re-queened it and still pulled about 130 pounds of honey from it.  So the two are not incompatible, provided the hive is strong.   I think of a strong hive as one that has 15 of more frames of bees.

[LazyBkpr]

Exactly what PistolPete said..
   I order a few queens for spring JUST for artificial swarming / natural swarm prevention.  I pull two or three frames of brood from the hives, depending on how strong they are maybe even more, along with the old queen, and give the NEW queens to the hives.  Already mated. Five or six days delay while they are introduced, and that hive is back on track..
   The frames of brood pulled from the nuc's go back to the hives. Weakest gets the most brood etc..  New queen, not a lot of swarming desire AS LONG AS THEY HAVE ROOM! So they can be STRONG hives and will produce VERY well.

http://outyard.weebly.com/swarm-prevention.html

[Jen]

Scott- ""The frames of brood pulled from the nuc's go back to the hives. Weakest gets the most brood etc..  New queen, not a lot of swarming desire AS LONG AS THEY HAVE ROOM! So they can be STRONG hives and will produce VERY well""

Okay, I see this process. What happens to the old queens that were put into the nucs, while waiting for the new queens to be introduced?

[Yankee11]

Just leave the old queens in the nucs and let them build up.

FYI- Me and my partner looked through this have 3 more times yesterday and we saw no queen and no eggs.We did small larva, just a tad bigger
than what I would graft, so probably 3 days old.

This got me doing some math. I was in this hive last Saturday. 7 days ago. 3 days for eggs to  hatch and 3 or 4day  old larva. Hmmm. We left
them 3 queen cells yesterday. I think I may have done something to the queen last Saturday.

[Yankee11]

Hopefully as my grafting skills improve,

Maybe I can graft enough queens to requeen each hive in the spring and start nucs with the queens I pull out.  When you requeen a big hive,
you remove the queen and 2 or 3 frames of brood, how long do you them queenless before introducing the new mated queen? 24 hrs?

[LazyBkpr]

Just leave the old queens in the nucs and let them build up.

   Yep!  once she builds up that nuc, it can be used as a brood factory for those hives, or to make more nuc's. Rotating out brood for other purposes lets you put fresh foundation or frames in place for them to draw out. The Nuc is the workhorse of the apiary, leaving your production hives to make honey.

This got me doing some math. I was in this hive last Saturday. 7 days ago. 3 days for eggs to  hatch and 3 or 4day  old larva. Hmmm. We left
them 3 queen cells yesterday. I think I may have done something to the queen last Saturday.

   This is another reason to keep nuc's available. in the event the queen happens to be on the first frame you pull out and gets rolled, in the event she falls off a frame you are looking at and gets stepped on, or any of another dozen reasons the queen might be injured, killed, or lost,  you have a backup plan already there waiting in your own apiary.

[Yankee11]

My incubator has sure saved my butt several times also. I have 8 qcells in there right now, when I harvest qcells they go in the bator in roller cages.

I have 4 queens in my 4 bay queen castle at the moment that came from the bator. They hatched and I put them in the castle.

[Yankee11]

Hey, heres a question.

If you pull the queen, wait 24 hrs put a new queen in and give her a couple of days in the introduction cage then release her.

I wonder if there is enough brood cycle interruption to help with mite control?  Probably not. Probably need a couple of weeks for
that to be effective.

[Woody Roberts]

Understand I'm not an expert on swarm control. I've only had one hive swarm in my life. It's not that I think my bees ain't swarmy. Being ferel mutts I'm sure they would if I let them.
Once they make up their mind to swarm you just have to try to control it.

The trick is to not let them make up their mind. I read all the time about tilting the box to check for swarm cells. When you see swarm cells they've already made up their mind. Your only option is to do some of the tricks already posted.

My situation may be somewhat local and may not work everywhere. But here's what I do. It's very near to what Scott does. It requires that you be in tune with your season dates, not calendar dates. Since this is the only place I've kept bees this is all I know.

When the dandilions bloom I put foundationless frames in the broodnest. How many depends on how strong the hive is. As those are drawn and layed in I add more. I can take out the outside frames to make room or I'll add another box if need be. But under no circumstances will I allow her to fill her broodnest. If I have 20 frames of brood ( which I sometimes do ) then great.
If the queen was born in the fall this is all I have to do.

If the queens a year old. I do the same thing until the blackberries bloom. 3 to 4 weeks after dandilions. Then she and three frames of mixed brood go in a nuc. I let the hive build a new one. At this time the flow is going pretty good as a general rule. The original hive is loaded with bees and brood which will become field bees since theres no brood to take care of.

If at blackberry bloom the hive isn't boiling with bees I want to know the reason why not. I'll pull the queen and combine her bees with another. They usually supersede her shortly.

Here there's no pollen until spring. Bees stay in cluster until the weather breaks. In areas that bees can fly most of the winter this might not work.
I believe all bees want to swarm. It's in their DNA. But there are several factors that have to be in place.

Generally the hive will have to be congested.
There has to be a flow on. They won't intentionly fly off with nothing to eat.
Maybe the queen doesn't have to be older buts it's more likely if she is. The older she gets the more likely it is.
There has to be enough sexually mature drones flying to get a queen mated. They know when this is.

The two biggest factors are congestion and the age of the queen. These are also the only two we have any control over.

These are just my thoughts and observations in my tiny little corner of the world.

[LazyBkpr]

you named off dealing with congestion and keeping young queens, but you are also keeping them occupied with those empty frames. Keeping them busy and working. Not many bees sitting around sucking on coffee and talking about finding a new job.

[Woody Roberts]

That's true. Besides that I can only get lots of comb drawn in the spring. What better place to get it drawn than in the broodnest.

[LazyBkpr]

I wholeheartedly concur.