Bees Very Busy!

[Jen]

Our temps are going to up to 65 for a couple of days. There is a small amoutn of pollen coming in. Should I take this opportunity to check for swarm cells?

Bear with me for a few weeks, I have a lot of questions on how to avoid another swarming episode.

[Perry]

I doubt very much that there would be swarm cells, even in Cali, at this time of year. The queens and bees are driven by the length of daylight more than temp IMHO. Given that Dec. 21 was the shortest day of the year I would guess that you shouldn't be concerned until around March at the earliest.
I realize that NS and Cali are two different places, but daylight is daylight.

[Jen]

Mkay. The reason I'm asking now, is because it was the middle of March when all that swarming happened to my hive. My thoughts are that if I wait until the first of March, they could already be in swarm mode. I remember learning here that the bees can be getting ready for a swarm weeks prior to the actual event.

I'm hoping that I can deter that swarm event by splitting/dividing. I don't know how to do this yet, or when to do it. I have another topic started for splitting and dividing. So I'm on the path of putting my time line puzzle together.

[Yankee11]

Splitting can hurt your Honey crop, unless done at exactly the right time.

There is a way to arrange the frames in the brood box/boxes at the right time to keep the bees from going into swarm mode.

[Yankee11]

There is a beekeeper close to me that sells lots of nucs and queens. He has said he goes into his hives twice during swarm season. about 3 weeks apart and arranges the frames and that's it.  I am thinking about seeing if he will let me come spend the day with him when he does his rearranging to learn what he does.

I would love to be able to say. Ok, this weekend I am going through all my hives and be done for 3 weeks and then do it once again.

From what I gather he goes in and moves all honey/pollen frames to the outside 4 positions.(double deeps)  all other frames between the outer four are open comb. If more than 4 frames taken up with honey/nectar/pollen he pulls them out and replaces with empties.