pinching queen cells when splitting

[rand chandler]

Okay, I am finally "out of the closet"...no more 'lurking'...I have a question and this is my first post so I hope I am doing this correctly.
I am a third year beekeeper and to avoid as many swarms this year as I had last year, I made strong 1:1 splits of my best 4 hives in late March. I had tried to divide them evenly from a double deep or triple deep into 2 deeps AND I did not eliminate any of the capped queen cells...wow, I am paying for this now, or so it seems? I have been chasing swarms and hiving swarms and shooting them down (exciting , but non productive so far)and making 30 foot
poles with buckets and tape, ad nauseum for the last 2 weeks. SO, SHOULD I have left the boxes with one queen cell each and then gone back to look for any extras?
My favorite queen (Old Sol) has three nice fat cells and I want one new queen in there, but NOT 2-3 swarms. Do I squish one or twoof the cells or split and buy more boxes?
I thought>>> they swarm, then the first queen out goes out and whacks her sisters and takes over..I am aware they sometimes hold a queen in her cell until the first is gone , or something like that..but how do I know?

incidentally, if you are in the yard and a swarm boils out, rubbing the pheromone lure on a branch and hanging a piece of black tarpaper on it
with collect a swarm like fly paper (at least it worked yesterday!)

sorry this is so long, thanks for any advice.
rand

[Michael Bush]

What you want to do is keep them from wanting to swarm. Once they have made up their mind (as evidenced by the swarm cells) they will swarm. If you can simulate a swarm you MAY head off swarming, but you've already let them get to that point and everything is difficult from there. I split them aggressively and get a lot of nice queens. I put ever frame with a cell in it's own nuc with some extra bees and a frame of honey. If I can find the queen I put her in a nuc also and leave the original with a frame with a queen cell.

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

But let's not let it come to that:

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesswarmcontrol.htm
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesexperiment.htm
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesulbn.htm

[rand chandler]

thanks Michael...I was hoping you'd weigh in.
I guess if they want to swarm as evidenced by queen cells (capped and ready) and they swarm , rather than being SPLIT, one of the new queens may take over and I won't have further swarms, whereas if they are split, they are still on the way to a swarm, especially if they are left with several
cells?
thanks again.
rand

[nursebee]

What are you shooting them down with?

[nursebee]

Neat link at this post with how to make cheap nucs, make sure you follow to the pic. Could make it easy to make all those splits...

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=209268

[tecumseh]

some bees once stimulated to swarm will swarm and swarm and swarm... don't know what type of mechanism is in operation here but it does happen. in the years where my numbers expanded the most was the time when I used my most productive hives and split aggressively using natural queen cells when the hives built to the level of swarming. it does require a bit of casual observation and routine inspection to limit the girls heading for the trees.

[rand chandler]

thanks for the info, links and opinions everyone . I think I'll order the Walt Wright manuscript on checkerboarding.
Nursebee ,Those were foam boxes were neat. If neighbors report someone hauling stuff out your barn, it is most likely not me..
Tecumseh, what worries me is your comment "the year you expanded the most.." I'm out of nucs already...I am not a good 'guestimator' among other things. porch needs paint, dogs need dipping, garage needs cleaning and I am on the way to home depot to buy stuff to make more nucs...
rand

[Michael Bush]

>one of the new queens may take over and I won't have further swarms

Like tecumseh said, they may swarm and swarm. One swarm is no guarentee they are done.