once swarm prep is initiated.....

[tree_entz]

what is the most important thing that will prevent it. Is it:

-removal/reduction of capped brood
-reduction of field force
-removal/relocation of old queen
-removal/reduction of open brood
-(insert your summarization here)

[Dan Williamson]

I found one hive a couple of weeks ago full of capped swarm cells, no eggs and packed full of bees. They hadn't swarmed yet although I'm not sure why.

I split the hive into 3 separate hives making sure there was a queen cell in each split.

I checked back two days later and the queens had already emerged. I barely caught that one in time.

They didn't swarm because essentially I did the work for them.

I wasn't so lucky with the one next to it. Its the first swarm I've ever had. Tougher to keep up on them in outyards.

The bottom line..... when I come across a hive with swarm prep....I almost always make splits.

[tree_entz]

"They won't swarm right away because the open brood is gone. " M.Bush

Guess I got my wires crossed (see my other thread on 'did i do the right thing?'). I ended up taking all the capped brood from the old hive. not sure why i thought that would work.

Have I made a major mistake? will the hive still want to swarm?

[Benton2569]

Dan,

When you make splits do you recombine them or make new colonies? What do you do with the new/extra queens?

Swarms seem to be an issue with me. This year I recalimed a swarm and ordered a new hive setup. This was painful, expensive and required a lot of pure luck on my part. I need to plan ahead for next year.

Thanks,
DDB

[Michael Bush]

>-removal/reduction of capped brood

Only because it will reduce the strength of the hive.

>-reduction of field force

It will help, but is almost impossible to do easily unless you have another bee yard to take the split to that is two miles or more away.

>-removal/relocation of old queen

If they have queen cells this may make no difference at all. They will just perceive it as afterswarms to reduce the population to acceptable levels.

>-removal/reduction of open brood

They will do this for you if they are doing swarm preparations, but it will help if you are doing it BEFORE swarm preparations.

>-(insert your summarization here)

If they are making queen cells, I think the most important thing is to ruthlessly do splits. Make several if you have to. But take at least half of the bees and brood away from the hive that is trying to swarm. More wouldn't hurt since the field bees will drift back.

But swarm prevention should have started months before they were trying to swarm...

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