Prevent Swarming

[Shorty]

What is the best way to know when a Hive is ready to Swarm? Are there surefire signs to look for without opening the hive. Thank you

[indypartridge]

Mr. Bush sums it up much better than I could:

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

[Brent Bean]

You can’t read any books written about beekeeping without a section on swarm control and swarm prevention. Most have common reasons and methods to control the swarming impulse. Mr. Bush’s web page sums up most things I have read on the subject I keep his web page on my favorites list. But honeybees swarm to perpetuate their species so it’s an instinctive impulse to do so. Even the most skilled beekeepers will lose hives to swarming but you can with a little education greatly reduce it. If you can come up with a surefire way of preventing it, I expect someday I’ll be reading your book.

[Jeffzhear]

Thanks for the post with Michael Bush's web site. I enjoyed reading it again. I need to bookmark his site.

[indypartridge]

If you can come up with a surefire way of preventing it, I expect someday I’ll be reading your book.

One thing I've learned about beekeeping in general, and swarming in particular: if you do everything "by the book", it still may not make any difference. Bees don't read books!

[Bernie]

At the first sign of potential swarming (queen cells), find the queen and put her, with a frame of all stages of brood and a frame of honey/pollen, into a five frame nuc. Put the nuc directly against the original hive with the opening pointing in the same direction. Let the original hive produce a new queen. The original queen will begin to fill up the nuc and won't swarm because of all the room. The original hive will continue to make honey will the new queen comes up to speed. At he end of the season, choose which is the better queen, sell one of them, and combine the hives. Caution: if he nuc-ed queen is a really good one, you'll have to expand the nuc pretty quickly. Just another way of TRYING to prevent swarms.