Imprison the queen??

[Hayseed]

I read somewhere if you can prevent the queen from leaving the hive the rest will not swarm. I've tried on that on 4 colonies by using queen excluder material over the bottom entrance and a full queen excluder above the brood boxes. So far one hive has attempted to swarm. the bees have left the hive on 3 of 4 days. Within a half hour they return to the hive. Success, I guess. Now what? do they continue to attempt to swarm? That seems unproductive. Do I need to add brood space? Will they eventually quit trying? Please advise.
Dale

[BeeCurious]

If the queen can't leave, neither can the drones ...

I moved a few queens from hives that had q-cells to nucs or queen castle and left some cells in the hives. That and a modest broodnest opening was my swarm prevention...

[beeware10]

once bees decide to swarm they will. If the bees were not going to swarm putting a excluder over the entrance increases heat in the hive and disrupts the hive making them want to swarm. what happens when the small unmated queens hatch out and go thru the excluder. I would recommend sticking to advise from good books rather than experimenting.

[jadell]

Bees will swarm once the queen cells are capped. Sounds like you're just a few days away from world war III in your hive, and possibly ending up queenless once the cells hatch. Your excluders will also get clogged up completely with drones, blocking all exits from the hive for all the bees.