Swarm prevention methods

[Deepsouth]

What are some of yall favorite swarm prevention methods. I have tried quit a few different ones over the years and have not found a certain one that i stick to. I go back and forth between defferent ones. I found the cutdown split to be affective but i dont like to weakend my hives before a honey flow. The other one i found to be affective is to just open up the brood nest with empty frames and supering early. For some reason this year seemed to be a verry swarmy year in my area. So which method is yall favorite to use.

[westernbeekeeper]

Splitting.

As a very last resort, put a queen excluder between the bottom box and the bottom board, to prevent the queen from leaving. Also works for keeping a new swarm at home.

[Charlie B]

Michael Bush describes a swarm control split on his website that I found works quite well.

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

[MattDavey]

Have a look at http://www.beesource.com/forums/show...arm-Prevention

If you haven't got drawn comb, it's looks like opening the brood nest with foundationless frames is your best option.

Next option is Roland's method of moving capped brood frames above an excluder (and swapping with the now empty brood frames from above the excluder). This uses a top entrance directly above the excluder.

The eventual aim would be to Checkerboard.

Matthew Davey