Swarm Prevention on Top Bar Hives ???

Briarvalleyapiaries · May 8, 2016

We had 2 hives that over wintered very nicely. This is our second year beekeeping. They started building brood and by middle of April I knew we were going to really have to work to prevent them from swarming. We added bars on the end of the brood and also in the middle of the honey. By end of April, the drew out the comb on the bars we added and started filling the honey section as well.

First week in May I split the strongest of the 2 hives and took out 2 nucs. We did not want more top bar hives so we basically did a cutout into foundation less Langstroth frames. It was a lot of work and I am not sure that we want to do that again.

The second top bar hive was about 3/4 full. We went through it and took out the capped queen cells and a few frames of brood. We obviously missed some or did not take out enough brood as today the hive swarmed. We happen to be home and saw it as they were leaving the hive. They flew to a nearby swarm trap and we put the swarm into a nuc.

So what should we have done different to prevent the swarms? Seems like a strong over wintered top bar hive is very difficult to avoid swarming.

Duncan151 · May 8, 2016

Depends on how big you TBH is, but either way you have to really stay on top of putting empty bars into the brood nest.

crmauch · May 10, 2016

If I remember correctly Les Crowder's book has some excellent pictures/diagrams. My knowledge is all theoretical, but did you put empty bars within the brood nest?

Also swarming is a natural process, and you can't always prevent it.

I question destroying the queen cells. I don't think that will prevent swarming. But people with more knowledge should comment here.

krista45036 · May 10, 2016

my top bar of russians came thru the winter well, and i added a couple bars for expansion. they swarmed anyway. luckily they went into a bait hive i'd set out.

Michael Bush · May 10, 2016

You have to keep feeding empty bars into the brood nest to keep it open.

Les has very good diagrams on how to not only manage the bars to keep them from swarming, but also to get them drawn nice and straight.

Briarvalleyapiaries · May 10, 2016

Michael Bush said:
You have to keep feeding empty bars into the brood nest to keep it open.

The topbar hive is 48" long. About 75% of the frames had brood on them. Would you still keep adding empty bars in the brood area even if it means filling almost the entire hive with brood frames?

Michael Bush · May 10, 2016

You have to keep feeding empty bars into the brood nest to keep it open.

Les has very good diagrams on how to not only manage the bars to keep them from swarming, but also to get them drawn nice and straight.

shannonswyatt · May 10, 2016

Splits will prevent swarms as well, but you may not want a bunch of TBH nucs. The best thing about feeding bars to the brood nest is they draw them out very quickly and they are as straight as the two bars they are between (which I hope are straight!)

Swarm Prevention on Top Bar Hives ???

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