[Mvs2290]

I’ve got one hive I’ve been able to prevent from swarming without performing a split and it’s grown into a monster, I’m going to be too busy to check it for the next two weeks and am looking for suggestions, had considered a cutdown split with just the queen but my bees have swarmed with virgins this way before, also considered donating two combs worth of bees and capped brood minus the queen to some of the nucs I have. I keep a narrow end entrance with a vertical queen excluder 16 bars back and a drone escape just past that there are bees and comb on 28 of the 30 bars

 

[dudelt]

Strategically remove four or five bars and replace them with blank bars. I would remove bars that appear to have only honey on them. The bees will see these as areas that need to be filled with new comb, just like the Opening the Sides of the Broodnest procedure. If you do not have empty bars, harvest the honey now, seal it in a plastic container and place the bars back in the hive. That should hold them for the two week period.

 

[AvatarDad]

dudelt's advice is good, as is your idea of donating brood to needy nucs. You really just need to get some population out of the hive, and get 3 or 4 empty bars staggered through the brood nest. I'm assuming you are warm enough up there to handle the nights. (If not, do only maybe 2 empty bars near the edges of the brood nest).