[username00101]

One of my hives swarmed recently here in the cold northeast. I checked the brood boxes and discovered they're 90%+ capped honey. In response, I moved the partially drawn honey super down between the brood boxes to hopefully convince them not to swarm during the fall flow.

Is that a mistake? It's starting to get cool here, going to be in the low 50s at night and low to mid 70s during the day for the next several days.

Seemed like they were getting "honey bound" and I wanted to add that space there to convince them NOT to swarm.

 

[fieldsofnaturalhoney]

I don't know if it was a mistake or not, father time will let you know, but if your brood boxes were 90 percent capped honey, they back filled the broods nest=why they swarmed, and may swarm again. What your queen needs is empty drawn frames to lay eggs in, so the partially drawn box moved down may help, but she has to find it first, and reads like they are already in swarm mode.

 

[kaizen]

i struggle with this issue. everyone says they will move the honey up but some hives just don't. Have had several swarms this year where there was 3 mostly empty but drawn supers above and they still back filled the double deeps. i hate inserting shallow honey supers but sometimes that is what you have. if they are capped and have empty frames i'll switch out some. all hinges on what equipment you have extra. i started using excluders this year to keep brood out of the supers. those hives for the most part are keeping a good open brood nest.

 

[username00101]

I don't know if it was a mistake or not, father time will let you know, but if your brood boxes were 90 percent capped honey, they back filled the broods nest=why they swarmed, and may swarm again. What your queen needs is empty drawn frames to lay eggs in, so the partially drawn box moved down may help, but she has to find it first, and reads like they are already in swarm mode.

Update. Looks like this didn't work out very well. The deeps are lighter now.

I put them back in their original configuration.

 

[username00101]

However, I wont need to be concerned about swarming.