Fly Back Swarm is my imitation of a natural swarm, or attempt at one. 
It starts with a strong colony in the spring preferably before the colonies swarm impulse sets in. This colony is moved from its stand to another in the same bee yard. In its place on the original stand is placed a new ten frame hive that holds nine frames of foundation, nine frames of drawn comb or a combination of foundation and drawn comb. From the original hive the old queen and one frame of open brood with the adhering bees is placed into the new hive on the original stand. All flying bees from the original colony will join the old queen at the original stand. That's what I call the swarm. There are variations of this and tricks such as removing the frame of open brood once it has been capped as a why of cleaning the swarm up from more of the varroa.

The original colony on its new stand will raise a new queen and should have the one missing frame replaced with a frame of foundation or a drawn comb. The same can be done after my honey flow and well before winter prep.

Some may see this as hyper splitting but it is not as only the very best with lowest mite numbers are kept to over winter. Many are mainly used to draw new combs, recombined or dissolve if in poor shape. 

Hope that makes sense? 

    

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