Pete, what were the nuts and bolts of "removing bees judiciously"? I am curious as my big challenge in the normal bee year is to generate enough bees to give new queens a good start...good or great as my window for getting their colonies to overwintering size is narrow. I am always looking to learn how to make more bees, faster.

My friend Michael Jaross is our local Snelgrove Wizard. That method works very well for making increase but I wonder if the bees are fooled into brood-making overdrive as they are when you do a shook swarm?

I am thinking that the key to pushing them to max brood production (apologies to the bees for how heartlessly industrial that sounds, but it all comes down to getting them through the winter successfully) has a lot to do with brood pheromone feedback levels?? Less brood in the colony = increased imperative to make more?

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