a Janet L. Wilson snip followed by > my comment...
I rarely, rarely lose bees to swarms in spite of the fact they all will go into swarm mode by May at the latest.

>

Bees do what the bees do but certainly you can limit swarming by using any number of practices < some of these will undoubtedly (based on experience at a number of locations) work better than others.  Splitting is of course one remedy. There are others (demaree for example) that seem to have largely been forgotten by the current era of beekeepers...

It does seem there is some confusion with some poster's here on Bee Line that crowding is a fundamental cause of swarming.... it may be one symptom but imho in no way represents a genetic link to swarming.  As stated this crowding yields swarming is a management mistake and not a genetic cause of swarming.  There are a number of remedies to address any concern about crowding.

Personally I run my honey producing hives (I keep others for other purposes) much like Jerry Hayes defines in 'is a queen excluder a honey excluder' (article in the ABJ back about 1984 and filed under the name Gerald Hayes) which is basically a one deep set up with an excluder.  Realistically this seems to bump my honey yield about 15% but the primary reason I use this set up is it makes taking off the crop and management decisions simpler.

Gene on the left coast < great fireworks display last night here at the south end of the San Francisco Bay... 

 

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