Raymond J. Lackey says:-
 
> Clipping the queen's wings will not prevent swarming.  It keeps the
> queen from leaving the area but she will still be driven out of the
> hive.  If you are there daily or more often, you can then take her
> and possibly the swarm to a new hive.  You are still faced with after
> swarms.   No Good!!!
 
I can't agree with this.  (Although I do agree that queen excluders are
no good.)  Clipping is definitely useful as part of a swarm control
method.  Two undesirable things happen when a colony swarms.
 
1) You loose the queen.  As a consequence there is a break of a month
or so in laying before the young queen comes on stream.
2)  You loose a substantial fraction of your worker bees.
 
If the queen is not clipped swarming can occur as soon as the first
queen cells are capped, about 6 days after the egg was laid.  This means
that even if you inspect your bees weekly there is a risk of losing a
swarm.  If the queen is clipped the swarm will still emerge at the same
time but the queen will be unable to join it so the rest of the bees
will soon return to the hive.  The queen may return if she can find
her way back but if that happens it's a bonus.  The main point is that
you havn't lost the worker bees.  What clipping does is buy you time.
If, during inspection, you find swarm prepartions but the queen hasn't
left you can use one of a number of methods.  (I use artificial swarming.)
If the queen has gone at least you still have the rest of the bees.
You will still need to do something.  To prevent afterswarms you will
need to remove all but one of the queen cells.  (Don't forget the bees
are likely to start emergency queens if there are any larvae young
enough.)  There are other possibilities such as requeening with a mated
queen but I've run out of time so I'll leave them for now!
 
--
Malcolm Roe                            Phone  :  +44 442 230000 ext 5104
Crosfield Electronics Ltd              Fax    :  +44 442 232301
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