John M. Moote wrote:
>  Since I'm new at this, I'm not completely sure what I was
looking at but it looked like swarm cells.  I checked a book later and it
appears that I was right.
 
   If it really is swarmy, you won't stop them by supering, and probably not
reliably by any other simple method.  Once they have cells, I yield to their
overwhelming urge to reproduce and split them.
 
   Some cut out swarm cells, but if one is missed (and it's usually an itty
bitty one that makes a lousy queen), you've irretrievably lost anyway.
 
   You said you have a deep super. --- Easy split....
 
   Move the hive.  Mine are on pallets, so I can just turn it around to the ot
her side.
 
   Put your deep super on a bottom board. (If you don't have one, use
anything temporarily,  tar paper will work for a while.  Put a twig under a
corner to give them an entrance.)
 
   Take three frames of brood with a couple queen cells.  Handle the frames
gently and don't tip them up.  If the developing queens are at a fragile
stage, just tipping the cell upside down can ruin their wings. Just before
emerging they are tougher. Put the three frames in the new hive that you have
placed on the old spot.  You will have a nice strong nuc, because it will get
the field force.
 
   The empty frames go into the old hive on the new stand.  Whichever side
gets the queen will get her.  Neither side is likely to swarm right away, as
they both have been sufficiently weakened, and they'll think they succeeded
in reproducing.  The side that got the old queen may swarm in 3 or 4 weeks tho
ugh.  If she is in her second year, she is programmed to swarm.  You might
want to do her in, as soon as you can tell which side got her.  She will be
easier to find, because the hives will have reduced population. Make sure
there is a cell left if you remove her. (Or replace her.)
 
   Presto, TWO colonies for the price of one, both with young queens,
assuming they get successfully mated.
 
   They won't make as much honey as the original colony might have, had they
not been split, but then, they will make more than if the original swarmed,
and you probably have already guaranteed by letting them get to the cell
building stage.
 
Good luck.
 
[log in to unmask]   Dave Green   PO Box 1215, Hemingway, SC  29554