I confess that I rarely find a queen when I am looking for one -so I
dread the upcoming chore of finding and replacing queens.  So far, it looks
like 5 of my 6 hives will come through OK.  I knew going into winter that
one hive needed a new queen but my main aim is to avoid swarming.

   I have in mind smoking, fuming or drumming the bees thru an excluder
into an empty brood box and creating a 'nuc' for the new queen. My own
experience is that a nuc or package rarely swarms.  Also, I have some hope
that this would make the old queens easier to find.  I am figuring that if
I start early - weather permitting, about March 1st – there won’t be much
brood to shift around.
  So, do you see any problems with this approach?  How about ideas to make
it better?

   My hives are on 3 residential sites about 30-45 minutes of travel apart,
north, south and east of Seattle, WA. I tried requeening 3 hives last
spring and only "succeeded" with one.  One queen was wasted. And another
turned-out to be a 2-queen hive which was the only producing hive I had
last year.  Then again, last year we were plagued with more swarming than I
have ever seen.

   TFL - Milt

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