> ...then reducing the woodenware from 3 mediums to 2, and adding a 
(superfluous, but it can't reduce swarming) queen excluder, and a ross 
round super or two

I just noticed the cause of swarming: two broods (and the excluder does 
not help)

I realize that many texts recommend producing Ross Rounds (formerly 
Cobana) on doubles but that guarantees swarming in my region.  Doubles 
never worked reliably for me.

Sometimes I shook triples or hives that had produced a super or more of 
extracted honey down to singles and added comb boxes, but after a few 
tries  I never again ran doubles for comb.  Doubles never made good comb 
for me and just frustrated the bees.  ("Why go up there in those strange 
things when we have plenty of room down here. We'll just fatten the 
combs down here until the beekeeper can't pull them out, and swarm if we 
feel crowded").

 From wintered colonies, I always produced comb on singles and added at 
least two comb boxes and sometimes three to start. After a short while, 
I checked to see which hives needed more boxes and which could spare a 
box.  Some just would not make comb, so they got extracting supers again.

When drawing comb, there is initially oodles of room in boxes of 
foundation, enough for several drawn supers worth of bees, but as the 
combs are partly drawn and filled, the supers become crowded fast and 
more are needed STAT.

I also made a lot of comb on packages.  Once the package was getting out 
to the walls, and a few days after spreading brood if indicated, I added 
one comb box on a nice day.  Those that worked the comb well got more 
over time, added below.  Those that balked got an excluder and 
extracting boxes.

After July, I could crowd the comb hives a bit but my best plan was to 
stack all the unfinished supers on my best comb producers--sometimes up 
to eight boxes--and put the other hives back to extracted honey.  
Another trick (trade secret)  to get the bottom cells finished was to 
invert the entire super.

If I were to do it all again, I think I'd just make cut comb.

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