To go along with the bees' instincts to reproduce the colony by swarming,
some type of division is the obvious remedy to the swarming problem.  I
believe this whole topic is perplexing for beginners and many hobbiests; if
you read many of the usual bee manuals the advice given is usually super
room, ventilation, reversing brood chambers and often queen cell removal.
And hope they don't swarm.  I've done all these, as have so many others,
only to find they swarm anyway.  So eventually you come to expect virtually
all strong overwintered colonies to want to swarm and you need a remedy
that is reliable.
 
Problem is, the increasing number of colonies that is inevitable.  Whether
you remove some brood, make a bona fide division, or let them swarm and
hive them, you end up with more colonies than you started with.  So the
novice or gardener-beekeeper who really only wanted one or two (or
whatever) hives finds the apiary growing (and the investment increasing)
when that wasn't the original idea!
 
IMO beginners should learn the bees probably WILL try to swarm, period, and
that there are manipulations to thwart this and retain the honey-gathering
force of their colony.  Seems to me this means making a simple division of
some sort, and then re-uniting it to the parent later in the season,
perhaps at close of final honey flows.  This doesn't have to be very
complicated, but requires an additional single-brood chamber hive and
probably a screen board for setting the division above the parent.  Many of
us do this sort of thing regularly.  Any further ideas on a very simple
system like this that would be foolproof and reliable for the hobbiest,
especially beginners??  - so they can have their small apiary without
getting the swarms and enjoy the substantial crops that they hope for?
 
A potential problem is the creation of a third brood chamber (the division,
later to be re-united) which will get extremely heavy with honey and add to
the difficulty of manipulating the hive at times.  (presuming standard,
full-depth frames are used for this).  Well enough of that, but it is
something that comes up often and i hate to see new beekeepers discouraged
by the whole swarming thing.  Thanks,  JWG