On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 07:39:26 +1000, queenbee <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Peter wrote
>
>> Drawn combs reduce swarming and increase honey production.
>
>Do you have a reference for this?  Here in Australia, it is common for
>beekeepers to take combs from the brood chamber and replace them with
>foundation in the belief that it will reduce swarming.  They do not use
>drawn combs as they believe that the need to draw the foundation out is a
>mechanism to reduce the swarming impulse.

Well, I know better than to argue with an Australian beekeeper. However, I
am speaking from personal experience here. One of the first beekeepers I
worked for, back in the mid 1970s, was a very old timer named Forrest
Thomas, of Vista, CA. He was one of a kind; if he lives, may he prosper. If
not, may he rest in peace. 

Anyway, I was a youngster and I asked him point blank: "How do you control
swarming." He sort of smiled in his way, and said, "We don't." By that, he
meant of course, that he didn't believe in cutting queen cells and all that.
But he had thousands of drawn combs and he gave plenty of room. All deeps,
no excluders.

This was the usual way of keeping bees in California back then. When I got
my own bees, I did the same thing. I "learned" that if the bees have plenty
of room and a good honey flow, they aren't too likely to swarm. If the hive
gets plugged, or if they get shut in by bad weather, they start preparing to
swarm. 

I am not much for getting combs drawn in the brood nest. I like to put three
new ones in a super of drawn combs. If the flow is good they draw it right
away. If it isn't, better to wait until it is to give foundation

pb

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