Glenn said:
I overwintered in two deeps with heavy feeding last fall.
Currently the second deep is still pretty much full of honey.  We are
several weeks away from dandelion bloom.  Should I be concerned with the
hive being too crowded and initiating swarming?

You did not say your area but in the U.S. if you are several weeks away from
dandelion bloom you have lttle cause for swarming concern *normally*.

 Tim 's recently discussed swarming problem was in California in hives
comming out of Almond pollination which is only a swarming concern for those
with bees comming out of Almonds and those beekeepers with hives  returning
to the Midwest from Almonds. Plans are in place to remove crowding in hives
returning to our area from Almonds. The hives should return the end of next
week.

>Should I pull some of the frames and replace with empty ones?

On a warm spring day without wind you could go into the hive and pull excess
frames of honey you will later use to make splits and make sure the queen
has room to lay and the bees to expand the nest. Do not in my opinion split
the brood nest by putting a couple frames of MT drawn comb in the center of
the brood nest like you would in another six weeks but rather  add the MT
frames of drawn comb to the outside edge of the nest. The nest should always
be a ball in shape until the cluster time has passed.

*If* the bees are still in cluster day and night I would leave the bees
alone till weather when the bees break cluster for most of the day so they
can move honey into the nest during the day.

Under a ideal situation the bees use the honey from surrounding combs at
about the right pace for the queen to continue laying eggs. As the nest
expands so does the need for honey to supply hungry larva.

Sincerely,
Bob Harrison
Missouri

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