>QUESTION: I've somewhere gotten the idea that to stymie swarming that you can sometimes add another brood box and then checkerboard the brood in the existing hive with frames of either drawn comb and/or foundation. Have I miss read something and picked up a process that is detrimental to the bees? The minimizing of swarming is often difficult (I doubt that there is any way of *preventing* swarming other than going through every brood frame of every hive every 10 days). There are many opinions on management techniques, most of which center around what appear to me to be the three main biological aspects that lead to swarming: 1. Time of year--most swarms occur in spring following good forage for build up. In my area, that begins about apple blossom time. 2. The age of the queen--bees in colonies with older queens are more prone to swarm. In general, there is not much that the beekeeper can do about either of the above, other than starving colonies (which works very well--moving hives to poor forage will stop swarm prep), or by requeening. That brings us to condition number 3--the filling of the cavity. Bees did not evolve living in large hives, but rather in tree cavities, which are usually much smaller than the hive volumes that we currently use. Once a colony has filled the cavity with comb, stores, bees, and brood, then it has every reason to reproduce—that is, to throw of swarms. So by understanding what signals tell the colony that the cavity is “filled,” then the beekeeper can alter one or more conditions in the hive to prevent the bees from determining that it is time to swarm. A few main conditions come to mind: 1. Is the population crowded for the cavity, causing congestion that restricts the transmission of queen pheromone? Extra room, especially under the brood nest may help. 2. Is there a great deal of sealed brood, meaning that a population explosion is imminent, and that the remaining colony can quickly recover? Removal of sealed brood or the various methods of splitting the colony will generally eliminate the swarm impulse. 3. Is there available comb, or space to build comb? The bees may not recognize comb placed above the honey band as available comb. They will not recognize foundation placed above a queen excluder above a honey band as available comb! One must add comb in a manner such that the bees hop right on it and start using it. Any number of comb additions or manipulations may work. 4. Do the bees sense that there are adequate stores and are those stores starting to crowd the brood nest? (Walt Wright has good observations on this). Focus on breaking he honey band. Checkerboarding or the reversal of the brood boxes create empty comb space through the honey band. 5. Perhaps the most important factor is whether the queen has filled all the available brood space with brood—are there still empty brood combs available in which for her to lay? Checkerboarding or adding supers of drawn comb immediately above the brood nest may make the colony “feel’ that the broodnest has not yet been filled. Any or all of the above methods can be used to minimize swarming—I use them all in my operation, depending upon conditions, urgency, and time available. After swarm season passes, I may combine splits back in order to produce strong colonies that can take advantage of the main honeyflow, which follows swarm season in my area by a few weeks. Timing is everything! In my opinion, rather than getting stuck on any particular method for swarm prevention, instead understand what factors lead colonies to swarm, and then do something to change those conditions in the hive. Randy Oliver At the peak of swarming in the Sierra foothills. Luckily, rain is keeping the bees in the hives, but all hell is going to break loose when the weather clears in two days! *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at: http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm