This is my second year as a beekeeper and I saw swarming activity in my one overwintered hive. My beekeeping mentor gave me advice, cutting queen cells and adding a super. This hive was jammed with bees and looked better than any of his hives. He marvelled at how prolific my queen was and how well my first hive was doing. Said it was one of the best he had seen in a long time. I followed his advice and eventually my bees swarmed anyway, leaving many more queen cells than I had just removed. If I could take it all back now, I wish that I had just split the hive. I'd have my original hive plus another with her genetics. Now I have a hive that is stunted waiting for a new queen to mate and then lay eggs. This is a tremendous setback in the heat of the Texas honeyflow. Every experienced beekeeper that I've met has told me not to fight the bees instinct but use it to my advantage. The bees are driven by their instinct to swarm and contradictory to their advice, beekeepers fight the swarming instinct. Why not just swarm for them by splitting the hive and not losing your bees? Do split hives still regularly swarm? Next year, after this year's experience, I'm going to split any hive that shows an inclination to swarm. I'd rather have my bees and an extra hive than to have them swarm and risk losing them. Ted Wout, Red Oak, TX, 2nd year beekeeper, 8 hives (should be 9 hives) ______________ You are correct. While we are discussing swarm control in all it's facets nobody has mentioned what I consider to be the easiest check. On the hive examination 'look for eggs' a hive will not swarm leaving open brood. So.. subject to timing ie. how old the open brood or eggs are helps to determine if and when that hive will swarm. If you don't find eggs, then you're probably too late. In that case, make a false swarm and split, unless of course you want to give your bees to a neighbour!! **************************************************** * David Eyre 9 Progress Drive, Unit 2, * * The Beeworks, Orillia, Ontario, L3V 6H1. * * [log in to unmask] 705-326-7171 * * http://www.muskoka.net/~beeworks * * Agents for: E H Thorne & B J Sherriff UK. * ****************************************************