Laura A. Downey wrote: > > Some comments were made about good management and swarm prevention. I'd > like to post a few questions regarding this subject. > > I have been told year after year to reverse the brood chambers every 7 to > 10 days. This, I am told prevents congestion in the hive. However, I have > read that some believe this does nothing more than disrupt the bees. What > do you all think? What are other more effective alternatives that you have > had success with? Hi Laura, I reverse the boxes once, the reason is to increase broodrearing early in spring. When I break the round brood area the bees will get busy to reorganize it. They have to shift honey up and get a lot of empty cells all of a sudden. It also make the bees use the whole bottom box. If I would do it later in the season, I would only upset the bees and cause them extra work with no benefit. Every time I do something to a hive I will cause the bees some exra work when they have to get temp, humidity etc back to normal again. > I have also noted that some people here are convinced that cutting queen > cells is useless since the bees already have it in mind to swarm and nothing > will stop them. If this is true, then how effective is it to cut swarm > cells? Is it even worth doing? Does anyone have success with cutting swarm > cells and preventing swarms? Well, there is not a simple anwer to that <is there ever in beekeeping?> If I get swarmcells because I'm not quick enough adding boxes, yes it might help to cut cells and give the bees more space. On the other hand, if I have bees that really has decided to swarm, I have to split the hive and reduce the number of bees to below "swarming point". > I thought there was a way to tell by the location of the > queen cells - if the cells are in the center of the frames, it is a > supercedure, if the cells are on the bottom of the frames, then it is a > swarm impulse. My experience is that the bees make a few cells in the center of the round brood area when they want to superseed. If they go swarming they start with cells above the brood area, and then the queen lay in cells further and further down with some days difference. At the same time she will slow down on egg laying to get prepared to fly with the swarm. The reason for the queen to lay in swarm cells with some days difference is that there should be new queens hatching out if the first virgin get lost during mating flight. One way to get around the problem with swarming is to put an excluder under the bottom box. When the swarm season is ower there will be only one virgin left. She will fly out to mate when the excluder is removed. It's not fun with all the dead drones on the excluder, but it's a way to prevent swarming if there is no time for normal checking. Be careful not to leave the excluder too long under the hive! -- Regards P-O Gustafsson, Sweden [log in to unmask] http://www.kuai.se/~beeman/