Subject: Re: swarm control

From: [email-masked] (Steve Burt)
Date: 18 Mar 1995 01:49:43 GMT

Dear Norman (and countless readers!),
     Your ideas are fascinating.  My sense is that the bees would have 
other notions, though, of putting the honey above, rather than below, and 
the extra excluder and brood barrier might well produce congestion, not 
surplus honey. Congested bees during the spring will usually releive 
their crowded state by initiation of swarming.   Still, any new idea is 
worth at least a modest try.  
     My swarm control activities involve removal of some capped brood 
from the powerful colonies to give to weaker units and relocation upward 
of at least some brood comb to the third or fourth deep super during May 
and June, keeping the brood nest somewhat open while the colony 
strengthens.  
     Stocking cell-builder colonies with excess spring bees can cool down 
swarming while leading to queen replacement with nice young queens -- a 
further swarm reduction tactic for those colonies that just won't quit.
     I also cut queen cells and save some of the best quality ones, as 
they produce very large queens almost immediately if placed in nucleus 
boxes.
     I keep my bees in a populous suburb of Detroit, Michigan, USA, where 
swarming would cause me lots of "people" problems.  The answer: I don't 
permit my bees to swarm if at all possible, no matter how heroic my 
effort.   Besides, bees that don't swarm make very much more honey, and 
produce it much earlier in the season, which makes for a lighter color 
and milder flavor.
                                                               Best 
wishes,
                                                               Steve Burt