Should I try to prevent swarm?

[fenster]

Last year I added a second brood chamber to avoid overcrowding/ lack of laying space in my hive. (I had already had one swarm). The consequence of that was the bees had no interest in the super but did store enough honey in the brood chambers to last through the winter without any supplemental feeding. When I opened the hive in January to varroa treat the colony was down to three frames in the lower box and the upper brood chamber had honey stores intact as they were last September. As the colony started to revive in mid April I took out all the empty frames and condensed the brood chamber into one box. The following week I had a dozen swarm cells about an inch long at the foot of the frames. I put the second chamber back, divided the frames between boxes and filled in with empty frames. I also put a super on top. On the following two inspections there were possible queen cells which I removed but today I had two definite swarm cells. The top box is loaded with honey stores and nothing in the super. The queen was laying in the bottom box when I inspected this morning. I am wondering if I should just let the bees swarm if that is what they want to do and accept a second year of no produce.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Last year I added a second brood chamber to avoid overcrowding/ lack of laying space in my hive. (I had already had one swarm). The consequence of that was the bees had no interest in the super but did store enough honey in the brood chambers to last through the winter without any supplemental feeding. When I opened the hive in January to varroa treat the colony was down to three frames in the lower box and the upper brood chamber had honey stores intact as they were last September. As the colony started to revive in mid April I took out all the empty frames and condensed the brood chamber into one box. The following week I had a dozen swarm cells about an inch long at the foot of the frames. I put the second chamber back, divided the frames between boxes and filled in with empty frames. I also put a super on top. On the following two inspections there were possible queen cells which I removed but today I had two definite swarm cells. The top box is loaded with honey stores and nothing in the super. The queen was laying in the bottom box when I inspected this morning. I am wondering if I should just let the bees swarm if that is what they want to do and accept a second year of no produce.

Conduct an artificial swarm, then start managing your colony/hive setup What you actually did was induce the swarm istinct by packin the bees into too little space.
Just slamming on extra space all the time is seldom the answer.
You've got two brood boxes s plenty of equipment to split.

 

[pargyle]

Adding space will not always stop your bees swarming ... if they build queen cells then you need to be capable of carrying out an artificial swarm.

Look here:

https://www.wbka.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/There-Are-Queen-Cells-In-My-Hive-WBKA-WAG.pdf

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

When I opened the hive in January to varroa treat the colony was down to three frames in the lower box and the upper brood chamber had honey stores intact as they were last September.

That was your first mistake - believing that bees need a whole brood box of honey as winter stores, they started the spring with what you should have harvested the previous autumn.

 

[enrico]

Fenster I will try and explain what is going on. Some has been stated but I will try and put it into context
Bees swarm because that is how they reproduce and you will never stop it. All we can do is try and control it. Your bees started off this spring with loads of stores. They see that as being strong and that enables them to think about swarming at the first opportunity. What you did then was reduce the room they had and that confirmed to them that they needed to half their numbers and it was a good time to reproduce. Now they have that in their minds you are going to struggle to suppress it. So you need to do do swarm control. Do a pagden as you have the equipment.
You want the queen with empty frames on the old site. The flyers will return to this site and this vaguely mimics a swarm having found a home, empty comb with loads of bees. Put the old hive on a new site and leave them with one, or two, nice queen cells. They will raise another queen. Once you have both queen's up and running then choose the nicest and combine the hives again if you want to get back to one hive. At this time of the year you should be able to get a good late crop.
Hope this helps explain a few things!
E

 

[Ian123]

You say you found 3 frames of bees when winter treatment was applied that’s not a lot and about the amount or less I’d find in a nuc, did you autumn treat? In a good year or location swarms or swarmed colonies can produce a crop, but you’d be better off keeping to a single brood if your dealing with a smaller colony then adding supers. Something like an AS normally forms a part of any beginner course and if you want honey a level of management is required. If you haven’t done a course then book in or read up. You can even ask here.....Ian

 

[drex]

From your profile you have one colony. If you do an artificial swarm you can end up with two. This is always for the best, as if you have a problem with one hive, resources from the second can get you out of trouble..
Knocking down queen cells is never an answer. Pagden artificial swarm is usually the one taught to beginners as it is straightforward. It is still early in the year. Hopefully by Autumn you can take a crop from both hivesf

 

[fenster]

Conduct an artificial swarm, then start managing your colony/hive setup What you actually did was induce the swarm istinct by packin the bees into too little space.
Just slamming on extra space all the time is seldom the answer.
You've got two brood boxes s plenty of equipment to split.

OK thanks. I got another hive and did a Pagden split about ten days ago. There were just three swarm cells in the making with larvae present all on one frame in the existing hive. Found the queen and put her on her frame in the new hive, original site. The entrance to the existing hive without the queen went quiet for a week but traffic resumed a couple of days ago. I inspected the 'new' hive this morning and could not find the queen (she was definitely there when I put the top on last week); no brood or larvae. I did see two emergency(?) queen cells near the top of one frame.