For the beekeeper producing honey it is important to anticipate and control their bees from swarming. Here is one method to prevent bees from swarming.

To prevent bees from swarming you need to know the signs of a colony preparing to swarm:

• A genetic tendency to swarm – Bees in the colony evolve based on the conditions they are under and the result can be a swarming as a method of swarm reproduction
• The age of the queen bee – A colony with an ageing queen who has a decrease in her egg-laying are likely to swarm. Re-queening the hive can stop the swarming
• An overcrowded hive – If the comb is 86% occupied, you can add supers or exchange the sites of smaller and larger colonies
• An overcrowded brood nest – if 94% of the available brood cells are occupied then queen rearing will commence. Sealed brood on frames can be removed and replaced with empty frames with wax foundations.

Using the Demaree method to control swarming

One method of swarm control is the Demaree method of creating a new swarm from the stronger swarm.  This involves separating the queen and forager bees from the nurse bees. It creates the illusion that the bees have swarmed. The method is straightforward and can be executed as follows.

1. Remove the brood box and place it on an upturned lid off to one side.
2. Place the new brood box on the original floor.
3. Add 9 frames of drawn comb or foundation, leaving a gap in the middle of the box.
4. Go through the original box and find the queen.
5. Place the frame with the queen in the middle of the new brood box on the original floor. (This frame must contain no queen cells)
6. Add a queen excluder.
7. Add any supers had above the queen excluder. If there were no supers on the original hive then add one now to provide better separation of the new and old brood boxes and it will encourage the bees to store nectar in supers rather than the top brood box.
8. Add a second queen excluder.
9. Place the original brood box on top of the queen excluder.
10. Go through the upper brood box and remove every queen cell.
11. Push the frames together and add one additional frame in the empty space.

Leave the colony for one week. At the next inspection you should only need to check the top brood box (i.e. the original one).

1. Inspect every frame and remove every queen cell.
2. Close the hive and leave the brood in the top box to emerge.
3. About 25 days after the initial moving of the frames you can remove the upper brood box