Swarm prevention

[wetland bee]

25 years ago I started with 20 hives of german blacks which were great at producing comb honey with very white wax. Thats great except they are very agressive. after a few years I changed over to Italian queens. My method is to start the third week of april and cut queen cells every ten days three times this normally has worked very well. I have recently read that removing 2 or 3 frame of sealed brood from a hive will stop swarming. so what I would like to know is how this process works

[sc-bee]

Do a google search on Walt Wright. He has a swarm prevention method he calls Nectar Management. Some believe it works others don't. Some say he has copied other methods. Rea close it is a little different than the others. I have had very good success with it. The draw back is you have to have adequate stores left and drawn comb available.

[wetland bee]

Thanks alot of good reading there. It will take a night or two to read it all. Nectar management is sort of how we do it now, but not quite. two weeks ago here in southern Pa temps were in mid 60's . all hives reduced to  1 deep brood chamber bottom boards cleaned  honey suppies checked. all well so far I sprinkle soy floor on ground tis time year my bees seem to enjoy digging trough it. As hives start to build up I will give them thier second brood chamber back and then start adding suppers. I run deep hive equipment only.

[Brian D. Bray]

Removing queen cells is a good way to turn a queenright hive into a queenless hive....why...because bees will often swarm within a day or two of capping a queen cell, not waiting for the new queen to hatch. 

The best way to manage swarm reduction (prevention is debatable) is to super early #1 and keep the brood chamber open #2.  Essentially keeping the brood chamber open is replacing frames within the brood chamber with foundation or foundationless frames.  Generally speaking, bees busy building comb in the brood chamber won't swarm, but with bees "generally" doesn't mean always.  Another way is to produce an artificial swarm by splitting the hive and moving the queen to the new location and letting the original hve create their own queen #3.
If you're cutting queen cells out, why not use them to create nucs? which is the 4th tool in swarm management.

[Michael Bush]

>I have recently read that removing 2 or 3 frame of sealed brood from a hive will stop swarming. so what I would like to know is how this process works

I've never heard that.  I have heard of adding some empty frames to the brood nest, but not sacrificing brood.  That seems pretty counterproductive.  You may as well do a split instead.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesswarmcontrol.htm
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfallacies.htm#queencells