queen excluder to prevent a swarm

[goertzen29]

So I've had some trouble this spring, all due to my being busy and not spending adequate time with the bees but here's my issue.  I split my hives a month ago and am currently sitting with 2 queenless hives b/c the queens I bought and introduced were rejected.  Another hive has a virgin or nonlaying(yet) queen and I have two solid hives.   I finally got around to checking my strongest hive today only to find lots of swarm cells, at least a dozen probably more.  It doesn't look like it has swarmed yet b/c it was completely full of bees. 

Some of the cells were already capped...I know it takes 16-17 days for a Queen to emerge so I'm assuming this means they will be swarming shortly, when the weather finally warms up and the rain quits.  I'm wondering what the best bet is for me to do....I've read it's almost impossible to change the bees out of swarm mode once they are this far along...So do I try to find the queen and split tomorrow or try to make a swarm trap?  Any thoughts?  I really dont want to lose this queen....

Has anyone ever put a queen excluder on the bottom of the hive to prevent the queen from leaving? 

thanks,
Jay

[harvey]

why don't you take the queen along with maybe half of the frames and put them in a new hive?  Then let the old hive raise one of the queens from the swarm cells?  Maybe put another frame with a swarm cell in it into one of the queenless hives.

[goertzen29]

Yeah I may do that, but I really dont want another hive I'm running out of woodenware....can I split them and then recombine them with a weaker(queenless hive) using a screen board?

[dgc1961]

I caught a swarm this year and put a queen excluder on the bottom of the hive.  That was last thursday and so far the bees are still there.

[riverrat]

bees will swarm when crowded why dont you take a frame with queen cells and put in each of your queenless hives if they are indeed queenless make sure to leave one frame with queen cells in your orignal hive incase they have or do swarm then put empty comb from the queenless hives in the hive that is about to swarm giving them more room for the queen to lay. a queen excluder is not a good devise to prevent swarming if that was the case we all would be doing it and solving the swarming problem. an excluder will not keep a queen in most time she will slim down so she can fly and slip thru the excluder if she dont a virgin queen will so one way or the other if you dont do something the hive will swarm

[goertzen29]

Riverrat, I did what you suggested before I posted, moved swarm cells to queenless hives and left a few in case they swarm, I placed new foundation as well as a couple of completely empty frames to open up the brood nest, But I was under the impression that the bees wouldn't be convinced not to swarm if they had already made it this far.  I really dont want to split the hive because I already have 5 hives, (3 weak ones) and I'm running out of wooden ware.  I just really want to keep this queen, maybe make a split and combine with one of my weaker/smaller hives.

[Michael Bush]

>Some of the cells were already capped...I know it takes 16-17 days for a Queen to emerge

From when the egg is laid.  From when it's capped, it only takes eight...

> so I'm assuming this means they will be swarming shortly

Usually if they are capped, they have already swarmed.

>, when the weather finally warms up and the rain quits.  I'm wondering what the best bet is for me to do....I've read it's almost impossible to change the bees out of swarm mode once they are this far along...So do I try to find the queen and split tomorrow or try to make a swarm trap?  Any thoughts?  I really dont want to lose this queen....

I'd do a split.

Has anyone ever put a queen excluder on the bottom of the hive to prevent the queen from leaving?