Gosh, I'm honored that you spent so much time with my blog. It has been a lot of fun and continues to be.
You're right - I don't mention swarm control. I guess because the first two years I was focused on having a hive survive to year two. After that I've tried to make sure the bees have plenty of room, using checkerboarding for the last two years, but I don't pay as much attention as I should. I had weak hives at the beginning of the last few years and wasn't worried about their swarming - just was worried that they wouldn't build up enough to survive the year.
We had a drought in Georgia for the last two years and that helped with swarming also because there wasn't any forage and the bees didn't thrive. This year has been a stellar year in my beekeeping, but I started all over this year with new hives except for my hive at Blue Heron and my top bar. The top bar did swarm but I wasn't there to witness or do anything. I split the Blue Heron hive but they had already swarmed.
So I'll try to focus more on the swarm control and actually write about it next year!
Thanks for the kind attention and comments.
Linda T