I realize that not one specific approach is a cure all. An approach I'm taking this year to swarm management is to go in remove the old queen and place her in a castle. My thinking is at the least it will be a delay to swarming. I plan to keep the population up by adding brood frames from the castles.
Last year I had 14 hives throw around 27 swarms (that I know of). I hope to curtail that some and make more honey. Unfortunately or fortunately I find myself in about the same boat this year. I'm already seeing a lot of drones and swarm cells. I sold 5 hives already this year and that leaves me at 14 much stronger hives than I had last year at this time. Any "got cha's" or other suggestions with this approach?
>An approach I'm taking this year to swarm management is to go in remove the old queen and place her in a castle. My thinking is at the least it will be a delay to swarming. I plan to keep the population up by adding brood frames from the castles.
It can work really well two weeks before the flow, but that also may be too late if they are too far ahead of schedule... If you remove the queen too early it will cost you honey. Too late it will cost you swarms. It's all in the timing.