Swarm control, checkerboarding question

[Moonshae]

If one of the causes of swarming is because there is too much storage of nectar/honey in the broodnest, and checkerboarding is designed to alleviate that buy replacing these full frames with empty frames, can't you simply extract those frames and replace them empty, rather than insert different frames? With a handful of hives, extracting a couple frames shouldn't take too long for the gap to be a problem for the bees, right? Of course, it would mean opening the hive twice, but as a newbee without any extra drawn frames, are there any alternatives?

[Jerrymac]

But what if there isn't any capped frames of honey and they are out of room because of nectar storage?

[KONASDAD]

brood is usually in and around these frames as well.

[Michael Bush]

First, "checkerboarding" is a term coined by Walt Wright and involved the honey ABOVE the brood nest and IN NO WAY involved the brood nest itself.

http://www.beesource.com/pov/wright/bcfeb02.htm
http://www.beesource.com/pov/wright/index.htm
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesexperiment.htm

Second, of course you can extract whatever you like.  Just keep in mind that IF you use chemicals you have to keep anything from the brood nest seperate and not use it as honey, but just as feed, as that is the "no peeing" area of the swimming pool.  :)  Chemical users are fond of believing that the chemicals are restricted to the brood nest and the bees never move wax or honey.  :)  Then there is the issue of feeding syrup.  Is that frame in the brood nest syrup or honey?  And, of course, if you feed Fumidil there is the issue of if it has that in it.  Of course Fumidil is illegal in the European Union because it is suspected of causing birth defects, so I would not want any risk of it being in my honey.

http://ptcl.chem.ox.ac.uk/MSDS/teratogens.html (look up fumidil)
http://www.bushfarms.com/beespests.htm#nosema

So there are some issues with extracting combs from the brood nest.

Back to the brood nest, it's not checkerboarding, but if you want to put empty frames in the brood nest for swarm control, don't do it unless the hive is strong enough to fill that space with festooning bees in a matter of minutes.  Otherwise you'll cause more harm than good.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesswarmcontrol.htm

[Moonshae]

Thanks for the clarification, Michael. I'm trying to avoid chemical use, if possible. Anything I extract in the spring I would keep for the bees at this point, since it would be a mix of the syrup I fed this fall and whatever they foraged for themselves...I wouldn't try to pass that off onto anyone.

I'm not sure when the spring flow is around here, So I'm flying blind until I see what starts happening when in the spring. From what I've read since the fall, I probably overfed, so I'll extract a few frames from the brood boxes in the spring and save it for feed, if necessary.

Here's to an interesting ride in the spring! I'm glad I have time to think about what I'm going to do before I actually have to do it.