opening the broodnest?

[kbenz]

I am running 8frame medium foundationless. when will the queen have enough room to keep her busy? does it ever get to the point that swarming is not an issue?

[Michael Bush]

The "point that swarming is not an issue" is more of a point in time right when the main flow starts assuming you don't let them run out of room in the supers.  Before that you need to keep the broodnest open.

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

[FRAMEshift]

B=brood   E=empty

We have one very healthy hive that almost swarmed this week.  We religiously maintained a BBEBBE frame pattern in the broodnest with lots of space in the honey area (this is a 33 frame longhive).  But the broodnest was being rapidly backfilled and there were very few eggs present.  There were maybe 15 capped queen cells.  These girls were headed for the door!  We split the hive into 3 to stop the swarm.

Do you think that when night time temperatures are in the low 60's we could go to a BEBEBE pattern without getting into chill brood problems?

[kbenz]

so once the main flow starts and your adding supers they won't swarm?

[Michael Bush]

It's more the number of bees than the temps, although it's the two put together.  A strong hive with a lot of bees can handle EBEBEBEBEB.  A weak hive will have trouble with EBBBEBBBBE