Breaking The Honey Dome - Spring Hive Management #2

Spring Management Part 1 - https://youtu.be/eU3TIM85rZI Part 2 in the Spring Management Series moves into swarm prevention. There are a lot of different methods to prevent swarming. What I'm doing is breaking up the honey dome by checkerboarding in empty drawn comb, and adding a super at the same time. The goal is to create a bridge from the brood chamber to higher in the box, allowing the queen to expand the broodnest by giving her space to lay, and also giving the bees plenty of work to do. If I can keep them working until after the nectar flow starts hopefully they will all stay home and make honey instead of hitting the trees (swarming). The advantages of this method: 1. Less work - other common methods are splitting hives, equalizing (robbing brood frames from strong hives and giving them to the weaker hives), or cutting down swarm cells. I saw a presentation from one beekeeper who shakes every frame in every hive every week to kill swarm cells. That's a lot of work! This method will hopefully accomplish the same goal, with much less work. 2. No weekly checks for swarm cells. 3. BIG hives tend to result, which produce more honey. Splitting creates smaller hives. The goal is high population and no swarming. This method hopes to achieve both. 4. Young queens. Walt Wright, the pioneer of this work, indicates that queens get used up fast due to the giant broodnests that result. Hives tend to supercede in early summer after the main flow, which gives you a young queen for fall and next spring. Disadvantages: 1. If it doesn't work, my hives are going to swarm for sure. No honey crop? 2. Big hives are the MOST susceptible to Varroa Mites. I will have to be on top of treatments as these artificially large hives won't be able to handle mites without treatments. Whether you agree or disagree with Walt Wright's work, it sure makes for interesting reading. I highly recommend, even though it can be tough to understand at times. Link to all of Walt Wright's Articles: https://www.beesource.com/threads/walt-wright.365657/ Links to articles on what Walt calls Nectar Management or Checkerboarding: https://www.beesource.com/threads/apply-survival-traits-of-honey-bees-for-swarm-prevention-and-increased-honey-production-part-1.365674/ https://www.beesource.com/threads/apply-survival-traits-of-honey-bees-for-swarm-prevention-and-increased-honey-production-part-2.365675/ https://www.beesource.com/threads/nectar-management-101.365673/ Links to articles correlating honey production with hive population: chrome-extension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/https://www.apidologie.org/articles/apido/pdf/1989/02/Apidologie_0044-8435_1989_20_2_ART0006.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257989270_Relationship_between_Population_Size_and_Productivity_of_Honey_Bee_Colonies Link to my Amazon Store, with products I recommend: www.amazon.com/shop/duckriverhoney Note: if you purchase from my Amazon store, a tiny amount of money will come out of Amazon's pocket and go into mine. The price to you is the same. They have deep pockets and I don't, so your support is appreciated.