Artificial swarming can readily be combined with the shaking treatment for bee diseases, thus accomplishing two objects with one manipulation. If disease is present in the parent colony, only strips of foundation should be used and the colony should be confined to the hive until a queen and drone trap and not with a frame of brood.
Unless increase is particularly desired, both natural and artificial swarming should be done away with as far as possible, so that the energy of the bees shall go into the gathering of honey. Since crowded and overheated hives are particularly conducive to swarming, this tendency may be largely overcome by giving plenty of ventilation and additional room in the hive. Shade is also a good preventive of swarming. Extra space in the hive may be furnished by adding more hive bodies and frames or by frequent extracting, so that there may be plenty of room for brood rearing and storage at all times. These manipulations are, of course, particularly applicable to extracted honey production.
To curb the swarming impulse frequent examinations of the colonies (about every week or 10 days during the swarming season) for the purpose of cutting out queen cells is a help, but this requires considerable work, and since some cells may be overlooked, and particularly since it frequently fails in spite of the greatest care, it is not usually practiced. Requeening with young queens early in the season, when possible, generally prevents swarming.
Swarming is largely due to crowded brood chambers, and since eggs laid immediately before and during the honey flow do not produce gatherers, several methods have been tried of reducing the brood. The queen may either be entirely removed or be caged in the hive to prevent her from laying. In either event the bees will usually build queen cells to replace her, and these must be kept cut out. These plans would answer the purpose very well were it not for the fact that queenless colonies often do not work vigorously. Under most circumstances these methods can not be recommended. A better method is to remove brood about swarming time and thus reduce the amount. There are generally colonies in the apiary to which frames of brood can be given to advantage.
In addition to these methods various nonswarming devices have been invented, and later a nonswarming hive so constructed that there is no opportunity for the bees to form a dense cluster. The breeding of bees by selecting colonies with less tendency to swarm has been suggested.
On the whole, the best methods are the giving of plenty of room, shade, and ventilation to colonies run for extracted honey; and ventilation, shade, and artificial swarming of colonies run for comb honey. Frequent requeening (about once in two years) is desirable for other reasons, and requeening before swarming time helps in the solution of that difficulty,