After wintering over in California, my strong hive with 2 deep brood boxes below my Flow Box tried to swarm last week. After circling around for about 10 minutes (and much to my relief) they came back to the mother hive! Very quickly then, I made a split of that hive which seems to be successful. However, there still seems to be an over-population in that mother hive and I am wondering if I need to add an additional deep brood box to give them more room. I really hesitate to do that, because it’s so hard to left off the Flow box when checking brood when the hive it that tall. Also, I am wondering if it might just encourage the bees to abandon their efforts to fill the Flows and encourage them to just store honey in the brood box. Any thoughts/suggestions?
I wouldn’t add one below the Flow super. A double brood hive is plenty strong enough already. I have 2 suggestions:
- Switch the positions of the split and the mother hive. Returning foragers should now reinforce your split numbers, and weaken the mother hive a bit.
- Put a medium super on top of the Flow super. That will give them more space and something to work on, without making more space for the queen to lay.
You could also do a second split if the hive still looks too strong. I think @JeffH has done that on occasion. 
Sounds like a pretty good problem to have @en2gen Louise! It’ll be interesting to hear if your bees manage to start filling your Flow super 
Thank you Dawn, I generally take a sizeable split away from the parent hive. I take it far enough away to avoid bees returning to the parent hive. In the split, I normally take the frames with the most sealed & emerging brood. That leaves the parent hive with young larvae & eggs which puts a temporary halt to the population growth. That should delay the colonies desire to swarm.
Because the split contains mostly sealed & emerging brood, most times I find it necessary to split it after queen cells are formed.
Then after another 4-5 weeks, depending on conditions, it could be necessary to split the hive again.
Thanks. I was thinking along the same lines. I hesitate to put a honey super above the Flow since in my previous experience they prefer to fill that rather than the Flow. And I am spoiled by the Flow extraction process I guess. The are busy filling it now. I like the idea of switching around boxes between the 2 hives! Someone else had suggested that as a strategy for evening out the hives
They have already ben filling them…very busy!
I’m going to do that!
en2gen… This is EXACTLY the situation I am in. They didn’t try to swarm yet but the last 2 inspections revealed 2 swarm cups on the bottom of brood frames. The local Valley Hive place here suggested I give them more room. I also am resistant to adding a THIRD box due to the height/work etc… But I also don’t want to do a split and have more than one hive… What did you end up doing? trying the traditional super on top of the flow super?
My response hasn’t changed from 3 years ago. You could try a standard super on top of the Flow as long as you have a queen excluder but I have found the bees tend to stop filling the Flow that way. You could put one on top of your 2 deeps for more room. I am wondering why you don’t want to do a split? It’s always good to have a minimum of 2 hives. It gives you more options for management
I guess having two would be manageable, but doesn’t two turn into 4 and so on? I like having the one hive. I can’t put a standard super on the flow super because I have a FH2 with 6 frames not 7 so it’s less wide… So you ended up splitting and not having a 3 brood/one flow super hive I’m guessing. With the weekly presence of queen cups I’m told this hive has made up it’s mind and will swarm if I don’t add room or split. If I split do you buy a queen and put it in the nuc immediately with the frames taken from the mother hive (brood with honey/nectar and no queen obviously right) So you MUST find the queen when you split correct?
sorry I’m freaking out for the first time this year was easy until now
You just need an 8 frame box.
As long as you make sure that both sides of the split have eggs, you don’t need to find the queen. You can then inspect in a few days and figure out where the queen is and then either allow the queenless hive to make a new queen or introduce a mated queen.
Not if you sell the splits. Easy to sell if you are a member of a club, and a 5 frame split goes for around $200 in San Diego, more if you put a fresh queen in it from a reputable breeder (like www.ohbees.com).
I would not allow a queenless split to make their own queen in Los Angeles. They probably have about 70% africanized drones from feral hives, like we do 80 miles south. Not pretty in an urban or suburban setting… 
I’m getting a bit confused on your questions in this thread. I think you are saying that you have a Flow Hive with 6 frames. Is that correct? That is what I have and it fits perfectly on top of an 8-frame deep box (some people use a 10-frame box and I believe that would be the one where you have 7 Flow frames).
As far as making a split so that your current hive has more room, as Dawn said, it probably depends on where you are located. I am on the Central Coast of CA and I don’t have much problem with African bees, so I feel comfortable making splits without a queen. I take 2-4 frames of bees from the overcrowded hive, with brood of various ages (eggs/larvae). Just make sure you have not moved the queen. Once these relocated bees sense the absence of the queen’s hormones, they will start feeding some of those eggs to create a new queen.
I suggest you join a local bee club where you can get lots of help and advice. If you can’t do that, there are lots of informational videos and such online. And, don’t stress about all this. Swarming is the natural way the bees manage their population. If you don’t want two hives, I say let them swarm. Half the hive will leave, but half will stay and make a new queen.
If a colony has made up it’s mind to swarm, adding more room wont stop it from swarming. Splitting is the only answer, & it needs to be done correctly, otherwise you could still finish up in trouble.
Letting a colony swarm is not ideal, because the colony could issue a caste swarm, leaving it vulnerable to hive beetle damage. On top of that there is a 1 in about 7 chance that the new queen will fail, which will render the colony to be doomed, without intervention.
You’re getting good advice on this forum from beeks with decades of experience. Even if you don’t join a club, we’ll see you through any issues. We love questions & photos. You’re better to ask questions than to come to grief. I get this a lot here, people come to grief because they don’t ask questions.
Ok I was advised here “they need more room, give it to them now and then reduce it back in the fall, that way they won’t swarm on you in May/june.”
SO… Having listened to you, I should just get it over with and split the hive? Tell me what if anything I have correct. You NEED to find the queen. Set that frame aside in a separate box.
Then take 3 frames that include brood, nectar stores, and preferably larvae/eggs. add those 3 frames to 2 blank foundation frames and put a mated queen (boxed and corked) into a 5 frame nuc, then give that nuc to someone who is going to install it into their hive miles away from the split. (and that same day) Then replace the removed frames from the host hive with new empty frames and let them go back to work…Is that how it goes?
-JJ
Hi J, that strategy works for doing preemptive swarm control splits. However you need to do more when a colony has started swarm preparations. You don’t have to find the queen, however it helps when transferring frames covered in bees from a hive to a nuc. I don’t try to find the queen, however I examine each frame carefully, several times to make sure the queen isn’t on there.
This is what I do if I find that a colony has started swarm preparations: Bare in mind that I use single brood boxes. I remove every brood frame, with bees, minus the queen, except for one brood frame that contains the youngest brood, minus any queen cells. I place that in the middle, flanked by fully drawn comb, or fresh foundation.
I take the new nuc far enough away so that no bees return. I can sometimes make 3 new colonies out of such a large split.
It’s not a good idea to focus on giving free bees to people. Let people pay for them. You will have put a lot of work into obtaining those bees. You deserve to get paid for your effort. Plus, hopefully people should value them more if they paid for them.
There are many ways to deal with the problem but, unfortunately, all but one involve some beekeeping work.
If you decide to go with splitting, there is an approach, besides selling surplus colonies, to avoid hives multiplying in geometrical progression. You may combine your split and the original colony at the end of summer. A temporary split.
If I were to do what you suggest I’d just be happy to find ANYONE to take the nuc. (If they pay even better) but I don’t have land like you obviously must. I live on a 1/2 acre lot. If I wanted to take a split myself (if I can’t find anyone to take my split) could I put (the new hive) 50ft away from the host hive?
Also what is your opinion on putting a newly purchased queen with the frames removed from the host hive?
I was resisting splitting and having 2 hives as one is enough, but maybe it’s just inevitable…
Thanks in advance- I appreciate it.
also- how do you determine what “the youngest brood” is?? brood with eggs around it? (I almost never see eggs)
I only live on a suburban block. I have a couple of apiary sites far enough away, but not too far away, so I can move nucs around, when needed. I give the property owners honey for letting me keep my bees there. This arrangement has lasted over 30 yrs. in both cases.
It’s no trouble to find someone to accept that kind of arrangement.
Taking the nuc away is important because you don’t want any bees returning to the parent hive, which will defeat the purpose of doing the split. On top of that, if too many bees leave the nuc, the remaining brood will be vulnerable to hive beetle strike. Plus it could chill & die.
The frame with the youngest brood will be unsealed. You need that one frame with young brood, just in case you accidentally kill the queen. The bees can make a new one, if that happens.