My “recent” experiences with swarming bees left me with some interesting pictures involving the process. After the second swarm, I cracked open the original hive to see if I could make room in the brood chamber. This would, hopefully, reduce the swarming urge in the hive.

I moved some frames of brood around and put empty frames between some of the full frames and then buttoned it back up. While I was in there, I noticed several (6 – 7) queen cells on various frames.

Most were already open and empty. Several, however, were still sealed. I probably should have destroyed the sealed ones, but I was afraid that the hive was waiting on one of the queens to emerge and take over. I was afraid that I would make the hive queen-less if I did.

Like a great man (or woman) once said, “it’s better to be lucky than good”. All three hives are rolling right along. I think I’m even going to steal a little honey from my big hive. It has a full deep of honey that’s so heavy I could hardly move it during the last hive inspection.