In the journal "Beekeeping" (No

In the journal "Beekeeping" (No. 5, 2005), D.K. Ruban described his method for preventing swarming by swapping a swarming colony with a non-swarming one. I employ a different effective technique at my apiary. After a swarm emerges, I relocate the hive with the mother colony to a new location and place a new hive in its original spot, introducing the swarm into it. I never place the swarm in a basement; I transfer it directly into the hive as soon as I catch it. The foraging bees return to their original colony and queen. Although the mother colony loses its foragers, it retains numerous sealed queen cells and a significant amount of brood at various stages, allowing it to quickly regain strength. In my 40 years of beekeeping, the mother colony has only remained in a swarming state a few times after this method. The downside is the labor intensity, as moving a two-body hive with 435x300 mm frames can be quite heavy.