A little trick taught to me by a bloke who has been keeping bees for 84 years. (Started when he was 6 and is now 90) When he finds sealed queen cells in a hive, he carefully brushes the bees of that frame plus about four more frames of sealed brood and places them into an empty box. He then adds a couple of frames of honey and fills the gap with empty frames. No bees are added. He then puts on a bottom board and lid. The main hive is moved to another location about 10m away and the empty box containing the queen cells is placed on the original hive site. Flying bees return to the original sit and many of the bees from the main hive leave and also return to the empty box. As there is no open brood in the new box, pollen frames and nurse bees are not required. The queen cell hatches in four or five days and mates. Young worker bees also begin hatching making space available for the new queen to begin laying. In the old hive, the queen has a large proportion of nurse bees with flying bee numbers reduced. Quite often the swarm impulse disappears due to the drop in bee numbers. Remaining queen cells are often torn down. If swarming does still occur, it is a much smaller swarm. Ive used this trick in the past and it is simple, quick and effective. It is better suited to hives that run a double brood box or in hives where queen excluders are not used.
