Reverse Snelgrove

[Mothman]

Dear all,

I read Snelgrove's book over the Christmas holidays and now the swarming season is upon us I am trying to work out my plans for artificial swarming. Basically the Snelgrove method is a vertical artificial swarm where you find the queen and move her over with the flying bees to a new brood box.
Am I right in thinking that if I were to move one frame of brood (with only one or without a queen cell) into the bottom box with the flying bees but WITHOUT the queen that the bottom box would produce a queen (and honey)? Any remaining queen cells in the top box being torn down, by the queen or others, given that all the flying bees have gone?
I could either then split off as a separate hive or kill one queen and recombine the hives with ease?

 

[Finman]

.
Are you trying spoil your hive on purpose ?

Let it grow as long as you see queen larva in queen cells. Up to that add new room to the colony when it grows. Put some foundations to be build.

Perhaps the colony does not try to swarm at all. But if it tries, then do AS.
Before that clipping the queen is good idea.

How big is your colony now? How many boxes and how many brood frames?

Just now UK weathers are not good. It adds swarming intentions. And it depends, what race you have.

First of all, let the hive grow, and take care that the queen continues laying.
.

 

[Gribbee]

Worth a read of Wally Shaw,s modified Snelgrove method. I,ll be trying it myself this season.

 

[Mothman]

Sorry Finman I should have been clearer, this is a plan for when my hives get to the point of swarming rather than before they are ready to swarm.

 

[enrico]

As I understand it,
Find the queen and move her on one frame into a box with empty frames, drawn if possible but not essential. Put this box where the old hive was, then add supers, then snelgrove board, then old brood box. Remove queen cells out of top brood box every five days alternating entrances to bleed any flying bees and drones back into bottom section. Do that until top box is empty. Repeat as necessary. That's what I do. You can keep one queen cell in top box if you want and use her to replace old queen in bottom box when you are happy she is laying properly. No break in brood or honey and therefore best crop with least amount of space used.
I use it when a hive wants to swarm just as my main crop is breaking! You must keep checking for queen cells all the time there is brood in there though!
E

 

[Mothman]

enrico, will that method bleed ALL of the bees out of the top brood box?

 

[enrico]

Eventually yes. There are six openings, two on three sides. You open the top box left entrance, then after five days the left bottom entrance closing the one above it and open another entrance in the top box. The bees that left from the top box arrive back into the bottom. The only trouble is you end up with a few drones that go in that way above the queen excluder. Eventually there are no bees left in the top box as they all grow into flyers.
It is all a question of manipulating the entrances . Quite fun really!
E

 

[charlievictorbravo]

enrico, will that method bleed ALL of the bees out of the top brood box?

The use of the Snelgrove Board is too big a subject for a one line answer on the forum.

Have a read of Wally Shaw's piece for the WBKA - http://www.wbka.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/The-Many-Uses-Of-A-Snelgrove-Board-by-Wally-Shaw.pdf

There's also reference to the Snelgrove Board in another WBKA page - http://www.wbka.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Swarm-Control-Wally-Shaw.pdf

There's enough reading there to keep you busy for an hour or two!

CVB

 

[Newtobees]

Have a look at the Barnsley Beekeepers Association Web site.They have a very good piece on the Snelgrove Method and the Damaree Method of swarm prevention, very well written with drawings and easy to understand.