Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban writes:
By early May I knew that I had some serious congestion in one of my hives, and since that hive had swarmed last year, I wanted to try to prevent another year of swarming. Lacking the full equipment for another hive and worried about the rising congestion, I placed an order for hives bodies and supers with Betterbee, Inc. Weeks passed and no delivery.  I was told that they were 3-4 weeks backordered and the equipment would not come until early June. I removed several frames of brood and placed them in my new second hive, and put on a super, hoping that these manipulations might relieve the growing congestion.

Sure enough, on May 19 we noticed a large swarm, actually in two clusters, on our tall Colorado Spruce tree in the backyard. Having one extra hive body on hand, and improvising an outer cover, my husband assisted me as I captured the swarm by sawing down the tree limb (on evergreens it is nigh well impossible to "bang" bees into a box, as they just fell to the next evergreen branch and got even more agitated) and brushing as many bees as possible into the hive box, on the assumption that I stood a good chance of getting the queen into the hive and knowing from Bee School that the workers would then follow her into the hive box. That is what happened as the pictures show (pics below), and the hive was removed to the "bee yard" with my receiving about a dozen stings for my effort. But, I had the satisfaction of knowing that I had captured a primary swarm, and felt as though I had graduated to a new level of beekeeping as a result.

That feeling would have to last, as the next week there was a secondary swarm that I was unable to capture as I did not have the equipment as yet from Betterbee. Bill Jones, my RIBA mentor, kindly lent me an outer cover and super with empty hive box to accomodate the first swarm. The third swarm from this hive was related by an excited neighbor and missed by me as I was traveing that week. But each of the three successive swarms was a week apart, and each swarm went to the same Colorado Spruce tree in the backyard.

I was fortunate last year to witness the bee swarm flying away--a thrilling yet ultimately depressing sight-- and I feel as though I had an excellent educational opportunity this year dealing with my swarming hive and capturing the primary swarm. At one of Lou's Bee workshops I learned that I should always have extra equipment around and that putting a third hive body on that hive roiling with bees in May might have been the right intervention to prevent the swarms. Oh, well, next year."