What is a taranov swarm
So what is a taranov swarm and how can we use it in a taranov swarm hack?
A taranov swarm is a hive split technique used to simulate a swarm and prevent the hive from swarming naturally. It allows the beekeeper to keep the swarmed bees without having to capture or trap them.
It basically involves a board slated towards the hive opening, but not touching. Cover the board with a sheet to make containing the bees easier. Then you just dump all the bees from the hive onto the sheet. The foragers and older bees can jump the gap to get back in the hive. The younger bees and the queen will crawl up to the edge of the board and then go under forming an artificial swarm. Place the artificial swarm in a new box and you have successfully split the hive and prevented swarming. Get more details here – How to prevent swarming with a Taranov board.
Of course we are going to hack this and do it a little differently, but just the last part.
How a taranov artificial swarm can increase honey production
The trick here is to locate the queen either before you dump her on the sheet or shortly there after.
If you can find the queen while dumping the frames, just take the frame she is on a make a mini nuc split hack. If not, once you locate her on the sheet, let her walk over the edge and under, then move the board closer to the hive to the bees remaining on the sheet get back in the hive.
Since more bees equal more honey, the more bees we can send back to the hive the better. But like the mini nuc split hack we are trying to maximize the worker bees in the original hive. They will have nothing to do until the hive raises a new queen, except make honey for us of course.
End Result
You will have two hives when this is done and you will have prevented the original hive from swarming.
The new hive can be used in a two queen setup or just added to your apiary.
If nothing else happens, it is a pretty cool site to see all those bees marching up that board and either over the edge and under or back into the hive!