National Hive Snelgrove Board

Snelgrove’s ingenious swarm control method is suitable for those with few hives.

It relies on splitting the colony and continuously bleeding young bees from a top brood box to the lower part of the hive.

How to use:

1. Reorganise the hive with the queen on one frame of open brood, with other broodless frame at the bottom, then a queen excluder, supers and finally another box with all the other brood frames.
2. Four days later, put the Snelgrove board under the top box and manipulate the entrances in sequence.
3. Day 4: Open top left entrance.
4. Day 7: Close top left, open bottom left and top right.
5. Day 14: Close bottom left and top right, open bottom right and top back. Queen cells in the top boxes should be destroyed and the two brood boxes later united.

The central slot with galvanised mesh covering allows bee scents to pass through the hive easily.