At this time of year (early June) queen bees are laying eggs at a prodigious rate. This frame that I'm holding has most of the cells sealed by worker bees 9 days after the queen had laid an egg in each cell. There are not many empty cells so on this frame there are an estimated 3,500 baby bees to hatch out when they reach 21 days old. The colony population can subsequently rocket and ovecrowding puts pressure on the bees to begin preparations to swarm. How does the beekeeper prevent that and turn the swarming instinct to his/her advantage? I'll save that solution until my next post.