October swarm season in Wellington — my control round on 30 hives, and the one thing I finally stopped doing

Spring report from the other hemisphere. Six years, 30 hives across four sites around Wellington, and October is the month that decides my season. Everything is booming — five-finger is over, the willows are done, and the colonies are going up like rockets. My round is simple and mechanical, because with 30 hives anything clever falls apart. Seven-day cycle. If there are charged cells I act that day: either a proper artificial swarm or a nuc made with the old queen, depending on whether I want increase from that colony. The thing I stopped doing is knocking cells down and coming back in a week. I did that for three seasons and lost swarms every single year. A colony that has decided to swarm will keep building cells, and all cell-knocking does is buy you an unpredictable week and leave you with a colony that swarms on a cell you missed under a lump of propolis. Also worth saying for the northern readers who are wrapping hives this week: my mite numbers are climbing already, because brood is climbing. The spring wash matters as much as the autumn one.