I still need to come up there and get some honey.
The bees need space for brood and honey. You can split a hive and create another hive with the split. Or you can keep stacking honey supers to prevent them from swarming. All in what your goal is. I'll typically only have 2 deeps and 2 supers. If they need more room I'll take the bottom super and harvest and replace with fresh super depending on the flow. Otherwise it gets to tall.Questions for @Racerx or others familiar with bees, as a potential new beekeeper in the future;
-If you split hives to prevent overcrowding, don’t you eventually run out of time and money because you’re doubling your hives every so often?
-Assuming you keep hive height reasonable adding only a few boxes, are splits typically done once a year? I realize some of this is related to pollen and nectar flows, but in general is this correct?
-If you limit the number of hives you manage, and you don’t spilt, they will swarm, right? Can you just naturally let them leave, and the half left behind will raise a new queen, with all the brood, honey, and comb that’s already there?
-if all we do is split hives and prevent swarms, then genetically won’t the swarm genes start faltering? Maybe silly.