Pagden's artificial swarm

Pagden's artificial swarm gives the colony what it wants, a division into two, on your schedule instead of its own.

Move the original brood box, with its queen cells, most of the brood, and the nurse bees, onto a new stand a short distance away. In its place, on the original site, put a new box holding drawn comb or foundation, and shake or move the old queen and the flying bees into it.

Every forager that leaves that day will return to the original spot from muscle memory, so the new box instantly inherits the colony's whole foraging force while the queen resumes laying with a clean start.

The moved box, left with brood, nurses, and queen cells but no foragers, raises its own new queen over the following weeks.

One colony becomes two, and neither one ever assembles on a fence post.