Home▸Biology & Life▸The Snelgrove Board Method

🐝 The Snelgrove Board Method

A 3D cutaway hive stack showing how the Snelgrove board's alternating front and back entrances redirect returning foragers between two brood boxes to suppress swarming.

Biology & Life3DModerate60 FPS

A cutaway two-box hive with a Snelgrove board between them: four independent, closable entrances let a beekeeper redirect returning foragers between the queen-right box and the queenless, cell-raising box on top, without ever losing flying bees to a swarm.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

Foragers always try to land at the original entrance location. By opening or closing the front-lower versus front-upper door, that same stream of returning bees can be steered into either brood box, conserving the colony's total foraging strength.

🎮 How to Use

Pick a manipulation-timeline stage or toggle the four entrance buttons yourself, adjust forager traffic, and watch where the amber bee stream ends up — plus how the swarm-impulse gauge responds to congestion at closed doors.

💡 Did You Know?

Because the method never actually loses bees — only redirects them — a colony treated with a Snelgrove board can still produce a full honey crop even while its swarming urge is being broken.

⚙ Under the hood

A 3D cutaway of a two-box beehive joined by a Snelgrove board, where four independently openable entrances redirect a live instanced-mesh stream of returning foragers between the queen-right and queenless brood boxes, with a swarm-impulse gauge that reacts to door congestion.

swarm-controlsnelgrove-boardhive-managementqueen-cellscolony-manipulationadvanced-beekeeping

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install