The Honey Bee 1497 



statement — a statement which has been indorsed by well-known 

 beekeepers — that the first step toward swarming is to start drone 

 brood. It takes longer for them to become potent for fertiliza- 

 tion and therefore it is necessary in reproduction that the drone 

 brood should precede the virgin queen cells. Next comes queen 

 cell cups, then eight days before the first young queen emerges 

 from the cells, under normal conditions, the first swarm issues. 



Some years have passed since I wrote the above and I would 

 now ask tu insert another link in the chain, one preceding the 

 drone brood, and that is, first a prosperous colony and a rapid 

 increase in young bees and brood. 



The swarming impulse may, through environments, be broken 

 at any of the above stages except when queen cells have actually 

 been begun. What is meant is that drone brood may mature and 

 the hive contain drones yet the cell cups never be built. The 

 cell cups may be built but no egg ever be deposited in them owing 

 to conditions which may set in unfavorable to swarming, but 

 changed conditions in the hive will rarelv check the swarming 

 impulse if queen cells have been started, although a cessation of 

 nectar in blossoms may. 



In saying this, I do not wish it to be understood that giving 

 room to the bees in time does not have the effect of preventing 

 the swai-ming impulse from developing, but that after the swarm- 

 ing impulse has developed, the mere adding of supers is not 

 likely to break up that impulse. 



The things which my obsei'vation leads me to believe checks 

 the swarming impulse is first of all an abundant brood chamber. 

 A twelve-frame Langstroth brood chamber is not too large for a 

 queen of no better laying strain than is procurable on every hand. 



Moses Quinby of your own state built better than many have 

 given him credit for, when he planned the large brood chamber 

 he did, and in the present step with beekeepers, generally from 

 an eight-frame Langstroth hive to a ten, they are only paving 

 the way to additional outlay when they find the twelve-frame hive 

 as much better than the ten, as they are finding the ten-frame 

 hive better than the eight. 



Next, the entrance to the hive: Who among those who have 

 traveled through the country have not seen a hive of bees with 

 an entrance four to six inches wide or even less and the front of 



