398 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



The one comb left is to guard against the chance of starvation if 

 two or three bad dajs should occur, and it will be one of the outside 

 ones containing honey. These frames are put into another hive 

 that we will call O. "We have now a hive containing brood but 

 no bees, and the vacancy in it is filled with a frame of comb or 

 foundation. It is then i)laced on the stand of 13, and B is removed 

 to a new stand. If this change be made late in the day, there will 

 be no bees to take care of the brood in C, and during the night 

 many will be chilled and starve. So we must operate in the 

 forenoon, and throughout the day there will be a constant re- 

 turn of B's field bees to cover the brood in C. Perhaps the very 

 best time would be to watch when B's bees were having a play 

 spell. At that time many of the younger bees are out, and would 

 join C and young bees are better for starting queen-cells. How- 

 ever, even field bees can do housework if forced to it, and there will 

 be a host of young bees hatching out every day. So if it is not con- 

 venient for you to operate at the time of a play spell, take some 

 time in the neighborhood of 9 or 10 o'clock. 



You ought now to have three good colonies instead of two. A 

 ought to be better than a natural swarm, for it is much the same 

 as a natural swarm, only it has all the bees of a colony instead 

 of part. B will become strong again very shortly, and may do 

 good work in supers if it does not swarm later on. C has all the 

 flying force that was in B, and although it will be about three weeks 

 before the young queen gets to laying, there will be during all of 

 that three weeks the same lot of young bees hatching out daily 

 that would have hatched out in A if no change had been made. 

 The drawback comes to C after the three weeks are up, for there will 

 then come another three weeks during which not a bee will hatch. 

 This can be helped if at the time of making the change a mature 

 queen-cell or a queen be given to C. 



About the time the young queen is expected to begin laying, if 

 C rears its own queen, it is well to give C a frame containing young 

 brood. This seems to act as a stimulus, and at the same time helps 

 you to determine whether the colony is all right as to its queen. 

 If the queen has been lost, you will find queen-cells started, and 

 you may allow these to go on to completion unless you can help 

 them with a young queen or mature queen-cell. 



Under ordinary circumstances you need not expect as much 

 surplus from these three colonies as you would have had from the 

 two if neither of the two had swarmed. As a compensation you 

 have tho additional colony. If, however, there should be an excellent 

 fall How, tho throo combined may give more than the two would have 

 given. 



A modification of this plan is, instead of taking all the brood from 



