5^6 Journal of Agriculture. [lo Sept., 1910. 



CHECKING AXD CONTROLLING SWARMING. 



R. Beuline, President, Victorian Apiarists' Association. 



The swarming season is again close at hand and bee-keepers should 

 take steps now to prevent as far as possible excessive swarming of their 

 colonies. One of the greatest inducements to swarm is the want of addi- 

 tional comb space in colonies which have bred up early. Where supers 

 have been taken off for the winter, as they should be, it is necessary to 

 replace them on the hives as soon as, or even a little before, all the combs 

 of the brood-chamber are covered with bees. If supers have been left 

 full, on the hives, some of the combs heavy with honey may be removed 

 and replaced by empty ones. 



In most localities it is best not to insert honey boards between brood 

 chambers and supers till the swarming season is over. The queen-exclud- 

 ing honey board checks the expansion of the brood nest by restricting 

 the queen to the combs of the lower story. As bees do not readily pass 

 into combs from which the queen is excluded the brood chamber becomes 

 too crowded with bees and swarming results. The greater the comb sur- 

 face available for brood rearing, the less inclination there is to swarm. 

 But this comb surface must consist of finished empty combs; giving ^t 

 super of frames with starters, or even full sheets of foundation, has very 

 little effect in checking swarming. A sufificient supply of drawn combs 

 is a valuable asset in an apiary during a honey flow ; but particularly at 

 swarming time. 



When drawn combs are not available and bees require additional 

 combs, the check to expansion, resulting from putting a set of empty 

 frames over the brood chamber, may be minimized to some extent by taking 

 one or two combs from the lower box and putting them into the centre of 

 the upper story with the frames of foundation alongside ; brood should 

 not, however, be shifted up into the super unless the colony is suflficiently 

 strong and the weather mild. As the combs required for supering and 

 for hiving swarms are wanted before the conditions are favourable for 

 drawing foundation into combs, a supply for the next season's requirements 

 should be created during the summer or autumn honey flow. If done 

 then, in the right way, it may be accomplished without adversely affecting 

 the development of colonies and the yield of honey. 



Whatever may be done to prevent excessive swarming by the timely 

 addition of supers of empty combs there will still be a considerable number 

 of swarms, when the strain of bees kept is of the common black variety 

 or of a mixed description. The percentage of swarms to the number of 

 colonies is also largely affected by the nature of the .season, and the 

 climate and bee flora of the locality. But even when the percentage of 

 swarming is high, much may be done by the bee-keeper to prevent the 

 development of what is aptly called "swarming mania." When an apiary 

 gets into this condition hives will throw swarms without having made 

 any preparation in the way of raising queen cells ; and swarms which were 

 hived will swarm again within a month, or turn out repeatedly a day or 

 two after being started in a new hive. 



Bees from some of the swarms which have scattered and joined other 

 hives are the principal cause of this abnormal swarming. This frequently 

 happens when clipped queens are not at once picked up when the swarm 

 issues, or when the queen fails to come out with the swarm or returns to 



