124 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 15 



super space for storage of honey in combs next above the broodch amber. 



The swarming impulse usually appears when the queen begins to 

 lag or the hive becomes uncomfortable through crowding or overheating. 

 There is a difference which the queen record will show between queen 

 resting and queen failing. The failing queen should be replaced at once 

 with a young one. The resting queen, if her rest causes swarming im- 

 pulse may be caged or placed in a nucleus for a time and the colony 

 given a laying queen after it has had time to build cells and cap its brood. 

 Except for special breeding purjDOses a queen which has had a journey 

 through the mails should never be used; her remaining vitality is of 

 too imcertain quantity. To allow the least slackening of storing 

 zeal in any colony through crowding or any other preventable cause not 

 only produces a temporary loss of surplus but lowers the working 

 m.orale for the rest of the season. Contrary to prevalent teaching, the 

 writer is firmly convinced that it is profitable for the commerical bee- 

 keeper to thoroughly examine every colony at least once in ten days 

 during the storing period and give only such treatment as he finds each 

 one needs, in preference to giving more radical treatment with the hope 

 that it will produce a high state of colony m.orale during the remainder 

 of the season. A comparison of results obtained from, over five hundred 

 colonies with the crops of larger beekeepers in similar localities bears 

 out this conclusion. 



With healthy colonies brought up to the storing season in the best of 

 condition, maximum crops of honey are only secured by careful atten- 

 tion to the details of keeping up the highest morale or w^orking zeal of 

 every colony. As the key word of apiary practice is "Control," the key 

 word of colony morale is "Contentment. ' ' This is m.aintained by reducing 

 interference with normal colony conditions to a minimun, yet making 

 that minimimi of interference in the case of each colony of the exact 

 nature and at the precise time that will do the most good. 



The writer does not claim much if any originality in the ideas pre- 

 sented in this paper. No attempt has been made to exhaustively tabu- 

 late essentials of apiary practice. The purpose is only to call attention 

 to some of the most important ones which may not be receiving as much 

 attention in beekeeping literature as their value warrants. 



