8 Farmers’ Bulletin 1198. 
pied with brood at one time. If the room for brood-rearing is all 
occupied at any time before the maximum is reached, the colony may 
prepare to swarm, providing other conditions are favorable. To pre- 
vent swarming from this cause, therefore, it is necessary either to use 
a brood-chamber containing sufficient room for the spring brood- 
rearing or to give an additional brood-chamber during the spring if 
a small hive is used. So far as swarming is concerned, it is necessary 
to have a large brood-chamber only during the short period when 
brood-rearing is heaviest. Large hives, however, do not of them- 
selves entirely prevent swarming. 
CHARACTER OF THE BROOD-COMBS. 
The combs of the brood-nest should be suitable for the rearing of 
worker brood throughout except for a few cells of drone-comb in the 
lower corners of some of the frames, which can not be entirely elimi- 
nated. It is quite possible to have a brood-chamber of ample size 
for the maximum amount of brood, but at the same time to have the 
brood-rearing space so reduced by imperfect combs that, so far as 
swarming is concerned, the effect is the same as if the brood-chamber 
were much smaller. Imperfect cells and drone-comb within the 
brood-chamber not only reduce its capacity for worker-brood but 
such imperfect comb may act as an obstruction to the queen in ex- 
panding the brood-nest in the spring. If combs unsuitable for brood- 
rearing are between the combs already occupied with brood and the 
perfect combs beyond, the imperfect comb stands in the way of a 
free expansion of the brood-nest, the queen may confine her work to 
but one side of the hive at a time, and swarming may follow. When 
two stories are used early in the season to supply the necessary brood- 
rearing space, it is important that combs which have perfect worker- 
cells to the top bar be used at least in the lower hive body to permit 
the queen to work readily through both stories. When combs having 
several rows of imperfect cells next to the top bar are used, the queen 
may be partially confined to one or the other of the hive bodies be- 
cause of the space which intervenes between the available worker- 
comb in the two hive bodies. The partial confinement of the queen 
to one or the other of the two brood-chambers in this way may be 
equivalent to the use of but one brood-chamber, so far as available 
room for the queen is concerned. 
As a swarm-preventive measure it is important, therefore, that all 
the combs used in the brood-chamber be suitable for the rearing of 
worker-brood throughout practically their entire area. Such combs 
can be provided only by the use of full sheets of foundation in the 
brood frames, together with special care in wiring the frames, im- 
