Swarm Control. 83 
mercial honey producers who operate several apiaries can not afford 
to permit natural swarming but must use some system by which 
swarming can be controlled by visiting each apiary at certain inter- 
vals and applying remedial measures if preventive measures are not 
sufficient. Producers of extracted honey who have good combs, good 
equipment, and a good strain of bees usually can control swarming to 
a sufficient degree, in many locations at least, by ordinary preventive 
measures and good management, so that it is not necessary to examine 
every colony once a week to see if preparations for swarming are 
being made. In some locations, however, the swarming tendency is 
so strong (p. 12) that the greatest skill in the application of pre- 
ventive measures is not sufficient to prevent loss, and some remedial 
measure must be applied. 
Comb-honey producers in regions suitable for commercial comb- 
honey production (see Farmers’ Bulletin 1039) find that while pre- 
ventive measures may greatly reduce swarming it is usually necessary 
to treat many of the colonies for swarming during ordinary seasons, 
while during occasional seasons it may be necessary to treat most of 
them. 
Swarming can be anticipated by creating conditions within the 
hive comparable either to those of « recently hived swarm or to those 
of the parent colony, and it is not necessary to wait until the swarm 
actually leaves the hive to do these things. In either case the neces- 
sary steps can be taken at the convenience of the beekeeper before 
the colony casts a swarm. To anticipate swarming, the beekeeper, 
therefore, as the first step, either takes away the combs of brood and 
arranges for the establishment of a new brood-nest, or he takes away 
the queen and destroys all queencells, if any are present. In some 
cases the removed brood is not taken entirely away from the colony 
but is separated from the queen and the new brood-chamber by means 
of a queen excluder, and in some cases the queen is not taken from the 
hive but is caged within the hive during the required interval, then 
released among the combs of brood. The subsequent behavior of 
the colony is practically the same as that of a natural swarm in the 
one case and that of the parent colony in the other. 
In the operation of out-apiaries or of any apiary in which an at- 
tendant is not present the beekeeper should use every precaution to pre- 
vent swarming (pp. 6-19) ; then, as the swarming season approaches, 
it may be necessary for him to examine the strongest colonies to de- 
termine if queencells are being built. If any such are found, it now 
becomes necessary either to begin a systematic examination of each 
colony every week or ten days during the swarming season for indi- 
cations of preparations for swarming and to treat those colonies 
which need treatment, or to treat all of the colonies, whether or not 
