13 , 
paragraphs on this subject are taken from the Department publication 
“The Honey Bee,” cited on p. 8: 
The most commonly practiced and easily applied preventive measure is that of 
giving abundant room for storage of honey. This to be effective should be given 
early in the season, before the bees get fairly into the swarming notion, and the 
honey should be removed frequently, unless additional empty combs can be given in 
the case of colonies managed for extracted honey, while those storing in sections 
should be given additional supers before those already on are completed. With 
colonies run for comb honey it is not so easy to keep down swarming as in those run 
for extracted honey and kept supplied with empty comb. Free ventilation and 
shading of the hives as soon as warm days come will also tend toward prevention. 
Opening the hives once or twice weekly and destroying all queen cells that have 
been commenced will check swarming for a time in many instances, and is a plan 
which seems very thorough and the most plausible of any to beginners. But some- 
times swarms issue without waiting to form cells; it is also very difficult to find all 
cells without shaking the bees from each comb in succession, an operation which, 
besides consuming much time, is very laborious when supers have to be removed, and 







Fic. 7.—The Simmins non-swarming system—single-story hive with supers: be, brood chamber; 
sc, supers; st, starters of foundation; ¢, entrance. 
greatly disturbs the labors of the bees. If but one cell is overlooked the colony will 
stillswarm. The plan therefore leaves at best much to be desired, and is in general 
not worth the effort it costs and can not be depended on. 
Dequeening.—The removal of a queen at the opening of the swarming season inter- 
feres, of course, with the plans of the bees, and they will then delay swarming untii 
they get a young queen. Then if the bee keeper destroys all queen cells before the 
tenth day, swarming will again be checked. But to prevent swarming by keeping 
colonies queenless longer than a few days at most is to attain a certain desired result 
at a disproportionate cost, for the bees will not store diligently when first made 
queenless, and the whole yield of honey, especially if the flow is extended over some 
time, or other yields come later in the season, is likely or even nearly sure to be less 
from such colonies, while the interruption to brood rearing may decimate the colony 
and prove very disastrous to it. The plan is therefore not to be commended, 
Requeening.—Quite the opposite of this, and more efficacious in the prevention of 
swarming, is the practice of replacing the old queen early in the season with a 
young one of the same season’s raising, produced perhaps in the South before it is 
possible to rear queens in the North. Such queens are not likely to swarm during 
