KEEPING TOO MANY BEES 81 



prevent it. One thing particularly exasperating 

 about the after-swarm is that the virgin queen, being 

 lighter bodied and lighter minded than the old 

 queen, may take the occasion of swarming to get 

 married, and go on her wedding journey; and thus 

 is likely to lead her followers a mad chase and leave 

 her proprietor so far in the rear that he loses the 

 swarm entirely. 



For the real reason of after-swarming we must 

 look upon the colony as an individual; and as nature 

 is wasteful in the production of individuals, these 

 weak after-swarms are analogous to the weaklings 

 among animals or plants, which must be sacrificed 

 for some inscrutable reason on the altar of the 

 preservation of the species. 



PREVENTION OF AFTER-SWARMS 



Mr. Hutchinson practises the following method: 

 When the first swarm comes off he places it in a new 

 hive like the old one, and puts the new hive on the 

 exact site of the old one, while the latter is moved 

 away just a little and faces in a different direction 

 than before. The new hive has four or five frames 

 with foundation starters, and on it is placed the super 

 with partially filled sections from the old hive, with 

 a queen-excluding board between the two; thus the 

 new swarm, having no brood ready, will store in 

 the supers until the brood-comb is built. Most of 

 the bees from the old hive, returning from the field, 

 will enter the new hive because the entrance to the 

 old hive is turned away. The old hive is then turned 



