78 Beekeeping 



tion of extracted-honey, in which the bees are provided 

 with an abundance of empty combs, swarming is much less 

 common than from the contracted and crowded hives con- 

 sidered necessary for the production of comb-honey. 

 Similarly in the " non-swarming hive" devised by L. A. 

 Aspinwall, Jackson, Michigan, an abundance of room is 

 provided in the brood chamber by the insertion of slatted 

 wooden separators between the brood combs. From this 

 array of seemingly irreconcilable statements, one thing in 

 common may be observed. So far as contraction is con- 

 cerned, when swarming is less common there is room avail- 

 able for the young bees which have not yet begun their 

 field duties. 



In the preparation of his Farmers' Bulletin on Comb 

 Honey, 1 Demuth makes a careful analysis of the various 

 methods employed in the control of swarming, which is so 

 important a problem in the production of comb-honey. 

 The following quotation from this bulletin gives his con- 

 clusions : "Any manipulation for swarm control, whether 

 applied after the colony has acquired the 'swarming fever' 

 or applied to all colonies alike previous to the swarming 

 season, is based upon a single principle a temporary dis- 

 turbance in the continuity of the daily emergence of brood. 

 This disturbance should occur just previous to or during 

 the swarming season." While the various methods of 

 swarm control are reserved for a later chapter, the funda- 

 mental principle that there must be a temporary disturbance 

 in the continuity of brood emergence, which Demuth was 

 the first to point out, is of primary importance in a con- 

 sideration of the cause of swarming. The methods de- 

 scribed in Demuth's bulletin are those which have proved 

 reliable in the hands of practical beekeepers throughout 

 the United States and yet these methods do not have in 

 common those things which are called for in considering 

 overcrowding, overheating, lack of ventilation or the presence 



1 Demuth, Geo. S., 1912. Comb Honey. Farmers' Bulletin 503, U. S. 

 Dept. of Agric. [see especially pp. 34-35]. 



