FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 175 



were kept as a sort of store-house where extra frames of 

 brood or honey could be put, to be drawn from as occa- 

 sion required, but often there has been no drawing, and 

 these "piles" have grown to be four or five stories high 

 with an immense force of bees. I never knew one of 

 them to swarm. But the ventilation was as immense as 

 the force of bees, for each story had an entrance of good 

 size, and perhaps the super-abundance of ventilation was 

 the secret of their not swarming. 



YOUNG QUEENS AND SWARMING. 



, It was said that colonies with queens of the current 

 year's rearing would not swarm, and one year I supplied 

 all the colonies of one apiary with young queens about 

 the beginning of the honey harvest. It didn't work. 



Once when a colony swarmed and returned to its 

 hive, I removed its queen and gave it a queen that I think 

 had not been laying more than two or three days. Within 

 three days that queen came out with the swarm. It seems 

 the condition of the colony has more to do with the case 

 than the condition of the queen. C. J. H. Gravenhorst, 

 late editor of Deutche Illiistrierte Bienenzcitung, gives 

 what I think is the truth about young queens and swarm- 

 ing : A given colony will not swarm with a queen of 

 this year if the queen was reared in this colony ; if reared 

 elsewhere it may swarm. Why that difference he did not 

 know. But some have claimed exceptions to this rule. 



TAKING TWO FRAMES OF EROOD WEEKLY. 



One season I kept eight brood-combs in the hive, and 

 every week or ten days took out two of the central combs, 

 replacing them with foundation or empty combs. 

 This was to give the queen so much room that there 

 should be no desire to swarm. It was successful in most 

 cases, but there were too manv exceptions to make the 

 plan reliable. 



