344 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



the young bees, can easily be observed 

 by any bee-keeper. 



It is recommended by some to pre- 

 vent swarming- by placing the queen 

 with one or two brood combs in a new 

 hive on the old stand. On top of it is 

 placed a queen excluder, and over this 

 the hive with the other brood combs. 

 How can this way of prevention of 

 swarming be explained by Gerstung's 

 theory ? At first it must be considered 

 that the queen excluder is so much of a 

 hindrance for the bees that, to a certain 

 degree, the two paits divided by the 

 excluder feel themselves as two differ- 

 ent colonies, but not so much that the 

 bees above feel entirely qneenless, and 

 would start queen cells, but just 

 enough so that they nurse queen larvae, 

 if such are present. The bees above are 

 dissatisfied with the laying power of 

 the queen, and will start queen cups 

 and expect the queen to lay eggs in 

 them. Above the excluder we find all 

 the signs of the swarming impulse. 

 The bees below the excluder are in the 

 condition of a swarm; little brood 

 will be reared, or combs built. The 

 bees below will not swarm and the 

 bees above cannot. This is the reason 

 why we can raise queens in such 

 supers as well as from swarm cells, if 

 the colony is strong enough. Here is 

 another important fact; the young bees, 

 asloi:;g as they are nurse-bees, gener- 

 ally do not leave the place in the hive 

 where they have hatched from the cells: 

 another reason why the brood should 

 not be destroyed. 



Mr. Getaz mentions the lack of venti- 

 lation as a condition which may induce 

 swarming. He says the real cause is 

 overheating. The brood itself, by con- 

 suming a large quantity of food, pro- 

 duces a considerable quantity of heat. 

 If the hive is exposed to the sun, and 

 has no good ventilation, the bees can 

 hardly keep the temperature low 

 enough to prevent the melting down of 

 the combs. They sometimes remove the 

 eggs from the cells. Young larvae may 

 die by overheating, and so a surplus of 

 chyle can be caused. Such a condi- 

 tion is very unsatisfactory to the bees, 

 and sometimes they move out of the 

 hive, as a swarm, without having 

 started queen cells. 



If we work for comb honey, we can- 

 not give a surplus of empty cells. The 

 brood is crowded by the honey, which 

 the bees store in the brood-nest because 

 in the supers are no emyity cells, 

 simply foundation not drawn out as 

 yet, and so the condition is created by 



which the swarming impulse will 

 appear. Here we need other ways to 

 prevent swarming. 



If a colony shall store honey in sec- 

 tions, we need a small brood-nest, in 

 which, if possible, every cell is occu- 

 pied by brood; no empty cells should be 

 present, in which the bees can store 

 honey. Such a condition forces the 

 bees to work in the section supers, but, 

 at the same time, it is very favorable to 

 cause a surplus of chyle, as the queen 

 cannot lay to her full capacity, and, 

 so, the swarming impulse will appear. 

 These small brood chambers have 

 another disadvantage in the spring. 

 They are not favorable to brood-rear- 

 ing. To overcome this, spreading of 

 the brood is recommended, but, gener- 

 ally, more damage is done thereby 

 than good. A better way seems to me 

 to use a divisible brood chamber, large 

 enough for brooding, and when the 

 main honey flow commences, remove 

 one half of it to the top of the section 

 supers. 



The practice of comb honey pro- 

 ducers generally, was to let those col- 

 onies with small brood chambers alone. 

 If they do not swarm, the bee-keeper 

 accepted the situation thankfully; if a 

 colony did swarm, this swarm was 

 hived'on starters, set on the old stand, 

 and the supers given to this swarm. 

 If Heddon's plan to prevent after- 

 swarms were used, and so much more 

 bees added to the swarm, such a colony 

 generally gathered as much honey as 

 another colony that did not swarm at 

 all. If we have out-apiaries for comb 

 honey this plan can't be used; for this 

 purpose we need a way to prevent 

 natural swarming entirely. 



The best way to prevent swarming 

 is to prevent the start of the swarming 

 impulse. If this is not possible, the 

 next best thing is to satisfy this im- 

 pulse. We can do this in different 

 ways, as I will explain. The least 

 satisfactory way would be to prevent 

 swarming in a mechanical way, and at 

 the same time leaving the condition 

 which caused the swarming impulse. 



For instance, we could prevent 

 swarming by a queen excluder or a 

 queen trap, but such a colony would 

 probably swarm out every day till the 

 old queen would be killed. Then a 

 young queen would lead out swarms 

 several times a day. During all this 

 time very little is done in the supers; 

 the bees are sulking; the whole state 

 of aff'airs is apparently very unsatis- 

 factory to the bees. 



