PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE W T FALCONER MANFG CO 



VOL. IV. 



JUNE, 1894. 



ISO. 6. 



Preventing Increase or Nat- 

 ural Swarminq. 



BY til \s. a. Til IKS. 



While it has, for a few years past 

 not been much trouble to me to pre- 

 vent increase, yet it seems to be quite 

 a problem to many. Why, friends ! it 

 is no trouble in the world to prevent 

 swarming. The surest way I know 

 of, and it will work every time, is to 

 keep your colonies weak; try it and 

 see, but after all, you will surely find 

 it more profitable to keep your colo- 

 nies strong, and have natural swarm- 

 ing. In all my experience which is 

 not large, yet covers a period of some 

 12 to lo years, 1 have found that bees 

 do better and give better returns if 

 allowed to swarm naturally, not to 

 swarm themselves to death, but I like 

 each colony to -warm once, no more 

 amino less. "After Swarming " is 

 what play- havoc with the homy crop. 

 Many bee-keeper- with experience ad- 

 vise keeping young queens in your 

 colonies to keep down swarming, which 

 to a great extent agrees with my ex- 

 perience, and not only that, a hive 

 containing a young queen will breed 

 up earlier, remain stronger, and ad- 

 mit nearly twice the amount of bees 

 in one hive, without a desire of 



swarming, than will a colony with an 

 old three year old queen and the 

 strength of the colony is what makes 

 things count when your object is a 

 honey crop, but if you make the rear- 

 ing of bees and queens the object, it is 

 another matter. 1 remember years ago 

 when honey was my object, of several 

 methods I tried, to prevent swarming, 

 one method although a good deal of 

 work was connected with it, 1 will 

 give for what it is worth, and if any 

 one reading this is very desirous to 

 prevent swarming, I wish they would 

 try it, and report through the Bee- 

 Keeper. This method is very simple 

 and may not amount to much, but 

 with me it did smely work. The 

 method was about as follow.-: When 

 you notice a colony desirous of swarm- 

 ing, just exchange the queen with the 

 queen of some other colony, which is 

 easily (lone at this season. This plan 

 has worked with me whenever tried, 

 vet it may not work every time, as we 

 all know, or at least most of us know, 

 that sometime.- the queen is the fault 

 of a swarm, and again sometimes the 

 bees are at fault. I have often noticed a 

 swarm issue, when the queen was not 

 willing to go, and actually did not go, 

 even in the second and third at- 



