54 THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



\\'hile at the last ^lichigan convention I found a man who is 

 practicing- practically the same plan, and if I can ever get him 

 cornered I am going to find out just how he does it and let you 

 know. He gave me an invitation to visit him, so my chance is 

 good unless he reads this article before I get there. 



All this goes to show that we should take but little for granted. 

 Because ninety-nine people say it is so doesn't make it so. The 

 one hundredth may prove the ninety-nine are wrong. I shouldn't 

 wonder if we would hear from others who are using a double super 

 successfullv.l 



Swarming and Swarm Control. 



W. C. LYMAN. 



' •!/ DO XOT at the present time look upon swarming as an 

 ^jl instinct of the bees for increase, but I would consider it to be 

 a provision of X^ature for their distribution. Perhaps you would 

 call the difference a small one, and yet right on that small difference 

 hinges the idea of swarm control; for if swarming is not an instinct 

 of increase, but is the result of conditions, it follows that if we 

 remove the conditions which would cause bees to swarm, and yet 

 leave to them the full use of their instinct of increase, no swarming- 

 will take place ; and for about ten years that I have been experi- 

 menting along this line I have found such to be the fact. 



CAUSE or SWARJkXXNG. 



Swarming is a complex proposition, and its causes are numer- 

 ous, so I will not take up time with it now. but will only say that 

 for those causes with which we are mainly concerned, go to a hive 

 from which a prime swarm has issued under normal conditions, and 

 study carefully the conditions you find there ; and for those conditions 

 which will satisfy the bees and tend to prevent swarming, go to the 

 hive in which, under ordinary conditions, you would hive a prime 

 swarm, and study carefully the conditions you find there. 



Now it is true that there is once in a while a hive containing 

 bees in which the size of the hive, the capacity of the queen, the 

 ratio of her egg laying to the hatching of the brood, the arrangement 

 of the supers, and the temperature and ventilation, are all so nicely 

 balanced that no swarming results during the season. 



And there is also once in a while an apiarist like Dr. Miller who, 

 while trying to breed up a strain of non-swarming bees, is at the 

 same time such an expert at establishing favorable conditions and 

 obtaining results, that one is a little puzzled to determine just how 



