THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 95 



DOESN'T IiIKE THESE FltAlTS. 



I invested in the booklet, "A Radical Cure for the Swarming 

 Habit of Bees/' by Dr. Jones, and after studying the system I could 

 not bring myself to believe that to be the best method of preventing 

 the swarming of bees, so I did not adopt it. It was certainly radical 

 enough, and without doubt would fulfill all claims, but it seemed an 

 unnecessary sacrifice of brood and waste of bee energy; and, besides, 

 it was an extremely disagreeable job and looked too much like 

 ■"bloody murder." It seemed cruel enough to shave the heads off 

 of drone brood, but when it came to destroying worker brood I had 

 to draw the line. I tried and studied several other systems of 

 swarm control, including the Alexander method of increase and 

 control. By the Alexander system the brood is set on top of a 

 prepared hive body containing the queen and a frame of brood and 

 foundation or empty combs, with an excluder between the two sec- 

 tions, and allowed to remain so about ten days. If there is any 

 honey coming in it goes into the old brood section above just where 

 it is not wanted, and the queen being confined to the lower story, 

 there is nothing to prevent the starting of queen cells in the upper 

 stor}' and a swarm issuing ahead of time. The shook-swarm system 

 ( with apologies to Dr. ^filler) is not to be considered. It is too 

 fussy and mussy, and cannot be practiced with economy of time and 

 labor. The same may be said of taking away frames of brood and 

 ^substituting empty combs or foundation as a preventive. 



A COMBINATION OF SYSTEMS. 



I then began practicing a combination of two or three systems 

 and evolved the following sA'stem of swarm control; and while it is 

 in its results nearly the same as shaken swarms, it is far better, and 

 eliminates the disagreeable features of that system. It is a short 

 cut to the end in view, being a simple and reliable method of con- 

 trolling the swarming instinct of bees. There is no shaking of bees 

 from the combs, no handling of frames except to find the queen 

 (and even that may be omitted), no cutting out of queen cells, no 

 imsealed brood left to chill, the lifting of heavy hives is reduced to 

 a minimum, no worry about a swarm issuing in the meantime, and 

 no extra expense for new fixtures. A slight change in a regular 

 bottom board is all that is needed, which will save a lot of lifting 

 and turning of hives. Of course, it is to be understood that all 

 colonies must be made strong in bees early in the season in order 

 to have the bees to catch the white clover flow, which opens here 

 about June loth. The hive should be full of brood and eggs early 

 in May. A little stimulative feeding helps wonderfully, as the bees 

 will build up faster when fed a little warm syrup every evening than 

 when depending on their sealed stores. 



