AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



689 



of the bees' requirements ; but this is 

 only partially successful; the brood-nest 

 becomes crowded with both brood and 

 pollen, and a great many swarms issue. 

 Therefore, as a farther aid to preven- 

 tion while working for 



COMB HONEY, 



will the bee-keeper be compelled to re- 

 lieve the brood - chamber with the 

 extractor ? Oh, no, that will not remove 

 the pollen ; but by occasionally with- 

 drawing the two outer combs, and at 

 the same time inserting near the center 

 two frames with guides only. Mind, 

 these two frames are not to have empty 

 combs or fountation, or they may be 

 choked up at once to the exclusion of 

 the queen. 



PREVENTION WITH EXTRACTED HONEY 



has generally been a far more simple 

 matter where the bee-keeper will only 

 keep on hand plenty of empty combs 

 and extra sets of hive-chambers that 

 can be tiered up freely when the good 

 time comes. The brood-nest is not 

 cramped, and the bees are never allowed 

 to have all the combs completely capped 

 before the honey extractor relieves the 

 surplus combs of their accumulating 

 stores. 



But, after all, prevention is not al- 

 ways secured with such an unlimited 

 space. For one reason most bee-keepers 

 keep queens until they are too old, and 

 worse than that, such as are reared at 

 quite the wrong time of year to insure 

 the best results. 



Young queens will top all that has 

 been urged so far as aids to prevention 

 of swarming, though as a matter of fact 

 such queens will always be found at the 

 head of far stronger and more capable 

 colonies than any with ordinary swarm- 

 ing queens. 



The young queens should be reared in 

 nuclei towards the latter part of the 

 season, by the side of the respective col- 

 onies, and united to them before the 

 general clearing up, or where you ex- 

 pect a later harvest, shortly before that 

 occurs. Try it once, you follow it al- 

 ways. 



But above all, and in connection with 

 the last named condition, the 



FOREMOST METHOD OF PREVENTION 



it has been my lot to discover, is the 

 placing of an empty chamber under the 

 usual brood-chamber before the latter 

 becomes crowded. The frames of this 

 lower chamber have H inch guides only. 

 The surplus is worked as usual above 



the brood-chamber, when no combs are 

 completed below, even if left without 

 attention the whole season, provided the 

 former receive due care. There are no 

 traps and no constant shifting of heavy 

 weights ; the bees feel that their brood- 

 combs are never complete, aud the nat- 

 ural desire for swarming is lost. 



Before the plan is tried, the frequent 

 query is, " How can I possibly get the 

 bees to work in the surplus chamber 

 with so much room below '?" I have 

 never found the least difficulty. When 

 working for extracted honey, with 

 plenty of empty combs above, there can 

 be no difficulty. And when is there 

 anything in the way of bees going up 

 into the sections ? Only when you do 

 not use full sheets of foundation in 

 those sections ; and who in these days 

 can aflford to use anything less than full 

 sheets ? If you use only 



STARTERS IN THE SECTIONS 



then the combs are finished off with 

 drone-cells in many cases, with its 

 coarse, irregular cappings. The drone- 

 comb there has been the only induce- 

 ment for the queens to go up and breed 

 among the nice combs of honey; then 

 some of you felt that you must use the 

 queen-excluder zinc, with its added ex- 

 pense and inconvenience. 



Use nothing but full sheets of founda- 

 tion in the sections ; give empty frames 

 below the brood-chamber, and you will 

 find perforated zinc one of the biggest 

 shams ever put into a bee-hive. 



NATURAL vs. ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 



We next come to the question " wheth- 

 er it is advisable to prevent natural 

 swarming in all cases." Decidedly, yes. 

 It is opposed to all the first principles of 

 scientific breeding, and in northern lat- 

 itudes we do not want our queens reared 

 at the usual swarming time, as already 

 shown. We want at all times to keep 

 our bees so well in hand that we can 

 make our increase at the time it is going 

 to interfere the least with the main 

 work of honey gathering ; and we just 

 want every single queen reared and 

 mated by selection. 



In southern latitudes I should still 

 want to control the swarming impulse, 

 but whereas in the North but limited in- 

 crease is desirable, in tropical and semi- 

 tropical climates, the highest results are 

 only to be obtained by swarming (divid- 

 ing)- 



It is impossible in the latter case to 

 keep up a sufficiently large and contin- 

 ued working population to secure the 



