THE BEEKEEPERS' REVIEW 215 



ing period, the writer has walked over the yard without opening a 

 single hive, and by the time the teams were taken care of and the 

 boys came to the yard and asked "what was doing." I would tell 

 them that I had marked 10, 12 or 14, as the case might be, to be 

 treated, and rarely ever was I mistaken, although we would look 

 over several others that were in the doubtful list. 



To locate these colonies having the swarming fever, that are 

 starting queen cell, the upper stories are set off on an empty body 

 for convenience, the hive tipped back from the bottom board and 

 the bees driven off the lower part of their combs with smoke. If 

 cells are well started, this will be all that is necessary to discover 

 their condition. In case you do not find cells by the smoke plan, 

 spread the bottom of the frames apart with the hands and look in 

 between the combs further up, also in between the lower edge of the 

 combs and the bottom-bar of the frame. With this examination, if 

 you do not find cells you can trust them for another week. 



The Shook Swarm Plan 



But few colonies are now handled on the shook swarm plan, the 

 majority being "swarmed" on a modified Alexander plan, that we 

 will describe in the following paragraph. There is too much ab- 

 sconding of swarms to work the shook swarm plan to a profit, espec- 

 ially when w^e have a much better plan, in the modified Alexander. 

 The shook swarm plan only being used in treating colonies for 

 American foulbrood. 



Our Modified Alexander Plan of Swarm Control 



In making up winter loss, or where drawn combs are available, 

 remove a central comb from the dead swarm hive, now find the 

 queen in the hive to be "swarmed" and place her on a comb contain- 

 ing but little brood. The comb containing the queen is now placed 

 in the prepared hive, said hive now being placed upon the old stand. 

 A queen excluder is now placed upon top, then a set of extracting 

 combs, and upon top of all, the old hive containing the balance of 

 the brood and bees. Of course they have cells started and in this 

 position will finish up as nice a bunch of queen cells as one wants to 

 see. 



Our Modified Feature of the Alexander Plan 



The reader will recognize the above plan as the regular Alex- 

 ander plan, and there is none better where drawn combs are to be 

 used, but if this plan is followed, and foundation used instead of 

 drawn combs, the bees will usually desert the queen below, doing 

 their work above where there are empty combs to store in, to the ne- 

 glect of the broodnest, consequently there may be no swarm left at 



