30 BULLETIN 1349, IT. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



MIGRATIONS OF THE QUEEN WITHIN THE HIVE 



Besides the study of brood-rearing activity in the colony as a whole 

 throughout the year, it is of interest to follow the brood-rearing 

 activity of the same colony within particular hive bodies during that 

 period, because, if adequate room is provided, one hive body is rarely 

 the scene of the brood rearing of a normal colony throughout an 

 entire season. The existence of such a piece of apiary apparatus as 

 a queen excluder suggests how common an occurrence it is for the 

 queen to transfer her egg-laying activity from one hive body to 

 another. The causes of these vertical migrations and the ultimate 

 effects on brood-rearing activity are as yet not fully, determined. 

 In passing, another type of migration should be noted, which takes 

 place entirely within a hive body and which may be termed a hori- 

 zontal migration, or a migration from frame to frame. A knowledge 

 of the causes and effects of the queen's migrations is of direct value 

 in the determination of the size of frame and hive which will most 

 directly contribute to a maximum brood-rearing activity. 



Since, all things considered, colony No. 4 was the most normal of 

 the 16, the migrations of its queen in 1921 (Fig. 24) and 1922 (Fig. 25) 

 will be considered somewhat at length. The cluster of this colony 

 during the winter preceding each of the two active seasons was 

 located in the second hive body. It is probably because of this 

 fact that brood rearing began there each spring. During the initial 

 expansion of each year, however, the queen approached the limit of 

 cells available in the second hive body, whereupon the lower hive 

 body afforded the only room for an enlargement of the brood area, 

 because the first super had not then been added. 



In 1921, the season with inclement weather in April, there was 

 comparatively little brood-rearing activity in the first hive body 

 at any time. Such weather tends to contract the area occupied by 

 the bees, and thus restrict the expansion of the brood area. These 

 conditions, prevailing at the time of the queen's first visit to the lower 

 hive body, naturally caused her stay there to be rather brief. When 

 the weather became better more room was already available in the 

 second hive body, owing in part to a further consumption of stores. 

 This additional space allowed the queen to increase her egg-laying 

 activities without much enlargement of the brood area in the first 

 hive body which resulted from her initial visit. Furthermore, 

 almost immediately afterwards, in May, nectar began to come in 

 rather abundantly and was deposited in the third hive body, which 

 had now been put on, the presence of nectar in this super attracting 

 the queen upward rather than downward. In the meantime the 

 first hive body became well filled with pollen and nectar. It is 

 interesting to note that in the latter part of April, in response to the 

 inclement weather, the sealed brood curve for the second hive body 

 (Fig. 24) remains near a certain level until the effects of the bad 

 weather have ceased, and that in the first hive body this curve does 

 not rise above the point marking its first appearance. In 1922 

 (Fig. 25) the inclement weather occurred before the colony was in 

 need of expanding into the lower hive body. The queen was there- 

 fore able to complete her stay below, and the sealed brood area in 

 the first hive body came to occupy nearly as many cells at the end 

 of April as had the brood area in the second hive body at the 

 time of the expansion into the first. 



