244 A Modern Bee-Farm 
and vigorous queens. (7) Stocks too backward to start 
early work. 
Taking in detail the points thus enumerated— 
(1) “WANT OF SUFFICIENT VENTILATION.” With a 
strong colony in full swing during favorable weather, the 
entrance should be fully open, and if necessary, the cover 
raised. | cannot imagine a well-found colony with a young 
queen attempting to swarm from the four extracting 
chambers of the Conqueror when thus ventilated, or from 
the comb-honey chambers as presently mentioned. 
(2) “UstnG ExCLUDER ZINC.” This is an impediment 
from my point of view, and has much to do with preventing 
the bees working in the supers and so bringing on a desire 
to swarm by over-crowding the stock combs. I have 
always insisted upon the rule that the best queen-excluder 
is the early and powerful colony ; and with such the queen 
has no chance to rear an excess of, or mis-placed brood 
when honey is to be found. This assertion finds ready 
support from prominent writers. 
‘Nos. 3, 4, and 5 are all related to each other in the order 
given, and tend to cramp the bees for storage room where 
most wanted, at the very time the owner should be prepared 
with all the available cells for storage. 
I also find that 6 and 7 are very closely connected. 
Young queens or the stocks possessing them are less 
inclined to swarm ; generally winter satisfactorily and start 
off in very good condition in the Spring. I repeat it is the 
backward, and not the powerful early stocks, which give 
the most trouble in swarming, and if, as usually happens, 
the late colony has an old queen and comes into full 
condition about the middle of the honey flow, nothing will 
prevent the issue of a swarm, unless the queen and all cells 
but one are destroyed. On the other hand the forward 
stock with a young queen begins to store from the first, and 
