402 \ A Modern Bee-Farm 
is to follow my plan of using every tenth colony for nuclei 
as already shown. Your first harvest probably closes 
towards the latter part of July, and as soon as the supers 
can be removed, dethrone the old queen and in due course 
unite the stock and nucleus. You now have a stronger 
colony and a young queen who will take good care that her 
domains are not crowded with honey. Aer first season is 
just coming, and the bees will act accordingly. 
This is a special case and special treatment is required, 
as the honey nearly always comes in so freely that, by the 
old method, the already exhausted queens are soon crowded 
out, and by the time the earlier harvest is over, the workers 
are also largely worn out; whereas with the young queen 
we have a good stock left, with bees’still hatching to make 
up for the tremendous loss of life. More honey is 
accumulated because the population is larger and does 
not decrease as only too frequently has been the case. 
Queenless Period—More Brood. 
It is not generally realised that after a queenless period 
the bees, when again in possession of a young fertile queen, 
will be more determined to develop a large brood nest.* 
Hence the old queen may be removed some ten days before 
uniting with the nucleus and young queen. 
Where young queens are not secured, or those used may 
not be very prolific, the number of brood combs must be 
restricted just before supering ; and where swarms may not 
be set up on starters, the nearest equivalent is the use of a 
shallow brood chamber ; but with these plans there is 
always a loss of stock, which rarely pays for the extra 
yield from late crops. . 
* An exception may occur where a late reared queen is given toa 
stock, and neither natural nor artificial food is obtainable, the young 
queen then waiting until the following Spring. 
