10 



Farmers' Bulletin 1198 



culiarities of weather conditions and 

 honey flow. 



The presence of a large number of 

 field bees within the hive during the 

 swarming season evidently greatly in- 

 creases the tendency to swarm. 

 When the field bees are out of the 

 hive the colony is relieved of their 

 presence during the heat of the day 

 when they would add most to its 

 sensation of strength. If, however, 

 because of some fault in the manage- 

 ment, because of adverse weather 

 conditions, or because the flowers 

 yield nectar erratically, the field bees 

 remain in the hive, they add greatly 

 to the crowded condition of the brood 

 nest, and, therefore, increase the 

 tendency to swarm. 



It is well known that the advent of 

 a honey flow and active work in the 

 field greatly stimulates the activities 

 of the bees within the hive. Thou- 

 sands of younger bees or hive workers 

 now begin the tasks of preparing 

 empty combs for incoming nectar, or 

 for brood rearing, building new comb, 

 transferring nectar or honey, and 

 ripening the new nectar, but there is 

 apparently a rather delicate balance 

 between the work inside the hive and 

 the work in the field, for if the work 

 inside the hive is interrupted in any 

 way the work of the field bees slows 

 down accordingly. Therefore those 

 factors already discussed which tend 

 to produce congestion and idleness 

 among the young workers within the 

 brood nest during a honey flow quickly 

 add greatly to the number of unem- 

 ployed bees by causing the field bees 

 to remain in the hive instead of going 

 to the fields. 



If for any reason the expansion of 

 the activity of the hive workers is 

 interrupted a stagnation of the ac- 

 tivity within the hive must follow, 

 which in turn causes more and more 

 stagnation in the field work. Such a 

 condition may arise if the young bees 

 do not readily enter and occupy the 

 first super that is given, if additional 

 room is not given promptly to keep 

 pace with the increasing number of 

 oncoming young bees, if all the avail- 

 able space for evaporating nectar is 

 in use, if the hive workers are driven 

 out of the supers into the brood 

 chamber by heat or lack of ventilation, 

 if the newly added supers are too re- 

 mote or otherwise unattractive, or if 

 so much of the work is being finished 

 that the new and unfinished work is 

 less than that needed to employ most 

 of the hive workers. When the field 

 workers stay within the hive in in- 

 creasing numbers during a honey flow, 



preparation for swarming is the usual 

 result. In this way a slight inter- 

 ference with the activities of the hive 

 workers may quickly develop into a 

 serious condition which might easily 

 have been avoided if taken in time. 



When the field bees are confined to 

 their hives by several days of rain 

 just previous to or during the swarm- 

 ing season, the result may be a greatly 

 increased tendency to swarm. Some- 

 times two weeks of rain at about the 

 time of the normal swarming season is 

 followed by intense swarming. When 

 the field bees remain in their hives a 

 part of the time during the honey 

 flow because the flowers yield nectar 

 erratically the tendency to swarm 

 may be greatly increased. The pres- 

 ence of the great mass of fleld bees 

 within the hive during the heat of 

 the day from any of these causes must 

 add greatly to the tendency to swarm, 

 especially when the bees crowd in 

 great masses in the space below the 

 frames and in the lower portion of 

 the brood chamber, as they usually 

 do when they are in their hives tem- 

 porarily during the honey flow. 



In extracted-honey production it is 

 not difficult by good management to 

 prevent a crowding of the brood nest 

 during the honey flow by either young 

 bees or fleld bees, except in the last 

 two cases mentioned. Both of these 

 conditions are frequently encounterec^ 

 especially in the northeastern portion 

 of the United States in the clover re- 

 gion. There is, of course, no way by 

 which the field bees can be prevented 

 from staying in their hives in either 

 case, even if it were desirable to do so, 

 but by providing a deep space below 

 the frames and an abundance of venti- 

 lation, together with adequate protec- 

 tion from the direct rays of the sun, 

 the discomfort of the colony brought 

 about by the field bees within the hive 

 during the day may be considerably 

 relieved. 



To prevent swarming to the greatest 

 extent it is necessary to induce most 

 of the hive workers to leave the brood 

 nest early ii- their lives to take up 

 work in the supers, so that the bees of 

 the hive are distributed over a large 

 comb surface, which in turn should 

 stimulate the field bees to go to the 

 fleld in greater numbers. During the 

 heat of the day no more, bees should 

 remain within the brood chamber than 

 are needed for the work to be done 

 there. Such a distribution and em- 

 ployment of the hive workers usually 

 induces the field workers to put forth 

 the greatest energy in gathering nec- 

 tar. 



