Swarm Control 



15 



supers and separated from them by a 

 queen excluder while the parent 

 colony Is above the supers. Nine or 

 ten days after the swarm has issued 

 any queen cells that the bees may 

 have built in the parent colony dur- 

 ing this interval should be destroyed. 

 Under certain conditions, not yet 

 fully explained, this has not been 

 found necessary if the parent colony 

 is separated from the swarm by at 

 least two full-depth extracting supers, 

 but with less than this distance be- 

 tween, such colonies may swarm when 

 the young queens in the parent colony 

 begin to emerge. 



If increase is desired, this brood 

 chamber may be taken away a week 

 after the swarm has issued, to form 

 a new colony. In this ease the queen 

 cells should not be destroyed. If too 

 many bees cling to the old brood 

 chamber the bees from all but three 

 or four of the combs may be shaken 

 into the supers in order to strengthen 

 the swarm and also to make the 

 parent colony too weak to cast an 

 afterswarm. The combs containing 



V*- 



FiG. 5.— Cage arranged to catch, issuing 

 swarm. Especially useful when several 

 swarms' issue at about the same time 



the best queen cells should not be 

 shaken because of the danger of in- 

 juring the immature queens. If some 

 combs having queen cells are shaken 

 the cells should be destroyed to pre- 

 vent the emergence of any injured 

 queens. If choice queen cells from a 

 breeding queen are available, all the 

 cells on the combs from the parent 

 colony should be destftoyed and one 

 of the choice cells should be given. 

 When comb honey is being produced 

 the parent colony can not well be 

 united with the swarm directly in this 

 way, but it should be left beside the 



swarm six or seven days, for on the 

 eighth day the parent colony would 

 normalljr cast its first afterswarm. It 

 should then be moved away and given 

 a new location well separated from 

 other colonies In another part of the 

 apiary. This should be done when the 

 young bees that have learned to fly 

 during the week are flying freely, 

 preferably early in the afternoon, and 

 the hive should be carried away and 

 placed on its new stand so carefully 



Fig. 6. — After the swarm has entered the 

 new hive the hive of the parent colony is 

 turned toward its former position 



that the bees are not disturbed, in 

 order that they will go to the fields 

 without noting the change in their 

 surroundings. If this is done care- 

 fully, all of the field bees when return- 

 ing from the field will return to their 

 former location, where they must enter 

 the other hive and unite with the 

 swarm. This adds a large number of 

 young >vorkers to the swarm, where 

 they are of the greatest value at this 

 time, and at the same time so reduces 

 the number of bees in the parent 

 colony that afterswarming is given up. 

 The successful prevention of after- 

 swarming by this method depends upon 

 the completeness of the reduction of 

 the iwpulation of the parent colony 

 just before the time for the issuing of 

 the first afterswarm. If anything 

 should prevent this reduction at the 

 right time, such as confinement of the 

 bees to the hive for a day or two by 

 bad weather at the time the parent 

 hive is moved away, or the emergence 

 of the young queens earlier or later 

 than expected, colonies treated in this 

 way may have enough bees when the 

 first young queen emerges to send out 

 an afterswarm. Under such condi- 

 tions it may be necessary to shake the 

 bees from several of the combs of the 

 parent colony, uniting them with the 

 swarm at the time the hive is moved 

 away, to be sure of a depletion of the 

 parent colony sufiScient to prevent 



