CHAPTER VIII 
Management Previous to the Honey-flow to Prevent Swarms 
INCREASING THE AMOUNT OF BROOD PRODUCED JUST 
BEFORE AND DURING THE WHITE-HONEY FLOW 
THE CHAPMAN PLAN 
For preventing swarming and for increasing the amount of 
brood produced previous to and during the fore part of the white- 
honey flow, Mr. S. D. Chapman, of Mancelona, Michigan, has a 
system of his own. He uses eight-frame hives, and the system is 
about as follows: At the approach of the warm period, which is 
usually near May 20, in this locality, he shakes the bees from two 
frames of brood, placing these two brood-frames without the bees 
in an upper story, taking out two empty combs from the upper 
story to replace those just removed from the lower story. He now 
puts a queen-excluder on the first story and the second story over 
it. This gives the queen in the lower story two extra combs to use 
for breeding purposes; and if there is young brood in the two 
combs placed in the upper story, this extra space in the two combs 
amounts to considerable. In a week or two, two more frames of 
brood are lifted up into another or third upper story, making a 
three-story hive. This method of lifting brood from the brood-nest 
into upper stories is continued until it is desirable to curtail brood 
production on account of the bees not maturing in time to be hon- 
ey-gatherers. 
During 1906 Mr. Chapman lifted brood according to this plan 
in three-fourths of an outyard, when it turned cold and a strong 
northwest wind came up. On the colonies in the remaining fourth 
of the yard he put on the upper stories, but placed in them no 
brood. These last colonies were as good as the average of the 
yard. Shortly after the beginning of the raspberry flow he found 
that those colonies in the three-fourths of the yard, where brood 
had been placed in the upper stories, had from fifteen to twenty 
pounds of honey to their credit, and this gain remained throughout 
the season. 
