FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 165 



g'ood siKo, and perhaps thn siipenibundanee of ventilation was 

 the secret of their not swarming. 



YOUNG QUEENS AND SWARMING. 



It was said that colonies with queens of the current year's 

 rearing would not swarm, and one year I supplied all the colo- 

 onies of one apiary with young queen? about the beginning of 

 the honey harvest. It didn't work. 



Onoe when a colony swarmed, and returned to its hive, I 

 removed its queen and gave it a queen that I think had not been 

 laying more than two or three days. Within three days that 

 queen came out with the swarm. It seems the condition of the 

 colony has more to do with the ease than the condition of the 

 queen. C. J. H. Gravenhorst, late editor of Deutsche lUustrierte 

 Bicticnzeitung, gives what I think is the truth about young 

 queens and swarming: A given colony will not swarm with a 

 queen of this year if the queen was reared in this colony ; if 

 reared elsewhere it may swarm. Why that difference he did 

 not know. But some have claimed exceiitions to this rule. 



TAKING TWO FRAMES OF BROOD WEEKLY. 



One season I kept eight brood-combs in the hive, and every 

 week or ten days took out two of the central combs, replacing 

 them with foundation or empty combs. This was to give the 

 queen so much room that there should be no desire to swarm. 

 It was successful in most cases, but there were too many excep- 

 tions to make the plan reliable. 



TAKING AWAY ALL BROOD. 



Afterward I carried the same thing to its extreme limit in 

 a good many cases, taking away all the brood. One frame of 

 brood, however, was left for two or three days, perhaps a week, 

 for fear the bees would be discouraged and desert an entirely 

 empty hive. This one frame of brood was then taken away 

 because it was the common thing for the bees to start queen- 

 cells on it. Yet it is just possible that no swarming would have 

 taken place, in spite of the queen-cells. 



