302 THB bee-kebpBe's guidb; 



dom occur. Yet he says " seldom." We may safely say that 

 a perfect non-swarming hive or system is not yet before the 

 bee-keeping public. The best aids toward non-swarming are 

 shade, ventilation, and roomy hives. But as we shall see in 

 the sequel, much room in the brood-chamber, unless we work 

 for extracted honey — by which means we may greatly repress 

 the swarming fever — prevents our obtaining honey in a desir- 

 able style. If we add sections, unless the connection is quite 

 free — in which case the queen is apt to enter them and greatly 

 vex us — we must crowd some to send the bees into the sections. 

 Such crowding is almost sure to lead to swarming. I have, by 

 uncapping the combs of honey in the brood-chamber, as sug- 

 gested to me years ago by Mr. M. M. Baldridge — causing the 

 honey to run down from the combs — sent the bees crowding to 

 the sections, and thus deferred or prevented swarming. Those 

 who have frames that can be turned upside down, or invertible 

 hives, may often secure the same results by simple inversion. 

 By placing the sections in the brood-chamber till the bees 

 commence to work on them, and then removing them above, 

 or by carrying brood up beside the sections, the bees are gen- 

 erally induced to commence working in sections. Some sec- 

 tions with combs in them often aids much. This requires too 

 much manipulation, and so is not practical with the general 

 bee-keeper. 



It is possible that by extracting freely when storing is 

 very rapid, and then by freely feeding the extracted honey in 

 the interims of honey-secretion, we might prevent swarming, 

 secure very rapid breeding, and still get our honey in sections. 

 My experiments in this direction have not been as successful 

 as I had hoped, and I can not recommend the practice, though 

 some apiarists claim to have succeeded. Even if this could be 

 made to work it involves too much labor to make it advisable. 



The keeping of colonies queenless, in order to secure 

 honey without increase, is practiced and advised by some even 

 of our distinguished apiarists. As already stated, I have done 

 this with excellent results. Dr. C. C. Miller's method, already 

 described, accomplishes the same object, and keeps all the 

 queens at work all the time. 



