40 ALEXANDER'S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 



you had better leave them only a few days together. The number you 

 must decide yourself according to the age of the eggs or larvae In their 

 queen-cells. If you are careful about this part I am sure you will find 

 it a fine way to make a large increase, and at the same time have your 

 colonies in good condition for any harvest. 



April, 1906. 



HOW TO DISPOSE OP NEW SWARMS AND THUS CONTROL 

 UNDESIRABLE INCREASE. 



While many are trying to invent some unnatural complicated hive, 

 with the erroneous belief that it will prevent bees from desiring to 

 swarm, and still others are recommending equally unnatural methods 

 in spending valuable time in changing their brood from hive to hive all 

 over the apiary, in hopes that they can overcome one of the strongest 

 natural laws that the Creator has stamped indelibly on our bees, I for 

 one will try to use the intelligence God has given me to work in har- 

 mony with his law, and see if, by so doing, we can not accomplish far 

 more, and at the same time do it much easier, than to work continually 

 in discord. 



If, in the past, man had only let reason harmonize a little more 

 with natural law the world would have been the better for It. There Is 

 one thing that I have noticed recently that I was sorry to see; that is, 

 some go so far as to say that swarming is a curse to bee-keeping, and 

 that it is a bane to our welfare. 



Let us consider which of all the many theories and methods that 

 are now before us is the practical one to care for a colony that has just 

 swarmed, in order that they can all be united again, and at the same 

 time do away with any desire to swarm again that season. From a long 

 and extensive experience along this line we find the following method 

 far better than any other that has ever been made public. It is this: 



HOW TO MAKE THE SWABM CONTENTED. 



We will suppose the colony is swarming, and we give them a hive 

 which has its frames filled with foundation. This will give them a 

 chance to use up the material for wax that is fast accumulating in their 

 bodies; and after they are all in the new hive we will bring it back to 

 the parent colony and set it on top, facing an opposite direction. This 

 gives them a new location to work from, and is of much importance. 

 Now leave them undisturbed until about night of the fourth day, 

 then just before dark set the new swarm to one side out of the way and 

 remove every comb from the old colony and shake the bees in the grass 

 two or three feet from their hive, and be sure you remove every queen- 

 cell from their combs and return them to the old hive; then shake the 

 combs of the new swarm on top of the other bees in the grass; look up 

 their queen and let her run into the old hive with some of her own 

 bees. Now put on an excluder; and if you are running your bees for 



