SPEING MANAGEMENT OF BEES. 5 



the hive at any season of the year. No beekeeper can make 

 his colonies immune to these diseases, but he can do a great deal 

 to keep his yards so clean and sanitary and his colonies so 

 strong that it will be difficult for diseases to enter. Pure 

 Italian stock seems to be more resistant to these diseases than 

 black or hybrid stocks; also some strains of Italians seem to 

 be more resistant than others. On this account it will pay ev- 

 ■ery beekeeper to have only healthy, resistant Italian bees in 

 his yards. Italian bees also have some other desirable traits, 

 such as, gentleness, less tendency to swarm, good nectar gath- 

 ering, and prolificacy in brood rearing, which make them the 

 most desirable race to keep. 



SWAKMING. 



Swarming is the satisfying of the instinct for reproduc- 

 tion. In studying swarming, we do not consider the bee as 

 an individual but the colony as the individual. When a colony 

 divides, or swarms, another individual has been produced. It 

 will be evident, then, that to control swarming we must com- 

 bat the natural instinct for reproduction. It is a difficult 

 problem. If bees were left to themselves, each colony would 

 cast one or more swarms each year. Bees cannot produce 

 surplus honey in any large amount and swarm, because the 

 honey which they would store if they did not swarm is used in 

 building new combs and in rearing brood. Colonies which are 

 prevented from swarming are the ones which produce the lar- 

 gest amounts of surplus honey, other things being equal. Our 

 object then as beekeepers is to prevent swarming so far as 

 possible, since our aim is the production of surplus honey. 



According to our best knowledge up to the present time, 

 the chief cause of swarming is the over-production of young 

 bees, i. e. having more young bees emerging than there are 

 larvae to feed. The first work of the young bees after they 

 emerge from the cells is to feed the larvae and build new combs. 

 A good queen, backed by a strong force of young bees, will lay 

 between two and three thousand eggs per day during this 

 season of the year. 



*See Farmers' Bulletins Nos. 975 and 1084. 



