SPRING MANAGEMENT OF BEES. 7 



in new supplies of pollen and honey before it can again pro- 

 duce surplus honey. This will take longer than for the swarm 

 since this colony has very few field bees left. From this dis- 

 cussion it will be evident that both parts of the original colony 

 will not store as much surplus as the old colony would have 

 done if it had not swarmed. It often happens that a colony 

 which swarms at the beginning of the honey flow will not 

 store any surplus from that flow, so it is best from the beekeep- 

 er's point of view to prevent swarming as far as possible. 



SwAEM Prevention. 



Man cannot make bees do as he wishes unless he adapts his 

 work to the natural instincts of the bees. In any attempt to 

 control swarming, then, we must provide conditions which will 

 be favorable toward honey production and away from queen 

 cell building. Colonies differ very much in the persistency 

 with which they carry out an idea. Some colonies will give up 

 the idea of swarming very readily while others will persist in 

 building queen cells in spite of all the beekeeper can do. Some 

 colonies in some seasons will give up preparations for swarm- 

 ing after the beekeeper has killed their queen cells once or 

 twice, while the next year, maybe, they will swarm out after 

 the cells have been cut out repeatedly. Usually, however, if 

 tlie beekeeper gives plenty of room in the brood nest and gives 

 a super or two before they really need them, he can keep most 

 of his colonies interested in storing honey. 



If this method of cell killing is used as a swarm preven- 

 tive measure, the beekeeper will have to look through his col- 

 onies very carefuily every eight or ten days during the brood- 

 rearing period preceding the honey flow, and kill all the cells. 

 If he misses one, the colony will swarm. This method is very 

 tedious and is not always effective, so some other plan may 

 work better. A plan which provides conditions within the hive 

 very much like those under natural swarming is named after 

 the originator, the "Demaree Plan." 



This, briefly, consists in raising all the frames of brood, 

 except one, together with all the young bees, into an upper 

 body, and confining the queen below under an excluder on this 



