SPRING MANAGEMENT OE BEES. 11 



build up into a new colony. If it is preferred not to have any 

 increase, after the swarm is hived, the cells may be cut out and 

 the old hive set over the new with an excluder between and 

 left to develop the brood. In this way all the brood will be 

 added to the colony and no increase made. 



Another plan is to leave the old hive beside the new until 

 all the brood has emerged ; then shake the bees in front of the 

 new hive and take the old hive away. With this plan all queen 

 cells must be cut out at the time the swarm is hived and again 

 in ten days so as to keep the colony queenless. 



Best Time to Make Incbease. 



The best time to make increase is at swarming time or a 

 little later. If some of the colonies reach maximum strength 

 before the honey flow starts, they will begin to go backward 

 unless something is done to keep up their interest in brood pro- 

 duction. It is a good plan, if the beekeeper wishes increase, 

 to make up nuclei from these strong colonies, by taking frames 

 of brood and bees from them and giving these nuclei either 

 ripe queen cells or laying queens. 



This plan may be used also in seasons when the honey 

 flow is delayed for any reason so that the colonies reach their 

 peak of production too soon. Another method is to keep the 

 colonies from building swarming cells as long as possible, but 

 those which persist in building queen cells should be treated by 

 the Demaree plan, and when queen cells in the upper body 

 are nearly ready to hatch, remove the upper body to a new lo- 

 cation and provide it with a laying queen or ripe cell from 

 some other stock if you do not wish to breed from that one. 

 In this way all the field force of the colony is kept together 

 for the honey harvest, but the brood and young bees, which 

 will not be old enough to gather much honey during that flow, 

 are used in making the increase. 



Unless the beekeeper has had some experience in rearing 

 queens, and has such conditions in his locality that he can 

 breed true, it will be much better to buy queens from some- 

 reliable breeder. There is more or less damage to queens from, 

 being shipped long distances through the mails, so it is always, 

 best to procure queens from the nearest reliable breeder. 



