ADVANCED BEE-CUIvTURE. 



35 



while the young queen will not have 

 been laying more than two or three days 

 at the most. The few remaining bees 

 can now be shaken from the combs of the 

 old colony and allowed to run into the 

 new hive. If there is any choice of 

 queens, the apiarist can kill the one that 

 is the less desirable; otherwise he can 

 allow the queens to settle the matter for 

 themselves. I prefer the latter course. 

 What little honey is left in the combs 

 may be extracted, and the combs, unless 

 there is some immediate use for them, 

 stored away and close watch kept over 

 them, that they are not injured by the 

 bee-moth's larvae. I don't like the plan 

 of putting the brood combs of a colony 

 from which a swarm has issued, upon 

 some other hive, the cells being filled 

 with honey as fast as the bees hatch. 

 There seems to be no good plan of allow- 

 ing bees to swarm and then preventing 

 increase by uniting, without having an 

 extra set of combs built for each swarm 

 that issues, but t believe such combs are 

 produced at a profit. There is still 

 another plan of preventing increase, be- 

 sides that of merging the old colony in- 

 to the new; it is that of contracting the 

 brood nest of the newly hived swarm to 

 such an extent that the end of the season 

 will find it too reduced in numbers for 

 successful wintering, when it may be 

 united with the parent colony. 



I do not wish to be understood as say- 

 ing or even intimating that there are no 

 other methods of preventing or control.- 

 ling increase. There are several. But it 

 is not always a question of what can be 

 done, but of can it be done profitably "? 

 Some have practiced, and reported favor- 

 ably, the plan of allowing a swarm to 

 return to the old hive, then removing 

 the queen, and afterwards cutting out all 

 the queeu cells except one. It has this 

 in its favor: The colony is requeened; 

 but, as an offset, there is the labor of 

 cutting out the cells, with the possibility 

 that one or more may be overlooked, or 

 that the one left ma}- not hatch. With 

 the prices at which honey sells, there 

 must be as little of this "puttering" work 



as possible. The cutting out of queen 

 cells, handling of combs singly, chang- 

 ing them about, etc. , must be dropped 

 for more wholesale, short-cut methods. 

 There must be more handling of hives 

 and less manipulation of combs. 



For some reason a colony with a queen 

 of the current year seldom swarms. Per- 

 haps one reason is that her vigorous lay- 

 ing does not allow the bees to crowd her 

 out, and thus reduce the amount of brood 

 compared with the number of nurse bees. 

 In order to be effective, the young queens 

 must be introduced early in the spring, 

 before there are any preparations for 

 swarming. It is difficult to rear queens 

 so early in the season, and expensive to 

 get them from the South. 



Quite a number of bee-keepers have 

 succeeded to their entire satisfaction in 

 preventing after-swarming, also in pre- 

 venting increase, while but very few have 

 succeeded in preventing swarming. 

 Probably the only certain method that 

 has been used to any extent, in this 

 country, is that of removing the queens 

 just at the opening of the swarming sea- 

 son, leaving the colonies queenless about 

 three weeks. Of course, queen cells 

 must be cut out at least twice during this 

 interval. Although a few, good men 

 practice this method, I never could bring 

 myself to adopt it — there is too much 

 labor. I have said nothing in regard to 

 making increase artificially, because, un- 

 less there is a desire for unusual increase, 

 or to leave the apiary unattended, I think 

 natural increase is preferable. One diffi- 

 culty in dividing bees to forestall swarm- 

 ing, is that all colonies are not ready for 

 division at the same time. There is dan- 

 ger of waiting too long or of dividing too 

 soon. 



The man who is raising honey as a 

 business will find it to his advantage to 

 allow each colony to swarm once, if it 

 will, (and no more) then make the most 

 out of the swarm. Whether the swarm 

 and old colony shall be again merged in- 

 to one depends upon the desirability of 

 increase, 



