rORTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES. 175 



NO FORCED' SWARMING TILL QUEEN-CELLS STARTED. 



In no case did I practice this forced swarming till I 

 found by the presence of queen-cells that the bees were 

 thinking of swarming. There would be less labor in the 

 long run (supposing that all were to be swarmed sooner 

 or later), to do up the whole business at a suitable time, 

 without waiting for the bees to take the initiative. In- 

 deed, conditions may be such in some localities that there 

 might be a loss to wait for queen-cells. 



But the harvests here are such that it is usually better 

 to have swarming delayed. Moreover, a good many of 

 my colonies, if let alone, will go through the entire season 

 without attempting to swarm, and such colonies are the 

 very ones that give the best yields, and forced swarming 

 would be practiced upon them only at a loss. 



DISADVANTAGE OF FORCED SWARMING. 



With all the advantage forced swarming has over 

 natural swarming, it still leaves something to be desired. 

 As already said, those colonies which hold their force in- 

 tact throughout the entire season are the ones that give 

 the best results. It is true that in forced swarming the 

 entire force of bees may be left on the old stand, but there 

 are thousands of prospective bees in the brood taken 

 away. If you take away that brood to-day, you are tak- 

 ing away the bees of to-morrow, and of twenty more days 

 to come. 



"But the bees that emerge to-morrow do not emerge 

 as field-bees, and will not be field-bees till they are sixteen 

 days old. If the harvest closes in sixteen days the ad- 

 ditional force will only be a lot of useless consumers." 

 While the first part of your statement may be true 

 enough^ I cannot say as much for the second. 



