172 FORTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES. 



all the colonies of one apiary with young queens about 

 the beginning of the honey harvest. It didn't work. 



Once when a colony swarmed and returned to its 

 hive, I removed its queen and gave it a queen that I think 

 had not been laying more than two or three days. Within 

 three days that queen came out with a swarm. It seems 

 the condition of the colony has more to do with the case 

 than the condition of the queen. C. J. H. Gravenhorst, 

 late editor of Deutche lUustrierte Bienenzeitung, gives 

 what I think is the truth about young queens and swarm- 

 ing: A given colony will not swarm with a queen of 

 this year if the queen was reared in this colony ; if reared 

 elsewhere it may swarm. Why that difference he did not 

 know. But some have claimed exceptions to this rule. 



TAKING TWO FRAMES OF BROOD WEEKLY. 



One season I kept eight brood-combs in the hive, and 

 every week or ten days took out two of the central 

 combs, replacing them with foundation or empty combs. 

 This was to give the queen so much room that there 

 should be no desire to swarm. It was successful in most 

 cases, but there were too many exceptions to make the 

 plan reliable. 



TAKING AWAY ALL BROOD. 



Afterward I carried the same thing to its extreme 

 limit in a good many cases, taking away all the brood. One 

 frame of brood, however, was left for two or three days, 

 perhaps a week, for fear the bees would be discouraged 

 and desert an entirely empty hive. This one frame of 

 brood was then taken away because it was the common 

 thing for the bees to start queen-cells on it. Yet it is 

 just possible that no swarming would have taken place, 

 in spite of the queen-cells. 



