and its Economic Management. 203'- 



dard hive which accommodates more than double the con- 

 tents of such skeps, seldom throws off more than two- 

 swarms when working for comb honey. (3) But when 

 extracted honey is to be secured, so many more combs 

 can be given than are occupied with brood, that swarming 

 is of even less frequent occurrence. (4) Going still further, 

 where very much larger frames of comb than the Associa- 

 tion Standard are used in the stock chamber (such as will 

 absorb the contents of three or four skeps), yet a smaller 

 percentage of swarms will be found to come out. (5)- 

 Where bees take up their abode in the walls of old houses, 

 under the weather boards or tiles, the combs are often so 

 long (I have found them three feet in length) that the 

 queen is not crowded, and the brood nest is, as it were, 

 never complete. Under these conditions a swarm is- 

 seldom known to issue ; indeed I have not heard of one 

 from the many stocks of this kind that have come under 

 my notice. 



Following up this process of reasoning, and after 

 experimenting in various directions, I have found the 

 most effective means of prevention to be that of providing 

 a secondary-chamber, under the stock, and which is never 

 filled with finished combs. This arrangement, as regard- 

 ing ordinary hives in connection with other essential 

 features hereafter explained, constitutes the only method 

 that can be founded upon those natural principles which 

 govern the actions of the inmates of the hives. 



Simmins' Non-Swarming System. 



This method of management was first made public by 

 the exhibition of my Special Prize hive in 1878 at 

 South Kensington, and later by the issue of my 

 pamphlet on the subject in February, 1886. An immense 

 interest was created at the time, and many copies of the 



