204 A Modem Bee-Farm 



work were distributed in America by the late T. G. 

 Newman, then editor of the American Bee Journal; 

 while large sales were effected in this and other countries. 

 In that work I claimed that " No colony in normal con- 

 dition attempts to swarm unless it has all its brood combs 

 completed:" and further: " To reduce the matter to a 

 greater certainty, while admitting that bees may some- 

 times swarm if such space and incomplete brood combs 

 happen to be situated at the back, or the point farthest 

 from the entrance, the author insists that the open space 

 and unfinished combs shall always be at the front, or 

 adjoining the entrance." That is, at the front where 

 long hives are used ; or between {and under) the brood 

 nest and entrance where hives are tiered up one above 

 the other ; the latter plan always being the more satis- 

 factory for general working ; and as now perfected in the 

 Conqueror hive. 



The idea has long: been fixed 



in the minds of bee-keepers that unless the bees were 

 crowded into the supers, and overcrowded in the stock 

 chamber, nothing would induce them to work in these 

 supers or surplus receptacles. The same idea remains 

 to-day, fixed as ever in the non-progressive minds of the 

 majority of teachers, and of a vast multitude of others 

 who will probably wait, to make room for more enlightened 

 successors before the grand idea of surplus unoccupied 

 space, in addition to surplus comb-building capacity 

 becomes generally acknowledged as one of the first 

 principles in the production of large yields of honey. 



An Important Item 



in the new management consists in supplying every 

 section with worked-out combs, and those prepared just 



