174 FIFTY TEARS AMONG THE BEES 



trance of good size, and perhaps the superabundance of ven- 

 tilation was the secret of their not swarming. 



YOUNG QUEENS AND SWARMING. 



It was said that colonies with queens of the current year's 

 rearing would not swarm, and one year I supplied all the col- 

 onies 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 the 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 Deutsche 

 Illustrierte Bienenzeitung, gives what I think is the truth about 

 young queens and swarming: A giveii colony will not swarm 

 with a queen of this year if the queen was reared in this col- 

 ony; if reared elsewhere it may swarm. Why that difference 

 he did not know. But some have claimed exceptions to this 

 rule. 



TAKING TWO FRAMES OP 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, re- 

 placing them with foundation or empty combs. This was to give 

 the qxieen so much room that there should be no desire to 

 swarm. It was successful in most oases, 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. Tet it is just possible that no swarming would 

 have taken place, in spite of the queen-cells. 



