FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 183 



and as soon as the young queen was laying the old hive was 

 taken away and the "put-up" hive was put down in its place. 

 Thus the whole force of the colony was kept together, there 

 was a young queen of the current year's rearing, practically 

 reared in the hive, and that colony was past the anxiety for 

 the season. Some, however, say that such a queen will swarm 

 with them. 



GETTING BEES TO DESTEOY CELLS. 



I said the brood was put up, but said nothing about the 

 bees or the queen-eelis. . No attention was paid to the queen- 

 cells, and about half the bees were ^aken off the combs — 

 perhaps more than half. Just how many bees to leave in the 

 "puWp" hive was not an easy matter to gauge. If too few 

 there would be chiUed brood. If too many the young queen 

 would leave with a swarm. ■ Of course the latter danger could 

 be avoided by destroying all queen-cells in the "put-up," but 

 that would make more work, and if there are few enough bees 

 all superfluous cells will be destroyed by the bees themselves, 

 and there will be no danger of swarming. 



NUCLEUS TO PRETENT SWARMING. 



A modification of the plan sometimes used was to take a 

 nucleus from somewhere else and put in the place of the col- 

 ony. But in this case the colony was made queenless two or 

 three days in advance. Either plan left the colony without 

 any diminution of its forces, and with no very great check to 

 its work, and these plans might have been continued if it had 

 not been that I struck upon a plan that seemed equally effec- 

 tive but quite a little easier. This was at first called the foun- 

 dation plan, and afterward the excluder plan. Before speak- 

 ing of this, however, it will be well to describe the prelimi- 

 nary work, which is the same for all colonies, whether the 

 after treatment will be on the "put-up" plan or some other 

 plan. 



PRELIMINARY WORK. 



As soon as colonies become strong and are working busily, 

 we begin to be on the lookout for queen-cells. This generally 

 will not be till the bees are at work on clover bloom, although 



