THE AUSTRALIAN BEEKEEPERS’ JOURNAL. 
189 
DIFFERENT WATS TO PREVENT SWARMING. 
1. If we remove some capped brood at the 
right time, and put empty combs, or, still better, 
foundation, into the brood-nest, we induce the 
queen to lay more eggs ; consequently the house- 
bees have more work to do, and the surplus of 
liouse-bees disappears. The next day fewer 
young bees will gnaw out of the cells, and the 
house-bees get less again, relatively to the brood. 
So this is a very good preventive of the swarm- 
ing fever till the former condition of things 
reappears. 
2. If we take some bees from a colony we get 
mostly house-bees, because the field-bees go 
back to the colony. So this will prevent swarm- 
ing for some days. 
3. If we give to the house-bees more work to 
do, we can prevent swarming ; so by cooling the 
inside of the hive. Then more bees are necessary 
to cluster on the brood, and swarming may be 
prevented for some time. 
4. But the house-bees are the comb-builders 
too. If we give them occasion to build new 
combs near the brood-nest, swarming may be 
prevented in most cases, especially if the bees 
build combs for the purpose, that the queen may 
lay some eggs in them (Simmii s method). 
These combs are clear profit to the bee-keeper. 
Why, 1 will show presently. 
5. If we work our colony for extracted 
honey, and extract the honey from the combs in 
such a way that the queen always has plenty of 
empty cells, we shall have no surplus of house- 
bees, and swarming can be prevented. But we 
have to consider here, that a very strong colony 
needs relatively fewer brood-bees than a weaker 
one, so a strong colony may have a surplus of 
house-bees, if the proportion of brood to house- 
bees is even not smaller than 23 to 16. So a 
very strong colony may swarm nevertheless, 
while a weaker one will not. 
6. A moderate honey-flow which by and by 
crowds the brood, is just the thing to cause a 
surplus of bouse-bees, and so induces swarming. 
A very good honey-flow crowds, of course, the 
brood also ; but the young bees will find plenty 
■ f work to do to prolong the cells, to cap the 
honey, and to evaporate the rapidly coming 
honey. Such a very good honey-flow gives 
plenty of work for young and old bees, and they 
pay very little attention to the brood, 
I said that a surplus of house-bees will build 
combs at no cost to the bee-keeper. My theory 
is as follows : — All the young bees feed them- 
selves plentifully with polleu and honey, for the 
purpose of feeding tbe young larvae. If a sur- 
plus of brood-bees is in the hive, some of them 
will not find lame to be fed ; the larval food, 
or chyle, accumulates in the stomach, and will 
go through the stomach-wall into the blood. A 
surplus of blood is just the condition by which 
wax is secreted ; consequently a surplus of 
house-bees causes wax secretion. If room and 
the necessary temperature are in the hive, new 
combs will be built ; ii the bees have no room 
for this purpose they build brace-combs, or 
thick wax lumps, on the top-bars of the frames . 
or they cap the honey twice as thick as usual. . 
A newly hived swarm has no brood, consequently 
always a surplus of house-bees — at least the 
first eight days. In this time a swarm builds 
combs very rapidly, and at no cost to the bee- 
keeper, because this wax is secreted anyhow. 
We can observe this if we hive a small swarm 
(especially an after-swarm) in a large hive, anil 
the outside temperature is cool at night time, so 
that the cluster of the swarm is much contracted,. 
We then find a great number of wax shreds on 
the bottom of the hive. This wax is secreted, but 
the bees can’t use it, because the cluster is too 
small, and outside the temperature is too low to 
form that wax into cells. If we give empty 
combs only to a swarm, this secreted wax is 
formed into brace-combs and wax lumps. The 
proportion of field-bees to the brood and house- 
bees is important too, and I hope to write about 
it in another article. 
hi Stachelhausen. 
Selma, Texas. 
Your suggestions are much in the line with 
those of our friend Hasty and Dr. 0. C. Miller, 
although you Itave carried them a little further. 
I have often noticed the waste of wax by way 
of droppings on the bottom-board, brace-combs, 
and little lumps scattered about the combs where 
they were not needed, and extra cappings to tbe 
cells , sometimes extra thickness to the walls of 
the cells ; and 1 have many times been 
impressed by the fact that these bees, were an 
opportunity given them, would build combs at 
tio expense to the bee-keeper. It is along in 
this line of reasoning that friends Doolittle ami 
Hutchinson conclude that bees will produce 
more honey, where they are obliged to build a 
certain amount of comb, than where the combs 
are furnished them. Other experiments, how- 
ever (but they may be under different circum- 
stances), indicate exactly to the contrary. — 
Gleanings in Bee Culture. 
UNSEALED BROOD. 
To Prevent the Swarms from Decamping. 
Written for the American Rural Home. 
BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 
Will unsealed brood prevent swarms from 
decamping? is a question often asked, and 
one which is often answered in the affirma- 
tive. I claim, that it will, under certain con- 
ditions,. while under other conditions it is no 
preventative whatever, but, on the contrary, 
rather increases the tendency of swarms to 
decamp. Since this plan of giving unsealed 
brood — to make swarms stay in the hive in. 
which they were put — was given to the 
public, I have closely watched the bee-papers 
for reports, and I find that more reports are 
given of swarms going away where brood is 
so given, than of those where the writer 
thought that the brood helped his swarms to 
stay in the hives that they were hived in. 
