A YEAR AMONG THE BEES. 
73 
nest, but a good deal of mystery envelops it. I have tried 
taking away the queen of a colony which had swarmed, and 
giving in its place a queen which had just commenced to lay, 
leaving no queen-cells in the hive. Within three days the 
young laying queen would come off with a swarm. 
One season I kept eight brood-combs in the hive, and 
every week or ten days took out two of ttie central combs, 
replacing them with foundation or empty combs. This was 
to give the queen so much room that there should be no 
desire to swarm. It was successful in most cases, but there 
were too many exceptions to make the plan reliable. 
The next season I settled upon a plan which I felt pretty 
sure would prevent the possibility of swarming. It was a no 
less radical measure than to keep the colony queenless. I 
reasoned that as 1 had never had a queen hatched inside of 
eleven days from the time the queen was taken away, or 
from the time the bees started queen-cells, the colony was 
safe from swarming if once in ten days I took away their 
brood and gave them fresh ; also, that it was only bees over 
two weeks old that worked in the field ; add to this the three 
weeks that it took from the egg to the full-fledged worker, 
and it was five weeks or more from the time the egg was 
laid till the bee became a gatherer. Clearly, then, only such ' 
bees as came from eggs laid five weeks or more before the 
close of the honey harvest were available as gatherers. Why 
not have the colony queenless during this five weeks V So I 
took away the queen, leaving in the hive three combs, one of 
which contained eggs and brood in all stages, the other two 
containing nothing from which queen-cells could be started. 
Once in ten days the comb of young brood with its queen- 
cells was taken away and a fresh one given them, and at the 
close of the live weeks, which was about the close of the 
harvest, the queen was returned. As a preventive of swarm- 
ing, it was a complete success. Not one colony thus treated 
swarmed ; how could they V As a means of securing a large 
crop, I think it was an egregious failure ; although I can 
hardly tell with great definiteness, the season itself being a 
