The Cycle of the Year 
79 
of drones as causes of swarming. If these things are really 
causes of swarming it is somewhat remarkable that the 
application of remedies for these conditions are not more 
serviceable in controlling swarming. 
The principle involved in swarm control and the differ¬ 
ences in the amount and persistence of swarming observed 
in different regions and under different systems of manipu¬ 
lations indicate that swarming colonies have at least one 
condition in common. While this condition may not be 
the cause of swarming, it is at least interesting to study its 
application. Gerstung advances the theory that swarming 
is caused by the presence of too many young bees in the 
hive. These bees, as will be discussed in a chapter to fol¬ 
low, are those which feed the larvse and the usual supposi¬ 
tion is that there is too much larval food prepared and that 
the presence of this food in the nurse bees induces the build¬ 
ing of queen cells and the rearing of queens. While this 
effort at explaining the results of the presence of an unusual 
number of young bees may be open to question, it may at 
least be pointed out that swarming is always accompanied 
by an unbalanced condition of the brood-chamber (not of 
the hive) in regard to the age of the bees found there. If 
the various preceding statements concerning swarming are 
re-examined, it is seen that when swarming occurs normally 
there is actually this unbalanced condition. In the north¬ 
ern regions breeding reaches its maximum in a shorter time 
than in the South and consequently as this brood emerges 
the colony suddenly acquires an unusual number of young 
adults. Where the season opens earlier this condition is 
reached earlier ( cf . southern and northern Indiana), while 
in the South, where breeding increases more gradually, 
this condition becomes less marked. Finally in the tropics 
the preponderance of young bees does not occur unless 
breeding is decreased by a dearth and begun again by a 
rapid flow. Variation in seasons may cause either a more 
gradual breeding in the North or a greater rapidity farther 
south. This may explain the divergence in the experience 
