Swarm Control and Increase 
271 
are started, since if queen cells are well advanced, their 
removal is not so effective in preventing swarming. This 
usually requires an examination of the brood-chamber once 
in seven to ten days. 
• 
Miller’s methods. 
To make these manipulations clear, it may be well to 
recapitulate by describing the system used by C. C. 
Miller. To provide abundant bees in time for the harvest, 
as well as to eliminate any tendency to early swarming, 
strong colonies are given an extra hive-body, during the rapid 
spring breeding, all the combs being built to the bottom 
bar of the frame so far as practical. Colonies are requeened 
whenever a queen shows signs of inability to keep up the full 
strength of colony, these queens being from mothers whose 
colonies have not swarmed. When the honey-flow begins, 
a single hive-body for each colony is filled with full combs of 
brood (any additional combs of brood being used in other 
less populous colonies, for increase or for other purposes) 
and each colony is given a super containing one or more bait 
sections, into which the bees go at once, if the honey-flow 
permits. 1 Doctor Miller is a master in the manipulation of 
supers and the system used by him is described in a later 
chapter (p. 314). His hives have wide entrances (2 inches 
deep) and are protected by trees from the heat of the sun. 
Frequent examinations are made to remove newly started 
queen cells. The crops which Doctor Miller obtains are 
so much greater than those of other beekeepers similarly 
situated, or even than those in better locations, that his 
methods should be carefully studied. He uses the 8-frame 
Langstroth hive, but docs not especially recommend it. It 
should also be added that Doctor Miller is a firm advocate 
1 Doctor Miller once asked the author, in all seriousness, what bee¬ 
keepers mean by their reported difficulty in getting bees to work in the 
supers promptly. Probably his bees are so much better prepared to gather 
a surplus than are those of many beekeepers that in his own apiary he has 
not seen for years conditions which occur yearly in the apiaries of many 
beekeepers. 
