808 
SWARMING 
(1) BREEDING T!0 REDUCE SWARMING 
TENDENCIES. 
When things are allowed to take their 
own course in the apiary most of the in¬ 
crease is made during the swarming sea¬ 
son, and the queens are reared from swarm- 
ing-cells. The question has been raised 
whether such queens will not inherit more 
of the swarming tendency than those reared 
under the supersedure impulse. There can 
be no doubt that the indiscriminate use of 
queen-cells taken from swarming colonies 
will result in much poorer stock, but the 
fact that the queen-cells were built in prep¬ 
aration for swarming instead of for super¬ 
sedure probably does not change the ten¬ 
dency of the resulting queen toward swarm¬ 
ing. 
So far as is known, there is no objec¬ 
tion to the use of swarming-cells from colo¬ 
nies that are otherwise desirable, but that 
have been forced to swarm thru neglect or 
bad management. Neither is there any ob¬ 
jection to having queen-cells built in 
swarming colonies, the larvae for which 
have been transferred from the colonies 
having the breeding queens. Since swarm- 
ing-cells are built at the time the colony is 
quite prosperous such cells usually result 
in fine, vigorous young queens. 
The strain of bees can be greatly im¬ 
proved by killing the queens of any colony 
which prepares to swarm when there is no 
excuse for swarming, and replacing them 
with queens reared from colonies which 
show less tendency to swarm under the 
same conditions. 
(2). LARGE BROOD-CHAMBERS TO CONTROL 
SWARMING. 
In the colder climates, brood-rearing is 
usually carried on with a rush during the 
spring, and for a short time at least the 
colonies will have a larger amount of brood 
than in warmer climates. During this short 
(and intensive) brood-rearing period it is 
important that the queen shall have all of 
the room she can occupy for brood. If the 
brood-chamber is too small for the capacity 
of the queen, the colony will become crowd¬ 
ed and probably swarm. For this reason 
some beekeeepers prefer to use brood-cham¬ 
bers larger than the standard ten-frame 
hive of Langstroth dimensions. Some use 
the Jumbo hive, especially for extracted- 
honey production; while others prefer a 
hive even larger than the. ten-frame Jumbo, 
some advocating using these frames in 
hives holding eleven, twelve or thirteen 
frames. 
Those who use the regular standard hive 
usually add a second story in the spring as 
soon as the queen needs more room. Since 
it is for a short time only that more room 
is needed, one of the regular extraeting- 
supers is loaned temporarily to the use of 
the queen and becomes a part of a larger 
brood-chamber. After the peak of the 
spring brood-rearing period has passed, the 
queen can be put into the lower hive-body 
and the other one again becomes an ex- 
tracting-super, if extracted honey is being 
produced. Many comb-honey producers 
use the same plan, leaving on the second 
story until the beginning of the honey flow 
when the hives are reduced to a single story 
and the comb-honey supers put in place. 
The extra hive-bodies that are removed are 
then either tiered up on certain colonies set 
aside for this purpose, or are used in mak¬ 
ing increase. If no increase is desired, the 
extra hive-body, together with the extra 
combs of brood and honey and enough bees 
to take care of them, can be used to make 
a good-sized nucleus, which should be sup¬ 
plied with a ripe queen-cell and the hive 
placed close beside the original hive. At 
the close of the season the two colonies 
can be united by the newspaper plan (see 
Uniting Bees). In the majority of cases 
the young queen will be retained when no 
attention is paid to the queens, but to in¬ 
sure this the old queen should be killed. 
An excellent plan for supplying an 
abundance of room for early brood-rearing 
to prevent swarming and at the same time 
greatly stimulate brood-rearing with the 
standard 10-frame hive when producing ex¬ 
tracted honey, was described in Gleanings 
in Bee Culture in 1908 by E. D. Townsend 
as follows: 
E. E. Coveyou of Petoskey, Mich., has a 
very good plan for handling his bees during 
the fore part of the honey flow. He uses ten- 
frame hives, and before the honey flow he 
gives the colonies another story of combs 
without putting an excluder between. The 
cells of these combs should be of the worker 
size, for the queen is allowed full sway 
thru this story until the colony needs a 
third one. At the time this third story is 
given, the queen is placed below in the 
