SWARMING 
811 
go in at both sides and come out in the 
center. See Ventilation. 
During extremely hot weather many 
extracted-honey producers use Dr. Miller’s 
plan of “staggering” the stories—that is, 
the second story is shoved forward enough 
to leave a ventilating space of half an inch 
at the back between the two stories. The 
third is shoved back to leave a similar 
space at the front between the second and 
third. The fourth is shoved forward, etc.; 
and, last of all, the cover is shoved for¬ 
ward to leave another half-inch space. 
When raising comb honey it is necessary 
to keep the supers warm enough so that 
comb-building may continue at night. 
Therefore stories should not be “staggered” 
in comb-honey production. 
When the hives are not blocked up to al¬ 
low additional ventilation a large space be¬ 
tween the bottom-bars of the frames and 
the floor of the hive is advantageous in hot 
weather. In hives as ordinarily made in 
this country this space is % of an inch, 
which is about as much as can be given 
without bees’ building combs below the bot¬ 
tom-bars of the frames, especially in comb- 
honey production. A space two inches deep 
or more would be better still, so far as 
swarming is concerned, if the bees would 
not build comb in this space. Such a 
space can be used, however, by putting a 
slatted rack under the frames to prevent 
the bees from building comb in this space. 
This affords a large amount of room 
for the field bees during the night as well 
as during the day if the flowers yield only 
a part of the day, and also provides an 
abundance of ventilation. 
In order to add to the space between the 
combs in the brood-chamber C. P. Dadant, 
who uses the large Quinby frame, prefers 
to have these spaced 1^2 inches from cen¬ 
ter to center. Mr. Dadant regards this 
wider spacing as quite important in reduc¬ 
ing the tendency to swarm. 
(6). GIVING SHADE. 
Practically the same reasons that apply 
for giving an abundance of ventilation also 
apply here. A colony in a hive that is 
exposed to the direct rays of the sun has 
a much more difficult problem in keeping 
the interior of the hive cool than when the 
hive is in the shade. Under the head of 
Apiaries, various means for shading the 
hive are illustrated and described. If a 
hive is exposed to the hot sun it requires a 
good many bees to keep up the ventilation, 
and these bees might otherwise be in the 
field at work. 
Painting the hive white adds to the com¬ 
fort of the bees, because the light color re¬ 
flects the rays of the sun and prevents the 
hive from being heated as much as would 
be the case if it were a darker color. 
(7). barriers of sealed honey around 
THE BROOD-NEST. 
Colonies that are weak or only of medium 
strength at the beginning of the honey flow 
are inclined to store the honey in the brood- 
chamber adjacent to the brood, thus sur¬ 
rounding the brood-nest with honey. When 
the brood-nest is crowded in this way, the 
bees are not inclined to pass over the fin¬ 
ished sealed honey readily to go into the 
supers when given. Such colonies, there¬ 
fore, block off and occupy only a portion of 
their hive, and crowd this limited portion 
even tho empty combs are given in the su¬ 
pers above. On the other hand, the strong- 
colonies readily expand beyond such bar¬ 
riers. For this reason it is often more dif¬ 
ficult to prevent swarming in colonies of 
medium strength than in strong ones. Bar¬ 
riers of this kind between the brood-nest 
and the supers are especially objectionable 
in colonies of medium strength. This part 
of swarm prevention, therefore, reaches 
back to the spring, the winter, and the pre¬ 
ceding fall and late summer management. 
(8) IMPORTANCE OF STRONG COLONIES. 
Strange as it may seem, it is usually eas¬ 
ier to prevent swarming in strong colonies 
than in weak or medium colonies. Strong- 
colonies expand readily in the supers when 
they are needed and push their work beyond 
barriers that would ordinarily stand in the 
way of expansion of weak colonies. In 
this way the bees of a strong colony dis¬ 
tribute themselves thruout the hive and su¬ 
pers, thus relieving the brood-nest from 
congestion. Not only for swarm prevention 
is it desirable to have the colonies uniform¬ 
ly strong in the spring; but, as is well 
known, this is one of the first requirements 
in producing a large crop of honey. For¬ 
tunately, therefore, this phase of swarm 
prevention is simply good beekeeping. 
