816 
SWARMING 
ber, after which it is placed on top of the 
supers as tho it were another super, which 
it becomes in fact after the brood has 
emerged unless it be taken away a week 
later to make increase. Instead of finding 
the queen some prefer to shake all the bees 
from their combs, shaking them back into 
the old brood-chamber and putting the 
combs of brood without bees into the new 
r 
BROOD 
& HONEY 
SUPER 
C3 
SUPER 
QUEEN 
BROOD 
CHAMBER 
The Demaree plan. The queen, together with one 
comb of brood, is placed in a new brood-chamber 
and the old brood-chamber is placed on top of 
the supers. 
brood-chamber. The parent colony is now 
on top of the supers and the artificially 
made swarm is below the supers, but all 
the bees are in the same hive. When treat¬ 
ed in this way the bees usually behave as 
tho they had swarmed, and go to work tvith 
great energy. 
Some seasons the swarming instinct is so 
strong that it is necessary to take away the 
comb containing’ brood which was put in 
the new brood-chamber after a couple of 
days or the bees may build queen-cells on 
this comb and swarm. Where there is trou¬ 
ble of this kind, it is well to put one or 
two empty brood-combs in the new brood- 
chamber at the time of making the arti¬ 
ficial swarm instead of giving a comb con¬ 
taining a small patch of brood. 
The bees usually build queen-cells in the 
old brood-chamber now on top of the su¬ 
pers. These should all be destroyed nine 
days after making the artificial swarm un¬ 
less there are at least two full-depth supers 
between the new brood-chamber below and 
the old brood-chamber above, when it ap¬ 
parently causes no trouble if young queens 
emerge above. One of the supers should be 
pushed forward on the hive far enough to 
permit drones to get out of the hive, since 
otherwise they would worry themselves to 
death in trying to get out, and obstruct the 
passage thru the excluder. 
REMOVING THE BROOD WHEN PRODUCING 
COMB HONEY. 
For comb-honey production the proced¬ 
ure is similar except that the parent colony 
is not placed above the supers, for this 
would result in the surface of the newly 
built combs in the sections being soiled from 
the old comb above. The removed brood is, 
therefore, put into a separate hive which is 
placed close beside the original colony, and 
enough bees are left on the combs of brood 
to take care of them. Usually the bees 
should be shaken from all but two of the 
combs of brood, those left on the two combs 
being enough to take care of the brood. The 
combs containing the best queen-cells should 
not be shaken, since to do so would injure 
the young queens in the cells. This parent 
colony in artificial swarming is to be left by 
the side of the artificially made swarm for 
a week or until about the time for the 
young queens to emerge, when it should be 
moved to a new location to prevent after- 
swarming in exactly the same manner that 
the parent colony in natural swarming is 
handled. See After-swarming. 
REMOVING THE QUEEN A REMEDY FOR 
SWARMING. 
If only those colonies which attempt to 
swarm are to be treated, it is necessary to 
examine the colonies every nine or ten days 
to determine which are preparing to swarm. 
When colonies are found that are building 
queen-cells preparatory for swarming, the 
queen should be taken out at once. If it is 
desirable to keep her, she may be placed in 
another hive together with the comb of 
brood in which she was found, thus form¬ 
ing a nucleus. If the queen is not of spe¬ 
cial value she can be killed at once. 
This plan for swarm control requires as a 
preparation that queen-cells be started in 
time to have young laying queens about ten 
days after the old queen is taken out of 
the hive. It is, therefore, necessary to start 
queen-rearing a little before the colonies be¬ 
gin to build cells preparatory to swarming, 
and for best results there should be enough 
