SWARMING 
817 
nuclei so that young’ laying queens will be 
on hand in sufficient numbers to replace all 
queens whose colonies prepare to swarm. 
While the old queen could be saved in a 
nucleus and given back to the colony after 
an interval of ten days or more of queen- 
lessness, it is much better to rear young 
queens for this purpose and kill the old 
one. 
If queen-cells have already been started, 
these should all be destroyed at the time 
the queen is removed. Ten days later all 
queen-cells should again be destroyed, care 
being taken that none are overlooked. Either 
at this time or a few days later a young lay¬ 
ing queen should be introduced by means 
of an ordinary introducing cage. (See In¬ 
troducing.) To do this the cage may sim¬ 
ply be thrust into the entrance of the hive 
with the candy end of the cage inward. 
When the cage is placed in the entrance in 
this way it is not necessary to open the 
hive to see if the queen has been released. 
Some beekeepers, instead of introducing 
a young laying queen, destroy all but one 
of the queen-cells and permit the colony to 
raise its own queen from this remaining 
queen-cell. A serious objection to this plan 
is that the swarming instinct is still present 
at the time this young queen emerges, which 
sometimes results in a swarm issuing led by 
this young queen, thus leaving the colony 
hopelessly queenless, and, if in an out- 
apiary, the swarm absconds if no one is 
present to hive it. 
Those who have not provided for young 
laying queens at the swarming season can 
still use this plan by taking out the old 
queen, keeping her in a nucleus for ten days 
or more, then reintroducing her into the col¬ 
ony, being sure, of course, that no queen- 
cells are permitted to develop in the mean¬ 
time. It is not necessary to return the same 
queen, but a queen may be taken from any 
colony for this purpose. If the original 
queen is to be returned to the colony she 
may simply be caged within the hive during 
the interval of ten days instead of being 
taken from the hive, and then a few days 
after the queen-cells have been destroyed 
she may be released among the bees. When 
the old queen is returned to the colony in 
this way, however, the tendency to prepare 
to swarm again is considerably greater than 
when a young queen that has just begun to 
lay is given. A colony to which a young 
queen is given after an interval of queen- 
lessness of at least ten days is more nearly 
like the parent colon 3 r in nature and usually 
does not prepare to swarm again the same 
season. 
It sometimes happens that a colony 
swarms during the absence of the bee¬ 
keeper, and if the queen is clipped she may 
be lost. In such cases the colony has really 
dequeened itself, and the subsequent treat¬ 
ment is the same as tho the beekeeper had 
taken the queen away at the time the swarm 
issued. It must be remembered, however, 
that the swarm usually does not issue until 
about the time the queen-cells are sealed, 
and it is therefore not safe to wait ten days 
before destroying the queen-cells. The only 
safe plan is such cases is to destroy all 
queen-cells five days after the swarm issued, 
then again five days later when a young 
laying queen may be introduced. 
Where a system for dequeening all the 
colonies and later requeening them is work¬ 
ed out suitable to the conditions of the lo¬ 
cality, there are various plans by which the 
removal of the queen can be greatly simpli¬ 
fied. For instance, the queen can be per¬ 
mitted to occupy two stories during the 
building-up period of spring; then, four or 
five days before the queens are to be taken 
away, a queen-excluder can be inserted be¬ 
tween the two hive-bodies, thus confining 
the queen to one of them. On the fourth 
day afterward or later, one can quickly de¬ 
termine which hive-body the queen is in by 
looking for eggs, for by this time all of the 
eggs in the hive-body from which the queen 
was excluded will have hatched. The hive- 
bodv, which contains eggs and therefore 
the^queen, can then be taken away, sup¬ 
plied with a bottom and cover, and set be¬ 
side the original hive. If this is done at 
the beginning of the honey flow the supers 
can then be put on the original hive, which 
can now be left alone for ten days when 
all the queen-cells must be killed and a 
young laying queen introduced. Great 
care is necessary in destroying the queen- 
cells to see that none are overlooked. In 
order to be sure of this it is usually neces¬ 
sary to shake the bees off from the brood- 
combs, for sometimes queen-cells are hidden 
away in the space between the lower edge 
of the comb and the bottom-bar of the 
frame. The old queen in the brood-chamber 
which was removed can be easily found 
