[7] It is not necessary to find the queen, since the presence of unsealed brood indicates In which hive body she is confined. She may be transferred to the other hive body by shaking all the bees from the combs she is known to occupy in with the bees of the other hive body. In this case some bees are returned to the shaken combs ([p. 38]) before this brood is set aside, to prevent its being chilled.
Mechanical devices.—A number of mechanical devices have been described for shifting bees from one brood chamber to another. These permit the bees to leave the hive when going to the fields and are so arranged that the returning bees are led to enter the new brood chamber. This is accomplished by means of switches in the bottom board or by a chute or tube so attached that the entrance to the old brood chamber is closed, allowing exit only through the tube which opens near the entrance of the new brood chamber. In either case the hives are so arranged that the bees returning from the field readily enter the new brood chamber. The queen is found and together with a comb of brood and adhering bees is put into the new brood chamber, and the supers are transferred from the old to the new brood chamber. The young bees as they learn to fly are added to the swarm by the same device. Otherwise the manipulation is the same as the other methods described.
SEPARATING THE QUEEN AND BROOD WITHIN THE HIVE.
In some swarm-control methods neither the queen nor the brood is removed from the hive, but these are temporarily separated within the hive. These methods are ordinarily used only on colonies making preparations to swarm and are practically equivalent to the dequeening plan. The following methods make use of this principle of swarm control:
(1) The queen may be placed in a wire-cloth cage within the hive or may be confined to a small comb surface within the brood chamber by means of queen-excluding zinc. No queen cells are permitted to mature, and the queen is liberated after 10 to 15 days.
(2) The queen together with a comb containing a small amount of brood is placed in a lower hive body containing no other frames or combs. After destroying all queen cells the brood is placed in a second hive body, the two hive bodies being separated by a queen-excluding honey board and the supers adjusted above the brood as before. The queen, being separated from the brood by means of the excluder, lays few eggs in the comb on which she is confined during this period of separation. After a week or 10 days the queen cells are again destroyed, and the brood and queen are put back into a single hive body as before. This method gives results quite similar to the dequeening method ([p. 35]).
If every season were alike in a given locality the beekeeper could work out a manipulation to be applied to each colony just before or at the beginning of the honey flow, which would result in practically no swarming. The wide variation in the seasons, however, renders it next to impossible to adopt a swarm-control measure that will prove most profitable every year. The means of control adopted must be such as to favor the domination of the storing instinct. Probably the plan of making weekly visits is the most widely used system of swarm control by manipulation. When a colony is found preparing to swarm, the brood is removed if conditions are such as to justify doing so ([p. 37]). Otherwise the removal of the queen is resorted to.
With any of these methods of control the colony may rapidly restore former conditions, and even though it has been diverted from swarming may later again prepare to swarm and require a second manipulation. Generally speaking, when the honey flow is short, less radical measures are required. Colonies that have been supplied with young queens after a period of queenlessness have one factor (the queen) changed with at least some degree of permanency. Colonies that have been compelled to construct a new set of brood combs from narrow strips of foundation have the most radical change of conditions as to brood rearing. Either of these changes alone is usually sufficient to insure no further preparations to swarm.
Manipulation of the Supers.
Proper manipulation of the comb-honey supers is not only a strong factor in the prevention of swarming but is also a stimulus to storing. The amount of room the colonies should have in the surplus apartment varies so much that the ordinary standard super is simply a unit in a large and flexible surplus apartment. If enough surplus room is given at the beginning of the season for the storage of the entire crop of honey, the space so given is too great for best results at the beginning of the honey flow, and little of it is needed at all if the season is poor. If, on the other hand, a single super is given and no other added until the first is completed, the room in the surplus apartment decreases from the time the super is given until the combs are completely drawn out, when there is little space left between the combs, the bees being practically crowded out. Thus while the population of the colony is increasing their room is being diminished—a condition highly conducive to swarming and less energetic work. After the super is filled, it is some time before the honey is ripened and sealed, ready to be removed. During this interval, if no other supers are given, there is no place for storage of the incoming nectar, and the comb builders must remain idle or waste their wax in building burr and brace combs. To avoid loss in this way, empty supers are added as they are needed, and the comb builders move from one super to another as their work in each is completed. The surplus apartment, whether consisting of a single super or several supers, should at all times contain some space for the comb builders.