MillerThousand AnswersBeekeepingQuestions.pdf - BioBees

THOUSAND ANSWERS 239method with one colony, and it was quite successful. Will it alwaysbe successful?A. The plan is good and will usually be successful; butsometimes you may miss a cell, and sometimes the only cell youleave may be bad.Q. If a young queen is given to a colony in the spring, willswarming be retarded, and if so, to what extent? That is, howmuch more crowding will they stand, or the reverse?A. If a queen that has been laying only a few days be givenat the beginning of the swarming season, and if the colony hasnot yet made preparations for swarming, there is very littlechance of swarming that season. The same is true to a greater01 less extent if the young queen be given earlier. I am not sureabout the retarding, but the chances for swarming are greatlylessened by the giving of a young queen. When you ask me totell just how much crowding they will stand, you're crowding mein too tight a corner. Fact is, I don't know. 1 think somethingdepends upon the queen, and'perhaps still more on the bees. Withsome bees, a vigorous young queen could probably not be forcedto swarm by any amount of crowding, provided the queen werenot given too early, and from that it will shade all the way downto where allowing only room for 25 pounds of honey might induceswarming.Q. What per cent of swarming do you have, in spite of allyour preventatives?A. I count the prevention of swarming an unsolved problem.At a rough guess I should say that there may bt from 5 to 10per cent of the colonies actually swarm. But if they do swarm,nc swarm is ever hived as a separate affair, but obliged to remainin its old colony, for one of the important points in securinggood yields is to keep from dividing the forces.Q. I want to tell you of a colony I have which swarmed onMay 30, June 30 and July 30. Each time it was treated by theput-up plan. I want to ask what to do with this queen? She hasswarmed out three times so far, and has made twice as much surplusin sections as any other colony I have. She is a nice, largequeen, very prolific; but I don't like this thing of swarming.Would you breed from such a queen? I like her because she hassuch nice workers, busy all^ the time, and, as I stated, made memore surplus by far than any other colony.A. Generally, after a colony has been treated by the "put-up''plan, there will be no more swarming for the season, but you can