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=How to Draw Brood.=
It will be understood that we keep some out yards to draw brood from to
keep up the nuclei in the queen-rearing yards. We injured some colonies
very much by injudicious drawing of brood. If we do not wish to run the
colonies down to nothing, we should mark X on the top-bars of two or
three brood-frames, and do not take them when we are drawing brood. I
find that two Langstroth frames in the center of the brood-nest will
keep the colony up pretty well, but three are better—that leaves
about three frames to draw on, when 8-frame hives are used, as the two
outside combs seldom have brood, or not as much as the center ones.
The best plan to control an apiary that persists in swarming, is to
draw brood from it and recruit or build nuclei with the brood. It would
likely astonish any one to know how much brood can be drawn from a good
queen during the season. I am satisfied that we have drawn as much as
50 frames of brood from a single colony during one season of eight to
ten months, and then get some honey, and have a fine colony for winter
in the colony we draw from. But if we draw at random, and take any and
all the frames, we are likely to ruin the colonies.