244 



GARDEISERS' CHRONICLE 



Increase in the Bee-yard 



H. W. SANDERS 



IN the article ivvo months ago, dealing with the swarm- 

 ing of bees, we explained that the bee, being entirely 

 a sociable insect, and having no possible means of 

 living ajmrt from the colony, always increases under 

 natural conditions in swarms, numbering many thousand 

 individuals which emerge from the hive and fly directly 

 to their chosen abode. 



This is a fact that must be always taken into account 

 when making increase in the number of colonies of bees 

 kept. We have seen beginners ruin a promising yard of 

 bees, by trying to work contrary to the ways of Nature 

 with the_result that the bees were weakened in numbers 

 so much that they all die in the next Winter. Every 

 plan to increase must conform :o the natural law of 

 swarming, which is that the parent hive has sufficient 

 bees to carry on the work, that the swarm has a right 

 proportion of young and old bees, and that the young- 

 brood, or bees in the larval form, are placed where they 

 will be warmed and fed to prevent their being lost, for 

 they are the bees of to-morrow. 



Where the beekeeper can be at hand, as in the case of 

 a farmer whose work is at home, or a professional bee- 

 keeper with only one yard, it is possible that natural 

 swarming may be the best method of increase. In this 

 case the swarm should be hived and placed where the 

 colony stood and the colony removed to a new stand. If 

 this is not done, the result will be that the hive from 

 which the swarm emerged will swarm again, as soon a-, 

 the first virgin queen comes out of her cell, about a week 

 later, and sometimes even a third and fourth swarm 

 may come ofif at intervals of a few days. These swarms 

 will probably be too weak to gather enough honey for 

 Winter, and will likely die before Spring, while the old 

 hive will have lost so many bees that it will gather next 

 to nothing either. But by placing the swarm on the old 

 stand all the older bees from the parent colony return 

 there and join the swarm, which is thus made strong 

 enough to gather a good crop of honey. The colony 

 that has been removed, on the other hand, has lost a 

 good many bees by the return of the field workers, and 

 will destroy all the queen cells except the one necessary 

 to requeen itself, so that there will be no afterswarms. 

 It can then build up to \\'inter prosperously. 



It is often, however, impossible to watch the apiary 

 for swarms. There are many beekeepers who go out to 

 work elsewhere during the day, or who do not feel that 

 they can spare time to leave their work and start away 

 to hive a swarm, and the large beekeepers have usually 

 (|uite a number of outyards and go around to them in an 

 automobile, so that they cannot be at hand in all their 

 yards to watch for natural swarming. In such cases we 

 must make artificial increase, or else our swarms will fly 

 to the woods, and the number of our colonies will de- 

 cline each year, instead of increasing. 



In order to start a hive of bees it is necessary to have 

 a queen bee with sufficient worker bees to feed and tend 

 the voting ones that will emerge from her eggs, and 

 which in turn will raise another generation, so that the 

 new colony may grow in numbers enough to have a large 

 cluster in time fnr \\'inter. We may even give the new- 

 comer a start in life by giving some brood, as well as a 

 queen and workers, provided always that there are 

 enough bees present to give it adequate care, for brood 

 will ('-ill and starve quickly unless there are plenty of 

 bees i)rcsent. We have also to remember that bees that 



have once "marked their location," will always return to 

 it, unless carried several miles away, or unless they 

 swarm, so that if our new colony is to be placed near 

 the ones from which the bees are taken, they will have 

 to be induced in some way to accept their new home. 



A queen bee is easily provided. There are many- 

 dealers who make a profession of raising queen-bees for 

 sale, and the bee journals contain advertisements of 

 queens for sale. If, ho-wever, the season is not too far 

 advanced, a queen may be raised at home at the same 

 tin-ie that the new colony is formed. The chief advan- 

 tage of the purchased queen is the saving of time. The 

 following is the actual method whereby the foregoing 

 principles of management are translated into practice. 



The colonies are inspected once a week, and watched 

 as the season goes on. Plenty of room is given for the 

 storage of honey, and each week a close watch is kept 

 for preparations towards swarming. These will be 

 found in the presence of queen cells, being long cells 

 shaped like peanuts and built over worker or female 

 larvae. \\'hen these are found the colony is ready for 

 treatment. The queen is found, and left with two frames 

 of brood in the hive and the vacancies filled with empty 

 combs or full sheets of foundation. The combs taken 

 away are now freed of bees by shaking or brushing them 

 in front of the hive. These frames of brood are placed 

 in a hive body and put above a second colony, with a 

 "queen-excluder" between. This latter is a piece of 

 zinc perforated so that a queen cannot get through, al- 

 though workers can. It prevents the queen of the sec- 

 ond colony from access to the brood, but enables the 

 workers to feed and tend the hatching bees. The queen 

 cells started for swarming purposes will be continued, 

 since the queen has no access to the brood, and in about 

 ten days" time they will be nearly ready to hatch. There 

 will be no very young bees to die from starvation and 

 cold, and there will be ]jlenty of honey to give the new 

 colony a start. Therefore we can now divide up the 

 brood. 



Suppose that six combs of brood were taken from the 

 colony that w'as preparing to swarm. Well, we can now 

 make three new colonies. We take two frames of the 

 mature brood, with at least one queen cell, or a pur- 

 chased queen in a cage, and we then place these two 

 combs in an empty hive, and we stutY the entrance full 

 of grass. By the time the grass withers and lets the 

 bees out they will have forgotten their old home and 

 will accept the new one. The cell will have produced a 

 virgin queen, who in about a week will fly and mate, or 

 if a queen is bought the bees will release her from the 

 cage in about three days. In either case we shall have 

 succeeded in getting a queen in a new hive, with enough 

 bees to look after her. and with bees that have accepted 

 the new location. It is often well, when the colony has 

 got a start to help it with a frame of brood from an- 

 other one, especially if the season is advancing, and in 

 case we make, any increase very late, say after August 

 1st, we alwavs build it up to strength immediately. 



\\'hen in doubt, just keep on keeping on. \Mien \ ou 

 have made a mistake, do not stop, but keep on. Your 

 sanity and your safety lie in keeping on. Dwell on fail- 

 ure and you will land in the ditch just as sure as the 

 novice bicycle rider unwillingly heads his wheel in the 

 direction of his thoua:hts. — The Silent Partner. 



