ABSCONDING SWARMS. 



AFTER-SWARMING. 



swarming out in the spring were known 

 once in a great while before the recent im- 

 provements, they are nothing like the mania 

 that has seemed to possess entire apiaries- 

 small ones — since the time of artificial 

 swarming, honey- extractors, etc. We would 

 by no means discourage these improve- 

 ments, but only warn beginners against 

 making too much liaste to be rich. We 

 would not commence dividing our bees until 

 they are abundantly strong. They should 

 go into winter quarters with an abundance 

 of sealed honey in tough old combs as far as 

 maybe; and should have hives with walls 

 thick and warm, of some porous material, 

 such as chaff or straw, with a good thick- 

 ness of the same above, and we shall have 

 little cause to fear any trouble from bees 

 absconding in the spring. 



ABSCONDING NUCLEUS SWARMS. 



A very small nucleus— if it contains no 

 more than a couple of himdred bees — is 

 liable t» swarm out. Queen-breeders, in 

 attempting to mate queens in baby nuclei 

 containing only one or two secticm-boxes, 

 had considerable trouble in keeping the bees 

 in the hive, especially when the young 

 queen went out to mate. Accordingly it 

 was found necessary to make the baby hives 

 much larger, with frames SfsxS inches, and 

 two nuc'ei to a hive. See Queen-reaking. 

 With these there is not much trouble from 

 swarming out, providing that they are well 

 supplied with bees, some brood, and honey. 



ABSCONDING FOR MORE SATISFACTORY 

 QUARTERS. 



There is still another kind of absconding 

 that seems to be for no other reason than 

 that the bees are displeased with their hive, 

 or its surroundings, and, at times, it seems 

 rather difficult to assign any good reason for 

 their having suddenly deserted. We luive 

 known a colony to swarm out and desert 

 their hive because it was too cold and open, 

 and we have known them to desert because 

 the combs were soiled and filthy from dys- 

 entery in the spring. They very ofini swarm 

 out because they are out of stores, and this 

 generally happens about the first day in 

 spring that is sufficiently warm and sunny. 

 We have known them to swarm out because 

 their entrance was too large, and, if we are 

 not mistaken, because it was too small. 



We have also known them to swarm out 

 because they were so '^pestered" with a 

 neighboring ant-hill— see Ants— that they 

 evidently thought patience ceased to be a 

 virtue. 



ABSCONDING IN THE SPRING. 



They often swarm out in s]iring where no 

 other cause can be assigned than that they 

 are weak and discouraged, and in such cases 

 they usually try to make their way into other 

 colonies. While it may not always be possi- 

 ble to assign a reason for such behavior with 

 medium or fair colonies, we may rest as- 

 sured that good strong colonies, with ample 

 supplies of sealed stores, seldom, if ever, go 

 into any such foolishness. 



By way of summing up, it may be well to 

 say: If you would not lose your bees by nat- 

 ural swarming, clip the wings of all queens 

 as soon as they commence laying; then look 

 to them often, and know what is going on in 

 the apiary every day during the swarming 

 season; if you would not have runaway 

 swarms in the spring, and while queens are 

 being fertilized, confine your experiments to 

 pecks of bees instead of pints. 



ADULTERATION OF HONEY. See 



Honey Adulteration. 



AFTER-SlVAR]y[irra.-We might ^ 

 define this by saying that all swarms that 

 come out, or are led out by a virgin queen, 

 are termed after-swarms; and all swarms 

 that come out within eight or fifteen days 

 after the first swarm are accompanied by 

 such queens. There may be from one all 

 the way up to a half-dozen or even more, de- 

 pending on the yield of honey, amount of 

 brood or larvie, and the weather; but what- 

 ever the number, they are all led off by 

 queens reared from one lot of queen-cells, 

 and the number of bees accompanying them 

 is, of necessity, less each time. The last 

 one frequently contains no more than a pint 

 of bees, and, if hived in the old way, would 

 be of little use under almost any circum- 

 stances; yet when supplied with combs al- 

 ready built and filled with honey, such as 

 every enlightened apiarist should always 

 keep in store, they may be made the very 

 best of colonies, for they have young and 

 vigorous queens, and often are equal to any 

 in the apiary the next season. 



There is one very amusing feature in re- 

 gard to these after-swarms. When they 

 have decided to send out no more swarms, 

 all the young queens in the hive are sent 

 out, or, it may be, allowed to go out with the 

 last one ; and every few days during the 

 swarming season, some "new hand" writes 

 us about the wonderful fact of his haviiig 

 found three or four, or it may be a half-doz- 

 en queens in one swarm. On one occasion, 

 a friend, who weighed something over 200, 



