SWAEMING. 



423 



SWABMIKG. 



near the entrance, vainly endeavoring to fly 

 with the rest of the bees. C;ige her, and 

 then slip the cage into a pocket or some cooi 

 place, temporarily. Eemove the super or 

 supers in which the bees have ah'eady 

 started work, and set them on the ground 

 near the hive. The brood-chamber should 

 now be removed just as it is, to an entirely 

 new location. Put in its place on the old 

 stand a hive c ontaining frames of founda- 

 tion or empty comb, and on top of this a 

 queen-excluding honey-board. Some prefer 

 having only starters of foundation. Next 

 put the supers, placed on the ground tern 

 porarily, on the new hive containing these 

 frames of foundation or comb. Now lay 

 the caged queen in front of the entrance. 



All this may be done while the bees are 

 in the air, and it will not be long before they 

 discover that the queen is not with them, 

 and return pellmell to their old location, and 

 rush into the new hive. After they are well 

 started going in, the queen may be releas- 

 ed, when she will go with them. 



The work already begun in the supers will 

 be pushed on and completed with more vim 

 and energy than before, because a new 

 swarm always works with new energy. If 

 only frames containing starters have been 

 given them, what honey does come in is 

 forced right into the supers, for the bees 

 have absolutely no place to store it, at least 

 until foundation below has been drawn out; 

 but as soon as this takes place it is occupied 

 immediately by the queen. 



The old hive containing frames of brood 

 and queen-cells now in another location may 

 cast a second or third swarm; but if queen- 

 cells are cut out, even second swarming 

 may, to a very great extent, be checked. 



This method of handling swarms where 

 natural swarming is allowed commends it- 

 self especially to the women-folks, who are 

 generally at home. All they have to do is 

 to hunt up the clipped queen, cage her, 

 and then put an empty hive containing 

 frames of foundation in place of the old one. 

 As it might not be practical for the women 

 to carry the old hive to another location, 

 they can simply drag it over to one side, 

 and change the entrance so that it will face 

 to the rear. When the " man of the house '' 

 returns, he can lift the supers off from the 

 old stand on to the new one, then take the 

 old brood-nest over to another location. 

 This may be done any time within a day; or, 

 when preferred, the old stand can be left 

 alongside the new one, providing the en- 

 trance is reversed. 



If two or more swarms come out at the 

 same time, and one of them has a virgin 

 queen, all the bees will be likely to unite 

 with the one having the queen ; then, of 

 course, this plan of bees returning will come 

 to naught. But in a well-regulated apiary 

 there will be few such occurrences, and 



A SELF-HIVED SWARM. 



ninety-nine out of a hundred swarms may 

 be hived as easily as this, without any 

 trouble. 



PERFORATED ZINC TO RESTRAIN QUEENS. 



Under Drones, an incident is given in 

 regard to the matter of entrapping the 

 queen when she issues with the swarm. The 

 employment of perforated zinc will not pre- 

 vent swarming — it only hinders the bees 

 from accomplishing their puipose ; that is, 

 absconding and taking their queen with 

 them. In other words, the perforated zinc 

 simply takes the place of clipping the queen's 

 wings. In some cases it may be desirable 

 to use the zinc instead of clipping. Usually, 



