THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



177 



enough to become clustered, I can 

 iisuall3' raise the screen without manj' 

 bees taking: wing and cage the old 

 queen. Take the queen away entirely. 

 This will make them very uneasy. 

 Late in the afternoon, or after they 

 have been in this uneasy state five or 

 six hours, I raise one edge of the 

 screen slightl}' to allow the bees to get 

 out slowly and return to their old hive 

 of their own accord, but queen/ess. 

 After this short season of confinement 

 and queenlessness they will resume 

 work with the energ-y of a natural 

 swarm, and that is the kind of work 

 we want. If the old queen is returned 

 with them the}' will sulk and swarm 

 again and the queen would not lay 

 enough eggs to amount to anything if 

 she were preserved. 



GETTING SECOND SWARMS OF ENOR- 

 MOUS SIZE. 



Seven days later the issuing of sec- 

 ond swarms maj' be expected. I begin 

 a record of the swarming colonies so 

 as to distinguish between the first and 

 second swarms. Second swarms are 

 allowed to issue as unrestricted as 

 firsts. Their energj^ is wanted also. 

 Second swarms are of large size as 

 they comprise all the bees which issued 

 with tiie first swarm and those which 

 hatched during the intervening seven 

 days. If first swarms ha\ ing old lay- 

 ing queens issue and both kinds cluster 

 together it facilitates the work, as the 

 bees will soon ball all strange queens. 

 And all queens will be strange. The 

 queens can easily be picked out of the 

 balls and caged or destro^'ed. Though 

 we will have a somewhat merry time 

 considerable of the daj', still we can 

 devote our time quite steadily to other 

 work, as it requires only an hour or so 

 to take care of ten to twenty swarms 



Second swarms are caught in 

 screened hive-bodies the same as first 

 swarms. Thej' will bring out virgin 

 queens. These mixed swarms are re- 

 leased the same as V)efore, except that 

 a wood-zinc queen excluder is substi- 



tuted in place of the screen to retain 

 any remaining queen should there be 

 one which I did not find by search. 

 The bees usually get back into their 

 respective hives the same evening or 

 early the next morning and go to work 

 as industriously as if nothing had hap- 

 pened. 



After the second swarm is all out, 

 and while the bees are looking for a 

 suitable bush to cluster on, I go to the 

 hive and destroy ever}' queen .cell. 

 Four or five days without a queen, or 

 any larvae from which to rear one, 

 divests them of all desire to swarm. 

 Then I introduce a young laying 

 queen or insert a ripe queen cell, and 

 the colony is in conditi on to proceed to 

 the end of the harvest. 



OLD QUEENS OF LITTLE WORTH AFTER 

 THEIR COLONIES HAVE SWARMED. 



Extra hives and supers are not 

 needed. We have only old colonies, 

 all full of bees and all at work in the 

 supers all the time, except for a few 

 hours, and that few hours of idleness 

 a real advantage. There are eleven 

 days during which the swarmed colon- 

 ies must remain queenless. There can 

 be no system with which the queen 

 must not slacken her egg-laj'ing speed 

 for several da3's. If the colonies are 

 caused to rear an equivalent of eight 

 well-filled combs of brood before 

 swarming, the fertility of the queen is 

 so much exhausted that she is of little 

 account for the rest of the season. 

 Hived with a swarm she is only able 

 to maintain a colony sufficient to utilize 

 a brood-chamber. True, work pro- 

 gresses briskly when the swarm is 

 first hived but that is the energy of the 

 bees, not of the queen. This work of 

 the bees is of more account in the hive 

 from which they came than anywhere 

 else. The advancement becomes less 

 and less as the old bees of the swarm 

 die of old age. Some old queens when 

 first hived will get up a considerable 

 amount of brood, but that is what I 

 choose to call a dying effort; later there 



