178 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



will be less brood and the colony will 

 hardl}' be worth wintering. We might 

 as well try to get a good second crop 

 of peas on old vines, or make hens lay 

 in August, as try to get a profitable 

 colony with a queen which has once 

 reached the height of her laying ca- 

 pacity. If she does much after hiving, 

 it is nearly always because her laying 

 was restricted before swarming. 



If the honey harvest lasts two months 

 or more, or comes late, as in the buck- 

 wheat localities of New York, it may 

 give time to increase the colonies and 

 get all in good shape for the harvest. 

 But even in such locations it will re- 

 quire only a short time until the num- 

 ber of colonies reaches the extreme 

 limit the locations will support. 



When increase by hising swarms is 

 desired, the queens of first swarms are 

 caged and the cage left with the con- 

 fined bees, and the queen-excluder is 

 put on in place of the screen as previ- 

 ously. If the queen still retains good 

 laying ability the bees will stay, biit 

 if the queen is not of much account 

 most of the bees will return to the old 

 hive. Such swarms are not worthy 

 the use of a hive. If they stay, leave 

 them until thej' begin to construct sev- 

 eral nieces of comb. Then put in the 

 frames of starters or foundation, but 

 compel the bees to use the excluder as 

 a hive entrance for two or three days 

 more, or they may play the trick of 

 coming out and going to the woods. 



That the lower story may be entirely 

 occupied with brood, a half-depth story 

 is used over the brood chambers to 

 hold the stores of honey. At the be- 

 ginning of the harvest these are ex- 

 tracted, and, on account of their con- 

 taining a quantity of old honey, the 

 product is somewhat off color. 



HOW TO DETECT SWARMING BY THE 

 USE OF THE MEGAPHONE. 



Instead of watching for swarms by 

 eyesight I depend upon hearing nearlj' 

 all the time, using home-made amplify- 



ing horns which increases the ordinary 

 hum of the apiary to the roar of a rail- 

 way train at a distance of 40 rods. 

 Swarms are distinguished by pitch 

 rather than by the volume of sound. 

 Out of sight and hearing of the bees, a 

 cheaply constructed telephone line is 

 necessary, with receiving horns ar- 

 ranged at the outlying points of the 

 bee yard. 



(I was interested in what Mr. Dayton 

 said about discovering the issuing of 

 swarms b3' the use of a megaphone, 

 and wrote him for more particulars. 

 Here is his reply. — Ed. Review.) 



As to those horns and telephones 

 would say that I have only a few make- 

 shifts in that line. Yet they seem to 

 answer the purpose. One horn is an 

 old retort I got at a eucalyptus oil fac- 

 tory that was destroyed by fire. It is 

 about eight feet long and tour feet 

 across at the large end and eight inches 

 at the small end. With the small end 

 extending into the extracting house I 

 can readily distinguish a swarm that 

 is too far away to be seen with the 

 eyes, simply by listening before it. 

 The swarm is detected from that of the 

 other flying bees by their peculiar 

 roar. When a swarm has been clus- 

 tered on a bush, and begins to rise up 

 to go to the woods I know what their 

 intentions are just as soon as the first 

 few bees begin to leave the cluster, and 

 I suppose many apiarists do. I en- 

 close a picture of another horn I 

 bought at a junk store for 50 cents. It 

 went there for the brass it contained. 

 I cut the little end off up to two inches 

 in diameter, or large enough to take in 

 a person's ear. It is 30 inches long, 

 and 16 wide at large end. Then I 

 have a small horn. Between every two 

 combs I uncapped I turned an ear to a 

 horn. 



In order to make sound travel over a 

 wire it is necessary to solder in a 

 sounding board or what would corres- 

 pond to the drum of the human ear. 

 Plainly described in a common school 



