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THE BEE-KEEPERS* REVIEW 



treated made any further preparations to 

 swarm, but worked on with untiring 

 energy, giving a good account of them- 

 selves as honey gatherers. Three of the 

 comb honey hives made no attempt at 

 swarming. They were weal< colonies 

 that were late in building up and were of 

 the number that I had intended to run 

 for extracted honey, but had been forced 

 to give them supers with sections owing 

 to a delayed order for supplies. They 

 built up to the swarming point and made 

 each about a super full of honey and 

 would have needed a treatment soon only 

 the drouth set in and cut short the flow 

 of honey to such an extent that there 

 were no more swarm preparations by 

 any of the colonies in the apiary. In 

 applying the treatment to the comb 

 honey colonies my aim was to let them 

 build cells and get as near to the swarm- 

 ing out point as possible without actually 

 swarming. The same method was ap- 

 plied to extracting colonies, but more of 

 that later. Opening the hives and ex- 

 amining frames for queen cells made 

 work and plenty of it, too, and if the 

 work had to be carried out along such 

 lines it would have but little to commend 

 it. I did not wish to leave a single loop 

 hole for some doubting Thomas to jump 

 up and say that perhaps my bees 

 wouldn't have swarmed if I had left 

 them alone, so in testing the plan for 

 publication I proposed to know just how 

 many were preparing to swarm and their 

 condition at all times, and also to know 

 the effect of the treatment given. If it 

 was or was not a cure for swarming I 

 wanted to know the facts. In order to 

 show the severe test it was put to I will 

 now give a brief outline of colony No. 36, 

 with a pure Italian queen one year old. 

 Records show that it was examined June 

 25 and no queen cells found, strong in 

 bees and brood and working in the comb 

 honey super. Owing to press of work 1 

 could not examine them again June 50th. 

 July 1st I noticed that they were cluster- 

 ing out and not working as they should. 

 The next day, July 2nd, as I working 

 near them with a smokerijn working 

 order, I was dismayed to see the bees 

 rush pell mell out of the hive just as I 

 was on the point of examining them. 

 Tried smoking them to stop^ their rush 

 but they kept coming right Jout through 

 the smoke. Finally, as a last resort, I 

 grabbed up a small piece of board lying 

 near and closed the entrance with it, all 

 but about two inches at one end. Into 

 this small entrance I blew clouds of 

 smoke until I had them partially quieted 

 and then I stopped it up with grass. 



Went next to the bee house and procured 

 a piece of perforated zinc. After adjust- 

 ing it I stepped back to await results. 

 The bees swarmed out at once and after 

 circling around for several minutes with- 

 out clustering, they finally began going 

 back into the hive. I knew then that I 

 had succeeded in imprisoning the queen, 

 but was afraid to open the hive for fear 

 they would swarm out. So I decided 

 to wait until the next morning to look 

 them over. This happened about 8:00 a. 

 m., and about 1 1 :00 a. m. they came out 

 again, circled around and once more re- 

 turned to the hive. At about 3 p. m. the 

 performance was again repeated. Early 

 on the morning of July Srd I opened the 

 hive and counted fourteen queen cells in 

 various stages of development, three of 

 them being capped over. Slashed off all 

 the heads of the capped brood found in 

 six frames, leaving two frames of nearly 

 solid capped brood. Took especial care 

 not to disturb any of the queen cells, and 

 then closed up the hive wondering what 

 they would do. Was in the apiary all of 

 that day but they did not once offer to 

 swarm out, but worked for dear life 

 dragging out dead brood. Opened the 

 hive again July 4th and found the capped 

 queen cells torn open and the young 

 queens removed. That colony made no 

 further attempt to swarm and gave me 

 nearly one hundred pounds of nice comb 

 honey, despite the drouth that came soon 

 after. Certainly no severer test of any 

 non-swarming system could be made. 



I will also give a condensed statement 

 as to how the extracting colonies were 

 managed. Having six queen excluders, 

 they were placed over six of the largest 

 colonies at the time they were given 

 their first super. They all made prepara- 

 tions to swarm. They were given the 

 treatment and no further attempts at 

 swarming were made. Procured a 

 dozen more excluders later and used 

 them where the queen was found below, 

 selecting populous colonies when possible. 

 Not all of them built cells, due to the 

 lateness of their use, perhaps. Besides 

 the six colonies mentioned above, there 

 were nine other colonies devoted to ex- 

 tracting that built queen cells and were 

 given the treatment, and only one made 

 preparations to swarm again and had to 

 be given the second treatment. Only 

 two out of twenty-nine colonies, thus far 

 operated upon, required the second treat- 

 ment. 1 will now account for the other 

 twenty-two extracting colonies, for the 

 reader may have gotten the impression 

 by this time that I had no swarming, 

 which would be erronous. Will digress 



