1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



321 



SWARMING. 



Some of the Causes that Induce it; Can the 

 Swarming Instinct be Bred out? an Elemen- 

 tary Discussion that will Prove Help- 

 ful to Beginners. 



BY GEO. W. WILLIAMS. 



3 



It is generally understood that swarming, 

 or, rather, the interruption of work, before 

 and after the swarming act, costs a large per 

 cent of the honey we could otherwise se- 

 cure. It is true that we can, by more or 

 less complex systems of management, i)ar- 

 tially overcome this loss; but we i)ay the 

 price in added work, and in worry and un- 

 certainty. What a boon it would be if we 

 could eliminate this troublesome tendency! 

 But can we do it? The logical way would 

 seem to be by selection and judicious breed- 

 ing, both of which are advocated by some of 

 our best writers. But if we are to succeed 

 we must fully analyze the difficulties that 

 must be overcome. 



We must always keep before us the fun- 

 damental truth that bees are not reasoning 

 beings to any appreciable extent, but are 

 governed entirely by instinct. We must 

 also remember that, while instinct is knowl- 

 edge, it is inherited knowledge, and it is as 

 unchangeable as the laws of the Medes and 

 the Persians. Hence, under similar condi- 

 tions the actions and conduct of bees will 

 always be the same, regardless of location. 

 Allow me to emphasize this thought, and 

 put it in the form of an unvarying princi- 

 ple: Under similar conditions, any given 

 stimulus will at any time produce the same 

 results. 



Another fact we must consider is that 

 bees, being governed entirely by instinct, 

 can have no initiative of their own, but 

 must of necessity be stimulated to any ac- 

 tion whatever by outside influences. 



Now it follows, that, as bees are governed 

 by instinct, and instinct is stimulated to 

 action by outside influences, if we are to 

 change results from what we have at pres- 

 ent, we must change either the instinct of 

 the bee or the surrounding influences. Ei- 

 ther one will secure results. 



We know that bees will not swarm at all 

 under certain conditions. Given room, a 

 cool and uniform temperature, and freedom 

 from the excitement of other bees swarm- 

 ing, they will not swarm. Inversely, con- 

 tract and crowd the abode, raise the temper- 

 ature, and place them among swarming col- 

 onies, any bees will swarm. L^nfortunate- 

 ly, the conditions that stimulate them to do 

 their best work in storing also stimulates 

 the swarming instinct. This limits the 

 field for improvement in this direction to a 

 choice among the half-dozen systems of 

 more or less successful control by manipula- 

 tion. 



After a trial of any or all of these sysuems 

 our minds invariably turn toward the other 

 and very desirable thing of changing the in- 

 stinct of bees so that they will not desire to 

 swarm, no matter how we crowd them nor 



how rapid a pace we induce them to main- 

 tain. 



Upon a careful analysis, this seems less 

 hojjcful than the other scheme, unless we 

 could control mating as we control it in our 

 other live stock; for any tendency to im- 

 provement in this direction is leveled down 

 by the crushing mass of adverse influences. 



When we can successfully control the 

 mating, we can hope for practical results 

 along this line, and not before; for instinct, 

 as I stated before, is simi)ly inherited knowl- 

 edge handed down from generation to gen- 

 eration from some remote ancestor who 

 somehow acquired it, and it is as real and 

 tangible a portion of the nervous system as 

 the legs or wings are of the body. Hence 

 the young bee does not have to learn to 

 gatlier honey nor to build comb, but the 

 knowledge comes to it ready made along 

 with the knowledge of walking or flying. 

 So it seems that, if we are to change the ac- 

 tions of the bees and not change the condi- 

 tions surrounding them, we must really 

 change their physical structure. We all 

 know what a gigantic undertaking it is to 

 change tlie length of our bees' tongues, even 

 with millions of tubes of red clover tempt- 

 ing them every day in June, calling on na- 

 ture to add just one tiny bit to the tips of 

 tlieir tongue so as to sip the precious nectar 

 almost, but not quite, in reach. 



How, then, can we hope for any great re- 

 sults in clianging a tendency that was im- 

 planted ages before Samson found the 

 swarm in his lion's dried carcass, and has 

 ever since been fostered and encouraged by 

 systems of "taking u]) " tlie heavy new 

 swarms and keeping the swarm. 



If we are to change the physical structure 

 we must do so by subjecting the bees to a 

 sustained condition that does not excite the 

 swarming tendency, long enough so that 

 this portion of the nervous system shall be- 

 come eliminated by disuse. How long this 

 may be I do not know. I knew two in- 

 stances where colonies had remained 25 

 years without swarming, and, when placed 

 in ordinary conditions, they swarmed as 

 freely as if they had never had a vacation. 

 I imagine tliat, if we were to put a colony 

 into a case isolated from other bees, and 

 leave them a couple of thousand years or so 

 without swarming, and then restore them 

 to ordinary conditions, they would not 

 swarm more than once in two or three years 

 any way; but I should not expect much 

 better results. 



There is one thing that offers some slight 

 hope for improvement; and that is, the ten- 

 dency of some offspring to vary slightly 

 from the parent stock. But in bees and 

 ants the efTect of their habits of mating has 

 been to equalize and fix the racial instincts 

 so firmly in their physical structure that 

 sports are rare indeed; but they do occur, 

 and by a combined effort in selecting the 

 non-swarming queens to breed from we may 

 improve in this respect; but it will be a slow 

 process, and in the meantime we comb-hon- 

 ey producers must use the best system we 



