1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



385 



VENTILATING TO PREVENT SWARMING 

 FROM OLD BOX HIVES. 



The Plan Followed Years Ago. 



BY DR. .S. P. SCHROEDER. 



I am thoroughly convinced that jilenty 

 of ventilation reduces the swarming tenden- 

 cy to a minimum. I am now in my fiftieth 

 year, and my father was a bee-keeper before 

 me. He used to raise the old box hives by 

 putting an inch block under each corner, 

 anti we always found that colonies so treat- 

 ed stored more honey and swarmed less. 



It is my opinion that the reason well-ven- 

 tilated colonies swarm less is mainly that 

 the air is drier; and I have observed that, in 

 dry springs, bees swarm less than in wet 

 springs — due, I think, to their wonderful in- 

 stinct. Dry seasons are not conducive to 

 the growth of abundant vegetation, and by 

 instinct the bees know that the chances for 

 a long continuous flow are not good; hence 

 they store their honey away. If it rains 

 often, on the other hand, they know that 

 there will be an abundance of nectar in the 

 future, consequently they get the swarming 

 fever. I know that this is contrary to the 

 old idea, which was that bees swarm more 

 often in rainy weather because they are 

 idle part of the time; bvit I reject this no- 

 tion, on the ground that in the dry regions 

 of the West bees swarm but very little 

 whether they are idle or not, and in our dry 

 springs this is true also. 



Good bottom ventilation reduces the 

 amount of moisture in the hive to a mini- 

 mum, and puts the bees in nearly the same 

 condition that they are in the arid regions 

 of the West. 



Every one has seen the pool of water on 

 the alighting-board of a strong colony on a 

 cool spring morning. The fanning of water 

 from the nectar is one cause. If the venti- 

 lation is poor the air inside the hive gets 

 saturated with this moisture, and the bees 

 are placed in the same condition that all 

 colonies are when it rains abundantly, hence 

 Ihey go to swarming. The well-ventilated 

 colony is in this condition only while it 

 rains, as at other times the air is dry. 



We have a neighbor who keeps a few col- 

 onies in the old way. Years ago he conceiv- 

 ed the erroneous idea that bees pulled the 

 moths out and allowed them to fall on the 

 bottom-board, and that the moths would 

 then crawl back on to the combs. Accord- 

 ingly, he made his hives 12 inches square 

 and 14 inches high; and the bottom-boards, 

 hinged underneath, enabled him to drop 

 them down so that his hives could hang 

 about 3 ft. above the ground. The colonies, 

 while they had all this ventilation, swarmed 

 but little. He used to place two ten-pounil 

 boxes on top of these colonies, and the bees 

 would sometimes produce as much as 60 lbs. 

 per colony in one season. In some cases 

 comb would be built down under the hives 

 as far as 12 inches, so that the bottom-boards 

 could not be folded up in place all winter. 



In spite of this the bees would come out 

 strong in the spring. The hives were kept 

 under the south side of a bee-shed. 



This all goes to show that plenty of bot- 

 tom v.entilation reduces the swarming pro- 

 pensity, and at the same time allows the 

 colony to l)e kept strong. 



Nashville, 111. 



WHY PLENTY OF VENTILATION KEEPS 

 DOWN SWARMING. 



BY JOE BLUNK. 



On page (591, Nov. 15, Dr. Miller says that 

 when he "zigzags " his supers his colonies do 

 not swarm. This is plain enough; for w^th 

 his two-inch entrance below, and the addi- 

 tional openings above, he has established a 

 natural circulation, all the foul air escaping 

 above long before any harm has been done to 

 the bees; consequently they have all the fresh 

 air they care for. Heated air becomes light- 

 er in weight, anti it therefore rises and es- 

 capes through the upper opening. 



If there is only one entrance at the bot- 

 tom the circulation, of course, is so sluggish 

 that at times the air stops moving entirely; 

 and after the bees have breathed it over and 

 over it becomes foul, and it is then that the 

 effort is made to increase the circulation by 

 the rapid movement of the wings, known 

 as fanning at the entrance. Some of the 

 bees begin to get sick (may be their heads 

 ache, as mine does after being all day in the 

 foul air of the mine) , and so they go outside, 

 and hang on the front of the hive. After a 

 while some more join the bunch on the out- 

 side, and they may stay all night, although 

 a cold rain may have come up meanwhile. 



When the condition of foul air keeps up 

 too long, the bees become discontented and 

 swarm. None of my bees hang out, nor do 

 any of them fan at the entrance. My two- 

 inch bottom-boards, with both ends open, 

 p. 229, April 15, 1909, create this condition. 



Moorland, Iowa. 



COLONIES SWARM LESS WHEN HIVES FACE 

 THE NORTH. 



1 have tried raising the hives to permit a 

 greater circulation of air, and I find that it 

 works all right in comb-honey production. 

 Furthermore, I notice that those hives that 

 are turned so that the entrances are to the 

 north (this being the direction from w^hich 

 the most of our winds come) are the ones 

 that do not swarm. Furthermore, I have 

 no trouble if I shove the brood-chamber 

 along on the bottom cleats so that there is 

 an entrance at both ends of the hive. 



A SHORT CUT IN FOUL-BROOD TREATMENT. 



All who are troubled with foul brood 

 should try shaking their bees into a nail- 

 keg, small box, or any old receptacle that 

 has had a piece of brood-comb placed in it, 

 just as if a swarm were to be hived. Let the 

 bees stay in such box until they have emp- 

 tied themselves of the diseased honey, then 

 put them back in their old hives on full 



