1893 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



517 



wax chime. Does Mr. Butler relate it as fact? 

 He meets every conceivable objection to it with 

 all the skill of a lawyer. And who shall say 

 the vision was baseless? Quite likely some 

 cells were capped over, and became colored or 

 stained in such a way as to resemble the front 

 of a church, by using the imagination vigorous- 

 ly, just as the stars may be made to represent 

 the outlines of a sugar-bowl, bee-hive, or fan- 

 ningmill. at pleasure. As to whether wax 

 bells would ring or not. just hear Mr. Butler's 

 own defense, and be not faithless: 



'• And if any shall say that those bells, being 

 made of such nn'tal. would give but a weak 

 sound when they were rung to matins, they 

 must consider the parishioners lived not far off. 

 And so I think these captious critics will hold 

 themselves satisfied." 



Any thing but a captious person for me. 



What a wonderful thing is the human mind 

 when h'd captive by thn imagination, and de- 

 prived of some of the most evident truths in na- 

 ture! How long mankind has bpen in reaching 

 the present high state of pulightenmentl and 

 yet how prone to that which is absurd and in- 

 explicable! It seems strange that men who 

 had such high conceptioirs ol' religion as Mr. 

 Butler evinces in many places could have cou- 

 pled it with the action of a mere insect. But 

 let us not be uncharitable. Those were days of 

 wax tapers and torches, while we live in an age 

 of electricity and steam. The greatest valley 

 of daikness that the human mind has ever en- 

 lightened is itself. 



In the remaining books which we have to re- 

 view, we find that much of the superstition 

 drops off, and we seem to be among men more 

 like ourselves. W. P. R. 



Medina, June 24. 



SELF-HIVERS VS. QTIEEN-TRAPS IN CON- 

 TROLLING SWARMS. 



THE SELF-HIVEK PREFERRED. 



On page 401 our old friend Henry Alley argues 

 that a queen-trap will catch a swarm as well as 

 a self-hiver. All we have to do is to return the 

 queen to the hive two or three days after the 

 swarm has issued — so he claims. 



In a foot-note' to a similar article written by 

 Mr. Alley for Gleanings (April 1st, pages 3.^7, 

 274), Mr. E. R. Root says: "The bees, having 

 been thwarted in their efforts to carry out the 

 instinct of nature, remained in the iiive. frit- 

 tered away their time doing nothing, and final- 

 ly end 'd up by killing the queen." This was in 

 reference to using queen-traps as advised by 

 Mr. Alley. 



Well, it is simply this: With a queen-trap 

 the swarm returns to the old hive, the swarm- 

 ing fever not satisfied, and the whole thing will 

 work in nearly every case as described above 

 by Mr. Root. But with a self-hiver that would 

 hive the whole swarm, the case would be en- 

 tirely different, because then swarming would 

 actually take place, the swarming fever be 

 satisfied, and the swarm go to work with all 

 the vim and energy always displayed by new 

 swarms (at least I think so). 



The supers should be put on the hive of the 

 new swarm, and at least part of the brood - 

 combs and young bees also transferred to the 

 new hive, and the whole made a rousing colony. 



I am afraid Messrs. Pratt and Root have 

 made a mistake in placing the new hive under 

 the old one. Lifting the old hive, and perhaps 

 two or three supers, or even turning them, as 

 they say, " cat-a-cornered." to ascertain which 

 hives have been swai'ming, is too much work. 

 Better have the hiver in front, and only a cover 



to lift. I somewhat suspect that they have 

 done it, and also adopted a peculiar queen- 

 escape instead of a cone, in order to avoid 

 infringing on Mr. Alley's queen-trap patent, 

 but I don't know positively. 



In case the self-hiver and new hive should 

 be left under the old hive for several weeks or 

 months, the probability is that the work in the 

 sections would cease, and the bees fill both new 

 and old hives, with or without swarming. If 

 working for comb honey, our aim would be de- 

 feated; if extracted honey is the object, better 

 put the two hives one upon the other, without 

 any self-hiver or honey-board ; or, better still, 

 adopt a large hive, such as is used by the Da- 

 dan ts and most of the European apiarists. 



Knoxville, Tenn. v_; Adrian Getaz. 



{American Bee- Journal.) 



[The first self-hiver that Mr. Pratt devised 

 was gotten up on the horizontal plan — that is, 

 one hive was in front of the other; but it was a 

 little difficult to level up two hives exactly in 

 line so the connection between the two would 

 be absolutely bee-tight. He later devised a 

 method whereby the hive to receive the swarm 

 would b(! below the parent colony. But as this 

 brings up the question of lifting the upper hive 

 to see whether the swarm has gone below, 

 there is a possibility that the first sort of hiver 

 would be preferable, and there is no reason why 

 the apiarist could not use this plan if he prefers. 

 In regard to the queen-trap answering the 

 purpose of a hiver, Mr. Getaz agrees with us 

 exactly— that is. it does not satisfy the desire 

 for swarming, unless the swarm is attended to 

 immediately, or shortly after the issue of the 

 swarm. In that case it is a long way from 

 being (lutcDtiatle, and goes but little further 

 than the old reliable plan practiced by so many 

 bee-keepers, of clipping the queen to prevent 

 the escape of the swarm. Either the trap or 

 clipped queen requires very soon the attention 

 of the apiarist. Pratt's automatic hiver, after 

 it is once attached to the hive, may be left, 

 and nothing very serious will happen if it is not 

 attended to in ten days or even two weeks after 

 the issue of the swarm and its return to the 

 new hive.] 



RAMBLE NO. 87. 



harky's visit. 



"Good afternoon. Mr. Rambler. Well, well! 

 Is not that a hard way to travel— on 'shank's 

 horses,' as the old saying is? Why don't you 

 get a horse or bicycle ?" 



" Whv. my friend, it's the easiest thing in the 

 world. "Just see here; it is simply the putting 

 of one foot before the other, just one foot before 

 the other, and persist in it, and you will get 

 over much ground in a day. Now, sir, the 

 trouble with you and other people is that you 

 fail to persist, and look around for a wagon to 

 get into. Why, sir, I have known young 

 healthy men to hang around a village store for 

 a couple of hours or more, wasting valuable 

 time waiting for a chance to ride a mile or so, 

 when the simple putting of one foot before the 

 other would have landed them home, with 

 much benefit to their muscles and mind also. 

 Yes. sir, the-siniple putting of one foot before 

 the other has resulted in carrying me over 

 many a five miles, and giving health and mus- 

 cular dev(^lopment. See here, now, Mr. Squid." 

 said I, raising my trousers legs, "just see the 

 development of my muscles; you can not beat 

 that." 



Mr. S. raised his trousers just a little, and the 

 non-development was so obvious that they 



