244 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 



proper price, especially for commodities 

 that have a fixed price ; but I do mean that 

 we shall most carefully avoid giving way to 

 the temptation to scrimp, and to be small in 

 deal. Wlien you receive a stated sum for a 

 day's work, give a full honest day's work. 

 Do not scrimp at the l)eginning nor at the 

 end. If any thing, work a little longer than 

 you bargain to do ; and rather than do too 

 little, f^o to the other extreme, and do a 

 little more than is expected of you. In oth- 

 er words, give good measure. If you are 

 publishing a journal, work hard to make it 

 worth the money to every subscriber. In- 

 stead of disappointing them because of 

 short measure, give them a pleasant sur- 

 prise now and then in good measure ; and 

 in the end you will be pleasantly surprised 

 by getting good measure back again ; for 

 does not the Bible say in that same verse, 

 for with the same niensure that ye mete ivithal, 

 it shall be iiuasured to you again? Now, I 

 confess that the above looks a little bit as if 

 I wanted to boast ; but I assure you, friends, 

 that I do not. There is a great and wonder- 

 ful truth right here; and it is the truth I 

 want you to look at— not A. I. lioot. 



AUTOMATIC SWARM-HIVEES. 



THE INVENTION AND PRACTICABILITY OF. 



I BELIEVE bee-keepers are always ready to be 

 interested in and willing- to invest their money in 

 any thing- that will lessen labor and enhance the 

 profits of bee culture. Some time ago I gave a de- 

 scription of an automatic swarm-hiver in the Amer- 

 ican Bee Journal, and at the same time inserted ad- 

 vertisements in nearly all the bee-publications. 

 Since then 1 have received hundreds of calls for a 

 full description and particulars of the swarmer. I 

 mention this merely to show the interest bee-keep- 

 ers take in any new device applied to bee-keeping. 

 No. 1. No 3 



DESCRIPTION OF THE SWARMER. 



The illustration represents the swarm hiver at- 

 tached to two Bay State bee-hives. The entrance 

 to this hive is 9;=^ inches long, or wide, and % of an 

 inch high. The swarmer just fills the entrance. 

 Now, if you examine the engraving you will see 

 that the part through which the bees pass is nothing- 

 more than a box made of light material, having- one 

 side covered with perforated metal. Thus far the 

 swarmer is constructed exactly like the lower sec- 

 tion of the drone and queen trap. While the queen 

 and drones pass into the drone-trap over the en- 

 trance, the bees and queen, when a swarm issues, 

 are compelled to pass out at the end of the swarm- 

 er throug-h the metal tube into the empty hive. The 

 same arrangement that prevents the drone and 

 queen from getting out of the drone-trap is used In 



the swarmer to prevent the queen from returning 

 to the home hive when a swarm issues. 



To better illustrate the working of the swarmer, 

 we will suppose that hive No. 1 is the full colony, and 

 that No. 2 is the empty hive, arranged to receive 

 the bees in case a swarm issues. When a swarm 

 comes off, the bees rush out pell-mell, and escape 

 through any outlet handiest to them. 



Now, the experienced bee-keeper knows well that 

 thousands of the bees, in order to escape from the 

 hive, will be forced to pass through the tube at the 

 end of the swarmer; and as the queen can escape in 

 no other way, she, too, also finds it most convenient 

 to pass through the tube; and when once in the 

 tube she must move on to the next exit, which 

 leaves her in the empty hive. There she must stay, 

 as it is impossible for her to retrace her steps 

 through the tube, as experience with the drone and 

 queen trap has demonstrated. 



While the queen is looking about for a place 

 through which she can pass to join the bees, the 

 swarm is flying in all directions in search of her, 

 and in the course of a few moments tlie bees begin 

 to return to the home hive. 



Any one who has witnessed the return of a swarm 

 of bees to a hive at swarming time has noticed that 

 the bees return in great numbers and settle over a 

 large area. They do not center at the entrance of 

 the hive as they do when working and returning 

 from the field. 



It is understood, of course, that the swarmer 

 catches the queen when a swarm issues. The bees 

 miss her: and when they return, thousands of them 

 will alight on the swarmer at the entrance of the 

 new hive, when they at once discover their (jueen 

 and readily enter and settle down to work. If only 

 one or two bees find the queen, they give the signal 

 to the others, and in a few minutes all the swarm 

 will have joined her, when they can be placed in 

 another part of the apiary. If a second swarm is. 

 desired, the arrangement should be set as in the 

 first case. Bear in mind, that the empty hive 

 should be placed as near the home hive as possible. 

 The philosophy of this will be understood by all 

 who keep bees. 



It is not necessary to attach a new hive to the 

 swarmer to catch a swarm. A box so arranged that 

 what few bees get into it while at work can easily 

 escape, and so arranged, also, that the bees can get 

 into it to join their queen when a swarm issues, 

 will do as well as a hive. The bees can be trans- 

 ferred to a hive at any time during the day. Later 

 on I will illustrate this arrangement. 



TO WHOM BELONGS THE CREDIT OF THIS INVEN- 

 TION ? 



Since the swarmer was described in one of the 

 leading bee-papers, some half a dozen persons came 

 out and claimed it as theirinvention. Everyone was 

 free to acknowledge the fact, that, where I use 

 perforated metal, tl^cy use screen wire; yet they 

 claim my invention as their own. One man in 

 Canada says he used the ?ame thing 20 years ago. 

 I think he is somewhat mixed on his dates, consid- 

 ering the fact that perforated metal was unknown 

 to the bee-keepers of America till D. A. Jones 

 brought it this country about ten years ago. 



Wenham, Mass., March 6, 1893. Henry Alley. 



Inasmuch as letters and models have been 

 coming in in regard to non-swarmers, Ernest 

 asked friend Alley to describe his inven- 

 tion above ; and I wish to remind our 



