126 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



April 



hives, early in the season and you will 

 have much less to fear of the swarming 

 fever. 



7. The last condition which I can 

 mention in the successful prevention 

 of swarming is one which we have been 

 using for years, but which I did not 

 think of in that connection until the 

 matter was brought to my attention by 

 Air. Allan Latham, the past summer. In 

 exhibiting a hive at the Storrs meet- 

 ing, Mr. Latham made the remark that 

 the 154 inch spacing of combs, from 

 center to center, in common use, was 

 a promoter of swarming. We have 

 used the Quinby spacing of l}z inches 

 ever since 1866. The bees work as sat- 

 isfactorily with the one spacing as with 

 the other. In fact, the original advis- 

 ors of either mode of spacing had no 

 very positive argument to advance in 

 favor of their method. But the lyi 

 inch spacing gives % of an inch addi- 

 tional between all the combs for the 

 bees to cluster or move about during 

 the breeding season. This multiplied 

 by the height and length of the hive 

 and by the number of frames gives an 

 addition of 162 cubic inches of cluster- 

 ing space or ventilation, as the case 

 may be. Think of the large number of 

 bees which may be accommodated in 

 such a space. 



The standard hives of the present 

 day are nearly all of the narrow kind. 

 Nevertheless, the broader spacing is 

 much the better, for the above named 

 reason and also because it gives easier 

 manipulation and more clustering 

 space for the colony in winter. As I 



East, acknowledge, as one did, having 

 had as many as 18 swarms out, at the 

 same hour, in one apiary, I believe 

 there is need generally of a more thor- 

 ough understanding of the causes of 

 natural swarming. 



The advantages of this method con- 

 sist in doing away with numerous hive 

 manipulations during the honey crop, 

 such as cutting out queen-cells, taking 

 out brood, shifting colonies, returning 

 swarms to the old hive, etc. All the 

 required work outside of increasing 

 the opportunities for ventilation and 

 adding supers, has to be done during 

 the dull season. I know that those 

 who have e.xcessive swarming, if they 

 try these conditions, will find them- 

 selves greatly relieved by the results. 

 Besides, they may be able to discover 

 additional requirements, for there is 

 always something more to be learned. 

 If we are to judge of future progress 

 by the past, there are endless opportu- 

 nities for more knowledge, endless 

 chances for progress. 



My Neighbor's Garden 



BY C. D. STUART. 



I WOULD hesitate to call my neigh- 

 b )r a bore, as defined by a witty 

 Frenchman. But whenever I at- 

 tempt to talk about myself and my 

 honeybees, he manages to switch the 

 conversation to himself^ and his prune 

 trees. I had been awaiting the oppor- 

 tunity to tell him that nature has no 



MY NEIGHBOR'S PRUNE ORCHARD-(Photo by John R. Douglass) 



have said, we used the wider spacing 

 for years, but I did not realize that our 

 success in swarm prevention was in 

 part due to this spacing. It is undoubt- 

 edly of great advantage in the preven- 

 tion of swarming. 



Let it not be understood that I lay 

 any claims to the total prevention of 

 swarming. That is a goal never to be 

 attained. Neither do I lav any claim 

 to breeding a non-swarming strain. 

 But when some of our most practical 

 beekeepers, such as I have met in the 



more effective pollinator than bees, 

 and that without them he would have 

 had no prunes to talk about; but the 

 University beat me to it. A copy of 

 their latest bulletin was sticking out 

 of my neighbor's pocket when he ar- 

 rived at my cabin on an errand of 

 state— the negotiating of closer rela- 

 tions between his trees and my bees. 



"Listen!" he began, excitedly shak- 

 ing the bulletin in my face ; "here's an 

 old highbrow claiming that one colony 

 of bees will pollinate 9991 prune blos- 



soms. Yes siree, a genuine University 

 guy!" 



"You mean, one colony can pollinate 

 one acre of trees, don't you ?" 



"No; blossoms. Man alive, just 

 think of the number a hundred colo- 

 nies would pollinate ! If one tree has 

 9991 blossoms, 20 acres of trees would 



have " There he stopped, found a 



newspaper and began to figure, on the 

 margin, the benefits — to his prunes — 

 of the proposed alliance. 



With my neighbor, the juggling of 

 figures has been elevated from mere 

 pastime to the realm of accomplishment. 

 He fairly " eats 'em." A scrap of paper, 

 a stubby pencil, and millionaires spring 

 into existence while you wait. Or, the 

 same computations, done backward, 

 and bankrupts are created with equal 

 dispatch. It is not surprising, then, 

 with such facilities at hand, that he 

 himself has arisen — on paper — from the 

 ranks of the small rancher, to the multi- 

 millionaire class. 



As for me, bankruptcy is a chronic 

 condition, my neighbor having long 

 since figured my bee ranch in the hills 

 clean off the map, even pursuing it 

 with strange-sounding words — one, 

 more hostile than all the others, "de- 

 preciation," which, applied to any 

 healthy enterprise will, in time, cause 

 it automatically to disappear. By this 

 mysterious calculation, I had already 

 lost more money than in the wildest 

 dreams I ever hoped to possess. (Luck- 

 ily for me, the amount and price of my 

 honey during this period of progressive 

 disaster, remained normal.) Moreover, 

 in his estimation, a beeman is a re- 

 proach to his family, a menace to the 

 public and, socially, on a level with the 

 herders of sheep and goats. To be 

 strictly just, however, that is only my 

 neighbor's theory. In practice his 

 friendship has survived all handicaps. 

 On the other hand, my neighbor's 

 fat valley land at " only $500 an acre," 

 was about to be doubled, perhaps quad- 

 rupled, if the newspaper margin would 

 only hold out. For if 1069 blossoms 

 counted in the University experiment, 

 could mature 193 prunes, nine times as 

 many prunes would mature from 9991 

 blossoms, or over 1700 prunes to the 

 tree; and with 100 trees to the acre 

 of trees, he would harvest 3,400,000 

 prunes. Even now my bees stood only 

 on a commercial footing, but at least 

 they had been recognized. Somewhat 

 saddened, I left my neighbor to his 

 figures, and turned to the shimmering 

 landscape with its background of pur- 

 ple hills framed by my kitchen window. 

 It was Blossom Day — California's 

 unique, all-embracing, outdoor, demo- 

 cratic Easter, when all the earth is 

 athrill with new life; a day that " when 

 the ardent sun rides high, above the 

 waiting trees; like fleeting clouds 

 athwart the sky, range forth my honey- 

 bees, my resurrected honey-bees," un- 

 consciously to fulfill their mission. 



All Santa Clara Valley was in its 

 Easter frock, and throngs of visitors 

 from far and near had gathered to wit- 

 ness the ethereal spectacle, before the 

 ocean breeze should spirit it away. 

 And somewhere in the heart of the 

 Valley nestled my neighbor's prune 

 trees, adding their quota of loveliness 

 to the Annual Festival of Blossoms. 

 But the miracle was lost on the man 

 whose mind's eye saw only additional 

 trays filled with fruit drying in the sun, 

 that my bees would make for him. 



