1879 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



96 



HOW TO IITVE A SWARM OF ISEES. 



The great secret of this depends much on 

 keeping in mind the queer propensity, in- 

 stinct, or habit which bees have when clus- 

 tered together in swarming, of running 

 eagerly into any cavity, box, or hollow that 

 may present itself. It was this queer fash- 

 ion that first attracted my attention to the 

 subject of bees. I have mentioned the cir- 

 cumstance in the introduction to this book. 

 My friend, when he started after the bees, 

 picked up a rough box that lay near by, and 

 when they came to the ground, he simply set 

 the box near them. Seeing the cavity or 

 shelter offered them, they at once com- 

 menced humming, and traveled into it. My 

 curiosity was unsatisfied, and I asked him 

 how he knew they would go into the box. 

 He said he knew they woidd because bees 

 always went into a box or any similar thing 

 that offered them shelter. 



Their instinct seems to prompt them to 

 seek any sort of a cavity, and this very point 

 is the secret of the success of friend Shep- 

 ard's swarming box. Those auger holes in 

 the basswood box are sure to attract them, 

 and they seem to enjoy hugely, the crawling 

 in and then crawling out again, through the 

 holes, beginning at once to claim it as their 

 home, and being doubtless the better pleased 

 with it because it lias so many cool door 

 ways where they can look out and get the 

 fresh air in abundance, which they always 

 need when the swarming fever is on them, 

 and every bee is gorged with honey with 

 which to commence provisioning the new 

 home. In fact, their first act when getting 

 ready to swarm, is to repair to the unsealed 

 stores of honey and fill themselves with all 

 they can contain. I do not know how they 

 always behave after being thus filled, but in 

 the few instances when I have been right on 

 hand when the swarm issued, I have seen 

 them commence to circle about the inside of 

 the hive with uplifted wings, uttering the 

 swarming note, until finally they began to 

 issue from the hive. As they go tumbling 

 out pell mell, hurry skurry, like a lot of ur- 

 chins when school is out on a summer's af- 

 ternoon, they seem, for the time, to have but 

 one object in life, and that is to get as far 

 and as speedily away from their home as 

 possible. 



By turning to QUEENS, you will see that I 

 have advised clipping the wings of every 

 queen as soon as she becomes fertile ; if we 

 do this, our queen can not take wing, as she 

 usually does as soon as she gets out of the 



hive (she is generally nearly the last to come 

 out), but hops helplessly on the ground. If 

 you are on hand, pick her up as soon as she 

 makes her appearance, and cage her. As 

 soon as the bees are all out, move the hive 

 to a new stand, put a new hive in its place. 

 and lay the caged queen down close by the 

 entrance. The bees, as soon as they discov- 

 er that the queen is not with them, will 

 come back to their old stand, and enter the 

 new hive. When they are going in nicely, 

 release the queen and let her go in with 

 them. All this is very simple, and we have 

 practiced the plan quite extensively. To 

 let the new swarm go to work at once, and 

 prevent any possibility of absconding, we 

 give them a single comb containing eggs 

 and larva 1 , and fill out the rest of the hive 

 witli frames of fdn. The bees usually com- 

 mence coming back, in about 5 or 10 min- 

 utes, bid they may cluster and remain away 

 1") minutes, or in extreme cases, as much as 

 a half hour. 



They will always come back sooner or la- 

 ter, so far as I have been able to learn, un- 

 less they have an extra queen, or get another 

 queen by uniting with another colony, or 

 something of that sort. See ABSCOtfDTNG 

 swarms. If you do not find the queen as 

 she conies out of the hive, and she has a 

 clipped wing, you may be pretty certain that 

 she will come back. After swarms | which 

 see) have unfertile queens, and consequent- 

 ly their wings can not be clipped. If you 

 see them when they come out. and succeed 

 in catching them, you can often hive the 

 swarms in the same way; but the young 

 queen will sometimes put right out again, 

 and you must expect her to show all sorts of 

 eccentric maneuvers. 



If you do not wish to move the old stock 

 away, you can tie the caged queen to the 

 end of a pole, with some leafy twigs near 

 her, and usually succeed, without much 

 trouble, in getting the bees to cluster around 

 her. AVe have usually kept on hand for this 

 purpose, a common rake, witli a bush tied 

 to the end of it. If they commence cluster- 

 ing on a, limb, hold it near them while you 

 shake the limb and keep it in motion, and you 

 will soon have them on your rake, to be car- 

 ried where you please. If your hive is al- 

 ready fixed, lay the rake on the ground in 

 front of the hive, and the bees, finding the 

 cavity, will at once commence to travel in. 

 If they do not discover the entrance at once, 

 guide them to it with a twig ; after they are 

 going in nicely, release the queen and watch 

 to see that she goes in with them. 



