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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE. 



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TWO OR MORE SWARMS COMING OUT AND 

 UNITING. 



When the swarming note is heard in the 

 apiary, it seems to carry with it an infec- 

 tion ; this may be a mistake, but in no other 

 way can I account for swarms issuing one 

 after another, while the first is in the air, 

 unless they hear the sound and haste to go 

 and do likewise. Of course, they will all 

 unite in one, and as many as a dozen have 

 been known to come out in this way, and go 

 off to the woods in a great army of bees, be- 

 fore anything could be done to stop them. 

 If your queens are clipped, and you 'muscle 

 around," and get them all in cages deposited 

 in front of the hives, they will usually sepa- 

 rate and each bee go where he belongs. Un- 

 less you have plenty of help, you will be un- 

 able to get the hives all moved away, and a 

 new hive fixed for each one before they 

 come back. In this case, they will go back 

 into their old hive, and, if the queen is re- 

 leased will sometimes go to work, but often- 

 er, they will swarm out again within a few 

 hours, or the next day, and if you keep put- 

 ting them back, they will soon attack and 

 kill their queen, and loaf about until they 

 can rear a new one, and then swarm. This 

 is very poor policy, and we can by no means 

 afford to have such work. If they swarmed 

 for want of room, they may go to work all 

 right, after having room given them. If 

 they come out the second time, I should give 

 them a new location, divide them, or do 

 something to satisfy their natural craving 

 for starting a new colonv. 



To go back ; suppose they get a queen or 

 queens having wings, and cluster in one 

 large body. In this case, you are to scoop 

 off bees from the cluster, with the swarm- 

 ing bag, a tin pan, or a dipper, as may be 

 most convenient, and apportion parts, made 

 about as nearly of the size of a swarm as 

 may be, about in different hives. Give each 

 hive a comb containing eggs and larva* as 

 before, and then get a queen for each one if 

 you can. In dividing them up, should you 

 get two or more queens in a hive, they will 

 be balled as I have before described, and 

 you can thus easily And them. If more than 

 one queen is in a hive, you will rind a ball of 

 bees, perhaps the size of a walnut or hens 

 egg, about them, and this can be carried to 

 the colony having none. If you cannot tell 

 at once which are queenless, you will be able 

 to do so in a few hours, by the queen cells 

 they have started. If you are more anxious 

 for honey than bees, you may allow two 

 swarms to work together, and if you give 



them sufficient room, you will probably get 

 a large crop of honey from them, but this 

 plan does not pay, as a general thing, be- 

 cause the extra bees will soon die off by old 

 age, and your colony will be no larger than 

 if the queen had had only her ordinary num- 

 ber of bees. 



PREVENTION OF SWARMING. 



If we can entirely prevent swarming, and 

 keep all the bees at home storing honey all 

 the season, we shall get enormous crops from 

 a single hive. Whether we shall get more 

 in that way, than from the old stock and all 

 the increase, where swarming and after 

 swarming is allowed, is a matter as yet hard- 

 ly decided. If a swarm should come out in 

 May, and the young queens get to laying in 

 their hives by the first of June, their work- 

 ers would be ready for the basswood bloom 

 in July, and it is very likely that the workers 

 from 3 queens or more would gather more 

 honey than those from the old queen alone. 

 But another point is to be considered. The 

 two or three new colonies must have stores 

 for winter, and as it takes nearly 2-5 lbs. to 

 carry a colony through until honey comes 

 again, this amount would be saved by the 

 prevention of swarming. Where one has 

 plenty of bees and desires honey rather than 

 increase, a non swarming apiary would be 

 quite desirable. Then how shall we prevent 

 swarming? We can do it very often, by 

 simply giving abundance of room in the sur- 

 plus receptacles, just as fast as more is need- 

 ed, but no faster. This plan is the one gen- 

 erally in use. If the bee-keeper is on hand 

 to look after his bees carefully, he will get 

 along very well usually. But suppose he is 

 not on hand. In that case, if the queen has 

 both her wings, she will go with the swarm 

 and cluster. If the queen is clipped, she 

 will hop out on the ground and may stay 

 near the entrance until the swarm com- 

 mences to go back, when she will be attract- 

 ed by their humming and go in with them. 

 After watching their manoeuvres many 

 times, I am inclined to think that, in such 

 cases, about half the queens get away and 

 are lost, when no one is near to direct them. 

 In case the queen is lost, the bees come back 

 to the hive, and do little or nothing until a 

 new queen is hatched, and then swarm 

 again. This is a great loss, for the use of a 

 good queen a week or ten days, in swarming 

 time, to a populous colony, might be equiva- 

 lent to a swarm of bees ; besides, if the bees 

 were at work in the boxes, almost all work 

 would be suspended until they were again 



