222 



American T^ee Journal 



July, 1910. 



. 4. A confined space for the queen's 

 ovipositing is one of the main causes 

 of swarming, says the advocate of the 

 large hive to the small hive disciples, 

 and of course in a measure there is at 

 least a modicum of truth in the conten- 

 tion for small hives, /. <■., those afford- 

 ing the queen only a circumscribed 

 brood-area are fertile factories for be- 

 getting the swarming instinct, although, 

 of course, the small-hive man has it in 

 his power to overcome this drawback 

 in quite a number of different ways 

 without any resort to "Draper's barns" 

 or Jumbo hives. The fact remains, 

 however, that a queen simply must ovi- 

 posit while in the full flush of her lay- 

 ing, even to the laying of several eggs 

 in a single cell, or by dropping them 

 promiscuously about. What can the 

 far-seeing worker do to ease the ten- 

 sion but look ahead and trust to for- 

 tune for the establishment and fitting 

 up of some new home. 



5. A lack of super space on a hive 

 during a full flow will act just as it did 

 in the time of our forefathers who 

 worked under the defective system of 

 small straw hives. Early in the season 

 even bees began to bunch out on warm 

 days around and above the entrance 

 until the flight-board and front of the 

 hive were black with them, and great 

 festoons hung down bunching from 

 the floor-board right to the ground. 

 Pursuing the same short-sighted policy 

 with our modern hives, what can we 

 expect but that bees will act in the 

 same way as they did in the bad old 

 days ? That we know a cure is easily 

 and quickly applied is of little use un- 

 less the knowledge is acted upon. 



6. When a queen is no longer young, 

 some instinct teaches the bees that 

 they should look ahead and prepare 

 for future contingencies. Their pro- 

 phetic vision reveals to them that an- 

 nihilation must follow the loss of a 

 mother-bee at a season of the year 

 when they have no means of securing 

 a successor, and so, taking time by the 

 forelock, they proceed to anticipate 

 that untoward event by making hay 

 while the sun shines; or, in other 

 words, creating one or more queens to 

 meet all possible danger of sinking 

 into nothingness. The doctrine so fre- 

 quently enunciated, "Keep only young 

 queens." is simply a lesson taught us by 

 the wisdom of the bees. 



7. That certain strains and races of 

 bees are inveterate swarmers is a 

 truism which needs only to be named, 

 for no one will seek to dispute the 

 point. Carniolans, for instance, have 

 been known to send out at least six 

 swarms in one day, althoiigh there are 

 Carniolans and Carniolans, because it 

 may be charitably presumed that the 

 devil is not so black as he is sometimes 

 painted. 



8. Ventilation is certainly a prime 

 factor to be reckoned with in produc- 

 ing or hindering swarming. I am not 

 indeed prepared to saj that it is the 

 chief, but taken in conjunction with 

 one or two of the other points enumer- 

 ated, it is the one requiring most care 

 and attention from the bee-keeper. Take 

 a hive boiling over with bees, a broiling 

 hot sun with a temperature at fever 

 heat, a confined brood-area, a small 

 surplus space, combined with a small 

 entrance, and we have a concatenation 



of circumstances which almost inevit- 

 ably leads to swarming, let the bees be 

 of whatever race or strain they please. 

 The cause is there, and result follows 

 cause. 



9. An overplus of drones in a colony 

 of workers is undesirable. Their pres- 

 ence seems to lead the minds of the 

 Amazonian host astray from whole- 

 hearted thoughts of industry. A spirit 

 of unrest seizes them, and they connect 

 the presence of so many males with a 

 necessity for the construction oT queen- 

 cells, and immediately chaos follows. 

 Nothing but swarming will cool the 

 fever. 



10. Location balks considerably in 

 begetting the desire. Certain sites and 

 surroundings produce the crave. Ab- 

 sence of shade, full exposure to the 

 sun, an over-sheltered cosy nook, each 

 of these, or all combined, generate the 

 impulse. Hives kept in such positions 

 breed the " bacillus" more readily than 

 where the apiary is in an open, exposed 

 situation. 



11. Stimulative feeding by causing 

 active breeding early in the season 

 raises thoughts in the workers' cra- 

 niums which would never have entered 

 there if they had been left to their own 

 devices; therefore, if possible, let 

 stimulation alone wherever possible, if 

 there is a desire to curb swarming. 



12. Checks or hindrances to the free 

 movement and intercourse of the bees 

 in the hive interior mean temptations 

 and inducements to the bees to beget 

 the swarming fever. Many of these 

 might be named, such as small en- 

 trances, badly fitting frames, bad spac- 

 ing, and chiefly the use of excluder zinc. 



Next month. Some Means of Pre- 

 vention. 

 Banff, Scotland. 



Queens Mating More than Once 



BY ALEX. SCHROEDER. 



Under this heading I have found an 

 article in the January American Bee 

 Journal. Seldom, but yet sometimes, it 

 is an advantage in getting old, inasmuch 

 as we can remember what the younger 

 folks cannot ! The mating more than 

 once of queen-bees is not new to me, 

 and I will cite a few instances when re- 

 peated matings of queen-bees were ob- 

 served, which I hope will be of interest 

 to the American bee-keepers. 



In the year 1875, Janscha, of Vienna, 

 .\ustria, in his book "Complete Instruc- 

 tion of Bee-Keeping," on page 6, stated 

 that a queen-bee was fecundated only 

 once for her lifetime. In rare cases the 

 mating done but once may not bring 

 about a perfect fecundation (filling of 

 the spermatheca) von Siebold (Bienen- 

 zeituiig, 1867, page 159) I as Dzierzon 

 (Theoric and Praxis), 1849, page 106; 

 (Biencnzeitung, 1853, page 44; 1861, 

 page 14;) Baron Berlepsch, Vogel (Bie- 

 ncnzeitung, 1858, page 19;) Hemmann 

 (Biencnzeitung, i860, page 213;) Rothe 

 (Biencnzeitung, 1864, page 168) — have 

 all seen quccn-bees fly out again more 

 than once, which they had observed to 

 return with the sure sign of consum- 

 mated mating. In all these cases, how- 

 ever, it was observed that the queens 

 that had returned to their hives with 



the sign of mating repeated the flight, 

 but not that the repeated mating had 

 taken place. 



Dzierzon (Biencnzeitung, 1861, page 

 IS) ; Huber (Huber, Kliene, 1856, No. 

 I, page 46), however, saw in two cases 

 queens which had returned with the 

 sign of copulation, fly out again and 

 return once more with the same sign. 

 The same was observed by Cutler (Bie- 

 ncnzeitung, 1857, page 11;); Hempel 

 (Biencnzeitung, 1861, page 118;) and 

 Leuckhart (Bienenzeitung, 1867, ) 



There may be many obstacles hinder- 

 ing the sperm from entering into the 

 spermatheca, and the lust of the queen, 

 not satisfied, may press her for more 

 mating flights. 



All these observations, which I have 

 found quoted in Berlepsch's book ("The 

 Bee" third edition, 1873), however, con- 

 firm that a queen once fecundated and 

 laying eggs does not fly out again un- 

 less to lead a swarm. 



Trieste, Austria. 



No. 2. 



Spanish - Needle and 

 Catnip 



BY C. r. D.ADANT. 



In my young days I was told that the 

 bees harvest a great deal of honey 

 from the goldenrod, and I was of course 

 convinced that the bright yellow honey 

 gathered during the blooming of that 

 plant was harvested from it, although 

 the quantity of such honey often seemed 

 to me very large for the limited num- 

 ber of goldenrod blossoms in the 

 vicinity. But after a few years, while 

 watching the results. I noticed that the 

 bees were rarely to be seen upon gold- 

 enrods at a time when they came home 

 laden with golden honey and them- 

 selves covered with a bright yellow 

 pollen which gave a tint to everything 

 inside of the hive. The goldenrod blos- 

 soms were then visited mainly by a 

 large black beetle which remained upon 

 them for hours. 



I became convinced that something 

 else was producing this abundant har- 

 vest, and soon discovered the " Span- 

 ish-needle," a low, marshy plant with a 

 fine yellow blossom in the shape of the 

 sunflower, but of small diameter. There 

 are several kinds of this plant, classed 

 among the Composite family under the 

 name of " bidens " — in French, "bident," 

 or two-toothed, thus named from the 

 two or more teeth, sharp and armed 

 with bristles, which the seed carries 

 and which cause it to stick to clothes 

 or to the hair of animals. 



The bidens. burr-marigold, beggar- 

 ticks, Spanish-needles belong mainly 

 to wet soils in this latitude. We find it 

 along the ponds or the marshy places 

 of our prairies and of the Mississippi 

 sloughs. It also grows in dry spots, 

 but much less profusely. Some varie- 

 ties have no yellow petals to the flow- 

 ers, yet this does not prevent them 

 from producing a very great amount of 

 the noxious seeds. 



The smell of the yellow Spanish- 

 needle bloom is very readily recog- 

 nized, reminding me of a field of mus- 

 tard or rape, such as is grown in many 

 parts of Europe. It was this peculiar 



