224 



July, 1915 



The age of the queen is a factor ; the 

 older the queen the more likely to 

 swarm. It is a very rare thing for an 

 established queen to swarm in her first 

 season. That word " established " must 

 be noted. A queen may be considered 

 established when she is fairly at work 

 laying as the mother of a colony. No 

 matter how young the queen, if not 

 thus established, she may swarm. I 

 once gave to a colony in the humor of 

 swarming a young queen that had be- 

 gun laying only two or three days be- 

 fore. I think it was not more than 24 

 hours until the colony swarmed. But 

 as already said, when a queen is fairly 

 settled down to work, there is little 

 danger of her swarming before she has 

 passed the winter. Accordingly some 

 think it wise not to allow a queen to 

 become more than a year old. This 

 has the disadvantage for those who 

 are trying to breed for improvement 

 that one cannot tell which is the best 

 stock to breed from, for a queen can- 

 not show the value of her progeny as 

 storers until she has passed a full sea- 

 son, and she is then likely to be more 

 than a year old. 



A colony that has sent out a prime 

 swarm with its old laying queen is 

 likely after a space of some eight days 

 to send out one or more afterwarms. 

 The prevention of an afterswarm is an 

 easier thing than the prevention of a 

 prime swarm, and may here be men- 

 tioned. The plan is simple. When the 

 prime swarm issues, hive it and set it 

 on the old stand, placing the old hive 

 close beside it, bolh hives facing the 

 same way. A week later move the old 

 hive to a new stand 10 feet or more 

 away. That's all; the bees will do the 

 rest. For when the hive is moved to 

 its new stand, the bees will go afield 

 just the same as if no change had been 

 made, but having noted no change, 

 when they return from the field they 

 will go, not to the old hive, but straight 

 to the old place, and join the swarm. 

 About this time the young queens will 

 begin hatching, and under favorable 

 circumstances the first virgin emerg- 

 ing should go with a swarm. But the 

 bees seem to feel: "We have lost 

 heavily in numbers, nothing is coming 

 in from the fields, we certainly cannot 

 afford to swarm ;" and so the first vir- 

 gin emerging is allowed to massacre 

 her royal baby sisters in their cradles, 

 and there is no afterswarm. 



After all afterswarms have issued, or 

 if there are no alterswarms witlun 

 about two weeks, then that colony is 

 safe from further swarming until the 

 next year. If, now, we put a colony in 

 the same shape as if it had .swarmed, 

 we may feel safe as to swarming, and 



American ^ee Journal 



this is much practiced under the name 

 of shaken swarms. Strictly speaking, 

 this is not prevention of swarming, but 

 artificial or anticipatory swarming, 

 But it has the advantage over natural 

 swarming that it takes place at the 

 convenience of the beekeeper, and not 

 at the whim of the bees. Here is the 

 plan of operation: Just b fore there 

 is danger of swarming, take away all 

 but one brood, and fill up the hive with 

 empty combs, of course leaving the 

 queen. The brood taken away may be 

 used to strengthen other colonies, or 

 enough bees may be taken with it to 

 care for the brood, and a new colony 

 formed. 



There is another plan that is equally 

 adapted to comb or extracted honey. 

 Wait until about the time when there 

 is danger of swarming, and then re- 

 move the queen or cage her in the 

 hive. After 10 days destroy all queen- 

 cells and let the queen resume her 

 duties. That will likely end all swarm- 

 ing. The likelihood may be made a 

 certainty if at the end of the 10 days 

 instead of the old queen a young queen 

 is given that has lately begun laying. 



J. E. Hand, in a late number in 

 Gleanings in Bee Culture, advocates 



the plan of removing the queen and at 

 the same time giving a ripe queen-cell. 

 He does not say that he has tried the 

 plan long enough to make sure there 

 will not be too many cases of swarm- 

 ing out, for it sometimes happens that 

 a virgin will swarm out before she be- 

 gins laying. If that objection does not 

 hold, it would be an improvement, in- 

 stead of giving a cell, to give a virgin 

 less than 24 hours old, at which age a 

 virgin will be kindly received in any 

 colony. c. c. m. 



European Foulbrood 



The reporl of comparative experi 

 ments made in Canada and in the east- 

 ern United States, published by Mr. 

 Pettit, the Provincial Apiarist of Onta- 

 rio, in an 8-page pamphlet, confirms the 

 experiments made by the younger Da- 

 dants, and published on pages 128-9 of 

 our April number. The Italians resist 

 the disease better than the common 

 bees. However, the conclusion reached 

 by Mr. Pettit is that "resistance is 

 more a matter of vigor than of race or 

 strain." The leather-colored Italians 

 are considered as" better than either 

 the yellower strains or the common 

 bees. This, in our opinion, is due to 



C.LKN S. PLAl.NliK UK CE.NrKR JUNCTION. IOWA, WITH A MAY SWARM 



