1889 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



4(il 



As to location I will give my best judgment. Where 

 the honey-flows are large, and mostly confined to a 

 lew short harvests, and the supplies of pollen rath- 

 er scanty, there will be the least swarming of all. 

 Where the honey-flows are small, and well spread 

 over the whole season, and the supplies of pollen 

 boundless, there will be the most swarming of all. 

 This last pretty well describes my own location. I 

 never had a colony get five pounds in one day that 

 1 know of; but I have had a third, if not a fourth, 

 scries of swarms led by the same queen in one 

 season; and 1 have had thirty swarms in August. 

 On the principle that any man can manage a bad 

 wife « xcept the poor wretch who has her, I suppose 

 some of our respondents will tell us just how to do 

 it. E. E. Hasty. 



I am glad to see, friends, with what una- 

 nimity you all refuse to recoguize the claims 

 of certain patent-right men for non-swarm- 

 ing hives. Even the traditional garret, 

 where the bees have a whole room for it, 

 does not prove, through a series of years, to 

 be non swarming. 



Question 128.— flow <-<ni second warming be pre- 

 vented? 



Leave but one queen-cell to hatch. E. France. 



By cutting out the queen cells at the proper time. 

 Mrs. L. Harrison. 



Remove all the queen-cells and introduce a layiug 

 queen. L. C. Root. 



By breaking out all the queen cells but one or 

 (belter) two adjoining ones. C F. Muth. 



Destroy all queen-cells, leaving only one, unless 

 there is a young queen just hatched. 



P. L. Viallon. 



1 have had too little experience with either first or 

 second swarms to know much about either. 



O. O. POPPLETON. 



By putting the swarm in the place of the hive 

 which has swarmed, and putting the old hive else- 

 where. Dadant & Son. 



Destroy all queen-cells but one, at the proper 

 time after the first swarm has issued, say 6 to 10 

 days after. Geo. Grimm. 



By removing all queen-cells but one, or all and 

 giving new queens; also, usually by depleting the 

 hive, <t Ut Heddon. I find this works well. 



A. J. Cook. 



Usually by moving the old hive to a new location 

 and placing the swarm on the old stand. By the 

 Heddon plan. By cutting out all queen-cells but 

 one. C. C. Miller. 



By removing all but one of the queen-cells is one 

 way. Moving the hive from which a swarm has 

 issued, to a new location, will generally prevent aft- 

 er-ffwarming. A. B. Mason. 



By exhausting them of beeF, which may be re- 

 moved to the prime or first swarm, and employed 

 ingathering surplus instead of acting as nurses in 

 raising young bees that will never be able to pay 

 for their board. H. R. Boardman. 



1. A fertile queen maybe given them; :.'. After 

 destroying all queen-cells a virgin queen may be 

 given them; 3. All but one cell may be removed to 

 a new location after a week. There are exceptions 

 to all rules; and these are reliable, about in the or- 

 der stated. P. H. Elwood. 



The best method I know any thing about, I devis- 

 ed and placed before the public, under the head of 

 "Prevention of After-Swarms." It is printed in 

 my book, and quoted and approved by Professor 

 Cook, I believe, as well as being published in back 

 numbers of bee-journals. James Heddon. 



I have always had good success by letting a new- 

 ly hatched queen run in at the entrance as soon as 

 possible after the first swarm issues. This method 

 has the advantage of allowing you to select your 

 breeding stock, and is very little trouble. What is 

 known as the Heddon plan works well. 



James A. Green. 



The following is the plan that I have laid out for 

 myself the coming season: Set the prime swarm 

 beside the parent hive; if too many bees incline to 

 enter either of them, turn the entrance of the popu- 

 lous one away from the old position sufficient to 

 prevent it. Six days after hiving, remove the par- 

 ent hive to a new locality in the apian - , so that its 

 surplus bees will return to the old stand, thus 

 weakening it just at the time it would begetting 

 the swarming fever again. It. Wilkin. 



Upon the issuing of the prime swarm, take the 

 brood-combs from the parent hive, placing them 

 in a box, substituting other frames in their 

 place, hiving the swarm by the returning plau. 

 Now carry the combs of brood and the adhering 

 bees to a hive on a new stand, wherever you wish a 

 colony to stand, placing the frames in this hive. On 

 the morrow, take a virgin queen; and after lifting 

 one of the frames from the hive, wait a moment, 

 when the bees that are on it will begin to fill them- 

 selves with honey, as they are all young bees. Vou 

 are now to put the mouth of the cage having the 

 virgin queen in it near some cells of unsealed hon- 

 ey, from which she will quickly begin to eat. In 

 doing this, both bees and queen assume a natural 

 condition, when the frame is lowered into the hive, 

 and the hive closed. If you look the next day you 

 will find all queen-cells destroyed, and swarming 

 given up. G. M. Doolittle. 



I can tell how to do this, for I've done it— and con- 

 trived the plan all myself too. I listened at the 

 hives at eventide, heard the young queens piping, 

 rose early next morn, shook the bees into a swarm- 

 ing-basket, imprisoned them for two days in a pit, 

 then returned them to the hive. It worked beauti- 

 fully, and likewise ruined more than half the colo- 

 nies 1 tried it on. Now, if I had waited an hour or 

 two until the bees had swarmed naturally, and then 

 had proceeded in the same manner for the rest of 

 the process, it would have been all right. At least, 

 that is my regular way of doing, and I have treated 

 multitudes of them so with rarely any trouble. I 

 concluded that breaking up their natural way in- 

 furiated tbem so that they killed their queen while 

 waiting in the pit, and then (having got their hand 

 in) they killed the other queen when returned to 

 the hive. It was a time of great dearth of honey, 

 and bees were abnormally cross. I mean to try the 

 plan ae-ain under more favorable circumstances, 

 and see if it can not be made to work. A lady, who 

 has a considerable apiary next west of mine, han- 

 dles all her second swarms by spreading them on a 

 white sheet, and making them fly home after she 

 has taken their queens all away. I'm sure I should 

 miss half the queens (after-swarms frequently hav- 

 ing several), and then they would go to the woods 



