1889 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



621 



how bees " make honey," by sending a re- 

 porter. We referred him to Dr. A. B. Mason, 

 Auburndale, O., and to II. R. Boardman, of 

 East Townsend, O , and we requested, as a 

 special favor to bee-keepers, that he send a 

 reporter to either one of these gentlemen, 

 and report what they see in his own paper. 



A personal letter, written to the editor 

 who has damaged the bee-keeping industry 

 by one of the falsehoods, or, better still, a 

 personal visit itself, will secure the atten- 

 tion that a prompt denial from a bee-journal 

 might fail to do. In the one case Mr. Ger- 

 ard wrote an article to the Brackett News. 

 In the other case a lady bee-keeper (and 

 what editor would not give one of the op- 

 posite sex a fair hearing?) called upon the 

 city editor and enlisted his interest so that 

 he even wrote to A. I. Root for information. 

 The point is, that the refutation or denial 

 should appear in the paper in which the false- 

 hood has been published; in other words, 

 those in whose minds the false impression 

 has been created should have a speedy de- 

 nial. These large papers will rarely deign 

 to publish any thing from a small paper, but 

 they will take something first-handed, as a 

 general thing, providing the right influences 

 are brought to bear. Now, then, we sug- 

 gest that, instead of sending so many of 

 these clippings to us, you sit down yourself 

 and write to the editor of the paper in whose 

 columns the false statement appeared. We 

 will furnish free all the $1000 reward cards 

 you can use, and other matter you may call 

 for. The more bee-keepers who will do this, 

 the more effect it will have. Be sure to 

 write in a courteous and gentlemanly man- 

 ner. Do not call them a " pack of fools " or 

 a "set of liars;" but write in such a way 

 that they will respect the writer. Of course, 

 we shall not cease pecking away at the 

 falsehood, as we have done in the past, but 

 we solicit the most hearty co-operation of 

 our subscribers. Do not forget that, when 

 the item appears in your local paper, a 

 prompt denial from yourself, especially if you 

 are a person of influence, and one whose 

 word even the editor himself has no reason 

 to doubt, will have more effect upon the ed- 

 itor than a denial from a bee-paper perhaps 

 several hundred miles away. Do not leave 

 any local editor unvisited, who dares to 

 slander our industry by publishing any thing 

 about " artificial combs deftly filled and 

 capped over by appropriate machinery." 



DR. MILLER ON SWARMINGcAND ITS 

 PREVENTION. 



THE CAGED-QUEEN PLAN. 



T AM glad to see the views of Hasty, Doolittle, and 

 |jf Stachelhausen on swarming. No other matter 

 W connected with bee-keeping, at present, pos- 

 ■*■ sesses more interest for me. In raising comb 

 honey.J swarming is the one great drawback 

 that upsets all plans; and if we know the conditions 

 nece«sary to induce swarming it may help us to- 

 ward prevention. Indeed, I care very little to 

 know the cause or causes of swarming, only as it 

 helps me to know how to prevent it. Sometimes I 

 think I have prevention of swarming just in my 

 grasp, and then like a " will o' the wisp," it's away 



off. I don't like to tell how much I've done in dif " 

 ferent years to spoil my crop of honey by trying 

 experiments to prevent swarming. The experience 

 of this summer has muddled afresh some of the 

 things that I thought I had pretty well settled, and 

 leaves the whole matter an open question. Years 

 ago I practiced with considerable success the plan 

 then recommended by friend Doolittle for the man- 

 agement of swarms, which was, in brief, to cage 

 the queen when a swarm issued; in five days, cut 

 out all queen-cells, and in five days more destroy 

 queen-cells again, and liberate the queen. This 

 worked well, and I am not sure whether any plan 

 can be adopted that will give better crops where 

 white clover gives the only surplus. The great ob- 

 jection to it is, that it requires some one to be con- 

 stantly on the watch to ?ee the swarms issue. Aft- 

 er trying various plaus, and giving them up in de- 

 spair, I came back last year to caging queens again. 

 After following the Doolittle plan already mention- 

 ed, the colony thus treated never gave any trouble 

 again about swarming that season. It seemed rea- 

 sonable that the same plan might be used without 

 waiting for the bees to swarm, so 1 caged the queen 

 before the colony had swarmed, looking through 

 the brood-combs and destroying all queen-cells, if 

 any were already started. 



The queen was placed in the cage, between two 

 top-bars in the brood-nest, and the bees always feed 

 her there. I think in no instance have I found 

 a queen dead in the cage after being so placed. 

 After remaining thus for ten days, all queen- 

 cells were destroyed, if there were any, and 

 the queen liberated. Sometimes no queen-cells 

 were started during the caging of the queen, 

 but generally several were found sealed at the 

 end of the ten days, and these cells were of the 

 best kind. You will see that this varied not such a 

 great deal from the old Doolittle plan, and I expect- 

 ed the same results but with some fears, as I have 

 been so often mistaken in what to expect from 

 bees. This year I have had a good many cases in 

 which the bees swarmed out after the queen was 

 liberated, sometimes iu two days after, and some- 

 times sooner, the queens not having made any 

 start at laying. Indeed, the year has, I thiuk, been 

 an unusual one in the matter of swarming. Many 

 colonies have swarmed out while the queen was 

 caged in the hive, and there seemed to be one or 

 more cases where the bees, I think, remained clus- 

 tered on a bush with no queen. At the Bslden apia- 

 ry a large swarm clustered on a low bush, remain- 

 ing there two days and nights. I suspected that a 

 clipped queen had traveled there with them, but I 

 found nothing of the kind. If a young queen had 

 been with them it hardly seems that they would 

 have remained so long clustered, as the weather 

 was fine. When I found them they had dwindled 

 to a pint or more, and had deposited on the bush a 

 mass of white wax of irregular form, sufficient to 

 make a ball the size of a hickorynut or walnut. I 

 cut off the bush and ran the bees into a hive in 

 which 1 put a eomb of honey and an empty comb- 

 no brood. I looked over the combs carefully, con- 

 fidently expecting to find a queen of some sort, but 

 could find none. Two days later I found them busi- 

 ly storing honey, having started two queen-cells 

 with pollen in them. I then gave them a sealed 

 queen-cell. I incline to the opinion that a colony 

 with a clipped queen had swarmed and settled, 

 most of them having gone back, gradually, to the 



