696 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 



OUT-APIARIES WITHOUT SWARMING. 



Without attempting- to discuss whether it is bet- 

 ter to encourage or discourage natural swarming, 

 I may say that there are many bee-keepers who 

 think it better on the whole to suppress swarming, 

 either to some extent or as much as possible. If, 

 like some others, you have been trying to find 

 some way by which you could get your bees to 

 work right on through the harvest without any at- 

 tempt at swarming, when working for comb honey, 

 I am quite safe in saying that your desire to find 

 such a way will be greatly intensified when you 

 come to establish one or more out-apiaries. For 

 whatever may have been the case with one apiary, 

 if you do not desire swarming it will certainly be a 

 great convenience to be able to leave an out-apiary 

 for three days or a week with little or no anxiety 

 about what the bees may do in the way of swarm- 

 ing-. To prevent increase is quite an easy matter, 

 for any one can double up; but to prevent swarm- 

 ing is quite another thing. This is not the place to 

 discuss plans to prevent swarming; but I may say 

 that, although I am not without hope that some 

 one may find out a better way, I am not sure now 

 of any way except the one which is probably fa- 

 miliar to you, of keeping the queen caged or out of 

 the hive during- the swarming season. " But," you 

 say, " doesn't the absence of the queen or the loss 

 of so much brood during the working season prove 

 detrimental? " Quite likely; but the fact that such 

 men as Capt. Hetherington and P. H. Elwood prac- 

 tice on this plan, shows that they think more is to 

 be gained than lost by it. Even if it should require 

 just as much work during the season as to allow 

 natural swarming, the work can be more evenly 

 distributed; for if you have 100 swarms in 10 days it 

 is any thing but certain that you will have exactly 

 ten each day. Besides, I suspect that three or four 

 persons can take care of more bees by going about 

 from one apiary to another than if each one were 

 obliged to stay in his own place. 



Another thing that is quite an item to some, is 

 that it is very much pleasanter to have company, 

 and go together from one apiary to another, than 

 to work alone each day. 



Mind you, I'm not insisting that for you it is best 

 to try to have no swarming. If you have great 

 faith in natural swarming (and some of our best 

 men have), swarm away to your heart's content. 

 I'm only saying that, if you have a leaning toward 

 the suppression of swarming, you will lean away 

 over when you have more than one apiai-y. What I 

 have said applies particularly to apiaries run for 

 comb honey. If you run for extracted, of course 

 the danger of swarming is very much lessened. 



Marengo, 111. C. C. Miller. 



ITEMS FROM THE APIARY. 



HOW TO TELL WHEN A COLONY IS QUEENLESS. 



T|pTthis season of the year we often examine 

 9fl^ the old colonies in our apiary which have 

 fix cast swarms, to see if the young queens in 

 ■*^*- the same have commenced to lay. In doing 

 this we often find colonies which have the 

 cells all cleaned out and prepared for the queens, 

 yet there are no eggs in them. I used to think, that 

 where I found cells thus prepared it was a sure 

 sign that the queen was present and was about 

 commencing to lay; but years of experience have 

 taught me that this can not always be depended up- 



on; and if a hive is left without further looking aft- 

 er, it often happens that they remain queenless so 

 long that fertile workers get possession of the 

 combs, in which case it is about as well to break up 

 the colony as to try to make them accept a queen. 

 Finding some colonies in the above shape, appar- 

 ently with queens just ready to lay, I thought I 

 would not wait and look again, as I generally have, 

 often hunting some time for the queen when I did 

 not see eggs, so I went to some of my other colo- 

 nies, and took frames from them which contained 

 plenty of brood in the egg and larval state, and 

 placed it in the center of each of these doubtful 

 colonies. In four days I went to these colonies 

 again, when all I had to do to tell whether they 

 were queenless or not was to lift these combs I had 

 set in and see whether there were queen-cells on 

 them or not. To my surprise over half of them had 

 queen-cells on them, thus proving conclusively 

 that they were queenless. Now, being positive that 

 they had no queens, all I had to do to introduce 

 one was to take away these frames of brood, put 

 them back in the hives where they came from, and 

 in an hour, when these were mourning because of 

 the loss of this brood, roll a queen in honey and 

 drop her in the hive at the top of the frames, rest- 

 ing assured that she would be well received, for I 

 never lost a queen when put in a hive under these 

 conditions. A frame of brood containing eggs and 

 larvas placed in any doubtful colony will always 

 tell whether they are queenless or not, yet from the 

 many reports of losses of queens which I have re- 

 ceived, it would seem that queens are largely or- 

 dered for supposed queenless colonies, and then 

 lost in trying to introduce them to a colony having 

 something they are reverencing as a queen. 



SEVERAL QUEENS IN A HIVE. 



Just before the honey harvest closed, a swarm 

 came out unexpectedly one day, and, not caring to 

 bother with it at that time, as I was in a hurry, I 

 paid no attention to them, except to cage the queen 

 at the entrance of the hive, and in an hour or two, 

 when passing that way, liberate her, letting her run 

 into the hive. I intended to look the hive over in a 

 day or two and cut the queen-cells off, if the bees 

 had not already done so; but being extremely busy 

 I did not get at it till over two weeks had passed. 

 Passing by this hive one day I saw that this colony 

 had many drones flying, while nearly every other 

 colony in the yard had killed off their drones. I at 

 once resolved to open the hive, which I did. On 

 lifting the first frame I found two queen-cells from 

 which queens had hatched, neither of which showed 

 any signs of being gnawed into at the sides, as they 

 generally show where a young queen hatches after 

 swarming is given up, for under such circum- 

 stances the bees and young queen soon destroy all of 

 the rest of the cells. The next comb contained 

 another queen-cell, showing that this one had also 

 hatched a queen from it, and so I kept on finding 

 queen-cells from which queens had hatched to the 

 number of six or seven, all looking as if the queens 

 had been out of them for several days. On the sec- 

 ond frame I found a young virgin queen, evidently 

 a week or more old, and others of about the same 

 age on other frames, till I had counted five. There 

 was no piping or quarreling on the part of the 

 queens, and the bees did not pay any attention to 

 them. The singular part of it was their age, and 

 the time of year. It is nothing singular to find sev- 

 eral very young queens at liberty together in the 



