AMclIi 15, 1915 



337 



Headg of Grsim froei BiffeFeaitt Fields 



Beemau's Laws 



BY IRMA TRUE SOPER 



The poets sing of the gentle spring, 



The drowsy hum of bees ; 

 " The world's in tune " the poets croon, 



" With blossoms on the trees." 

 But the beenian knows, if his business goes, 



He'll take the yoke and work; 

 He can't sit down nor hang "round town "- 



He mustn't be a shirk. 



It's the man who drives the nails in hives 



And brood-frames all day long 

 Who doesn't swear nor tear his hair 



When an orn'ry nail goes wrong. 

 But yanks it out for another bout, 



Then drives it straight and true. 

 Till the hives look trim and square to him — 



His skies are brightly blue. 



An aching back we will not lack 



To speed him on his way ; 

 While the sections fill the supers till 



They all are stored away. 

 It's the man who'll smile serene the while 



A dozen stings he's found. 

 When he takes the bug from their cellar snug 



And sets them on the ground. 



He'll keep his grip till he makes the trip, 



Nor pause to pull out strings: 

 By beedom's laws he must not pause, 



Nor mind such little things. 

 So the poets sing of the gentle spring; 



But there's work that must be done; 

 The beeman knows if his business goes 



He'll mix his work with fun. 



How Swarm Prevention may be Overdone 



I am at home about two days in seven, and de- 

 pend on my wife and neighbors to hive the bees 

 when they are swarming. I was at home when they 

 swarmed once. They swarmed every week the first 

 first two seasons, and all absconded. By reading 

 books and journals I discovered that, by clipping the 

 queen's wing and destroying queen-cells, I could 

 stop the swarming. This was in 1913, the best sea- 

 son we ever had for honey — so say the writers. I 

 had three very strong colonies which hung out in 

 front of the hive. I raised the hives up on four 

 bricks each ; but still they did but very little work. 

 I put a small super on each of the hives. They did 

 not pull all the starters nor cap any of the combs. 

 What can I do to make the bees work when the 

 queen-cells are cut out every seven days, as in the 

 above case? They did not swarm in 1913. My 

 neighbors who let their bees swarm received 152 

 lbs. of comb honey per stand the same year. 



Crestline, O. H. M. Brown. 



[Dr. Miller, to whom the above was directed, re- 

 plies:] 



You operated on the theory that, if you clipped 

 the queen's wing and cut oiit all queen-cells every 

 seven days, your bees would not swarm. The result 

 was that, while your neighbors got 152 lbs. per colo- 

 ny, you didn't get a finished section. Something 

 wrong somewhere. Let's examine your theory. If 

 the queen's wing is clipped she will not go off with 

 a swarm, because she cannot. To be sure, the 

 swarm will issue just the same as if the queen could 

 fly: but when the swarm finds it is queenless it will 

 return tt) the hive unless, as sometimes happens, it 

 joins another swarm having a queen with whole 



wings. But that doesn't often happen, especially 

 in a small apiary. Yet if the colony is left to itself 

 a virgin will issue in about eight days, and with it 

 off goes the swarm. You block that game, however, 

 by cutting out queen-cells each week. In that case 

 no swarm will go off with a virgin. How can it 

 when there is no virgin for it to go off with? 



Your theory seems to be all right, so far as it 

 noen. It seems to be a ease in which " a little 

 learning is a dangerous thing," for your learning 

 brought you out away behind your neighbors who 

 were without that learning. Let's get after the rest 

 of the " learning." First, let us inquire what likely 

 happened with a colony treated as you treated yours. 

 The swarm i.ssued with the clipped queen, and re- 

 turned. But there's no certainty that she returned. 

 She may have been lost. If she returned, the swarm 

 ■would keep issuing until she was lost, or until the 

 bees, dissatisfied with her, balled and killed her. 

 In any case, you may count on it that, when a 

 colony with a clipped queen swarms and is left to 

 itself, the clipped queen will disappear within a day 

 or ten days. Even if the queen should be left in 

 the hive as long as ten days, there will be practically 

 no eggs laid in that time. Also, egg-laying had 

 dwindled and practically ceased some time before 

 the swarm issued. So within less than three weeks 

 all recruiting from hatching young bees would cease ; 

 and with the bees dying off at the rate of a thou- 

 sand, two thousand, or more a day, and a colony 

 discouraged because their owner had destroyed all 

 chances of another queen, it is easy to see that the 

 prospect for a big harvest would go glimmering. 



Even so, it seems that in so good a year the dwin- 

 dling force of bees should have done more than they 

 did at gathering surplus. In the first place, let it 

 be considered that, while no eggs were being laid, 

 each day young bee-s were hatching, leaving empty 

 cells to be filled with honey, and in less than three 

 weeks every cell in the brood-chamber except those 

 filled with pollen would be at the disposal of the 

 bees for storing surplus. The bees prefer the brood- 

 chamber to any spare room above; and so, although 

 a considerable surplus may have been stored, it was 

 all stored in the brood-chamber. 



There may, however, have been a change made in 

 the program laid down that would have accounted 

 for a much smaller amount of honey. It is not an 

 easy thing to be sure that you have cut out all 

 queen-cells. I've often seen them so hidden that the 

 most experienced might be excused for missing them. 

 You may have missed one. Then one fine day while 

 you were fondly trusting that no swarm could issue, 

 and so no watch was kept, out came a rousing 

 swarm with a virgin and sailed away in the ethereal 

 blue. And if you had been expecting any thing of 

 the kind you might probably have noticed that all 

 at once the bees ceased to hang out. 



Well, you're not likely to be caught that way 

 again ; for you have learned that, while clipping 

 queens and destroying queen-cells stops swarming, 

 it also stops some other things, and there is some- 

 thing further for you to do. Understanding the 

 difficulty, you may be trusted to study out what plan 

 will suit you best to proceed; but it may do no harm 

 for me to suggest one way. 



If you want increase, you may shake a swarm as 

 soon as you find cells well advanced; for I take it 

 that your business allows you to see the bees almost 

 daily, but not at the time of day for swarming. 



If you want no increase, you may let matters 

 proceed until cells are sealed and the queen is gone, 

 or you may kill her. When sure the old queen is 

 out of the way, kill every cell but one, and there 

 you are with a colony having shortly a young queen. 



