278 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 1 



it that a first swarm must be a prime 

 swarm." 



" Well, what is the difference? •' 



" I think we can g^et at this matter by 

 turning' to the dictionary. All I have here 

 at the office is the Student's Standard 

 Dictionary by Funk &. Wagnalls; and it is 

 so brief in every thing- I may not find what 

 I want. Oh, yes! here it is. 'Prime, n. 

 1. . . 2. The period of full perfection in 

 any thing." 



" Very well. Is not the first swarm a 

 perfect swarm? " 



"No, not always." 



" Please tell me wherein not." 



"A first swarm, to be a prime swarm, 

 must be in a normal or perfect condition, 

 which is as follows: The parent colony 

 must have an old or laying- queen, general- 

 ly reared the season before, or of longer 

 standing, though this is not strictly neces- 

 sarj' with a prime swarm. But it is neces- 

 sarj' that this queen should have been lay- 

 ing long enough to fill the hive with brood, 

 laid the eggs in the drone and queen-cells, 

 while the younger bees are all of her own 

 production. Then upon the sealing of the 

 first queen-cell (in some cases before), this 

 old or la3dng queen goes out with the bees 

 when they swarm, so that they can estab- 

 lish a perfect colony in their new home at 

 once. Here we have not only a first swarm, 

 but a prime swarm as well, because in ev- 

 ery way the whole thing is in accord with 

 perfect or 7iormal condition." 



" But I never knew a first swarm to issue 

 under any other conditions. Did you? " 



" Oh, yes! Very many of them. And 

 this is especially the case in verj' poor sea- 

 sons. Two years ago I had only three 

 swarms in both apiaries, and none of the 

 three were prime swarms — that is, swarms 

 like what we have just been talking about; 

 yet all three were first swarms." 



" Please explain." 



" In each of these three hives, or colonies, 

 the laying queen which was wintered over 

 commenced laying the same as did all the 

 others, and the bees had no more desire to 

 swarm while these queens continued to lay 

 than did any of the other ninety odd colo- 

 nies; but just before the season arrived, 

 when most colonies would have swarmed, 

 had the season been good, from some reason 

 or other these three queens died right at a 

 time when the hive was well filled with 

 brood and bees of all ages. The queen 

 having died, the bees set about raising 

 them another; and, not being content to 

 start onlyone queen-cell, as is almost always 

 the case, they started from four to a dozen, 

 which queen-cells were perfected over the 

 larva; they had chosen for the purpose. 

 Here you will see is quite a dlfi'erence from 

 the prime-swarm method. In the one case 

 the bees and queen were all agreed in the 

 matter, in order that a perfect swarm 

 should go out, so she laid the eggs in the 

 queen-cells for the queens, they being per- 

 fected from the &^^, while in this latter 

 case the bees took larvse of their own choos- 



ing and built queen-cells over them. You 

 see the difference? " 



" Yes, I see. But go on." 



" When the first one of these emergency 

 queens came out of her cell, there were sev- 

 eral others just ready to come out, and the 

 bees hesitated what to do till the first out 

 began to pipe and the others to quawk, so 

 finally concluded to send out a swarm to 

 keep peace in the familjs and soon out they 

 came — a first swarm, to be sure; but was 

 it a prime swarm, a perfect swarm, or a 

 normal swarm? " 



" From your line of reasoning, I shall be 

 compelled to say no." 



"No. It issued, to all intents and pur- 

 poses, just the same as an after-swarm 

 would, except that it had more bees, and 

 the queens were what is called ' emergen- 

 cy ' queens, instead of those reared where 

 the queen laid the &^^ in the cell for them 

 at the start. They had no laying queen, 

 and the swarm must be queenless, so far 

 as any egg-laying was concerned, till this 

 young queen went out to meet the drone, 

 and had eggs perfected, or from three to 

 six or eight days; while the prime swarm 

 had a queen ready to lay eggs in the first 

 comb built, as soon as the cells were deep 

 enough. I think Dr. Miller must have fail- 

 ed to comprehend, just at the moment he 

 asked that question, that prime meant in a 

 normal or truly perfect condition in every 

 way." 



The outlook for the honey-crop in Arizo- 

 na, up to March 10th, was very discourag- 

 ings, according to one of our correspondent. 



Neither comb nor extracted honey is 

 moving off very freely, and this is particu- 

 larly so of comb, a large part of w^hich, if 

 not all, could have been moved off had it 

 not been for the comb-honej' lies that have 

 not 3'et been all choked oft'. 



COMB-HONEV LIES BREAKING LOOSE AGAIN. 



The comb-honey lies are breaking out 

 again in the Eastern papers. Thej' first 

 started out in Chicago, and moved south- 

 ward and westward till they got to Cali- 

 fornia. Then there was a gradual exodus 

 eastward again. The Chicago papers had 

 been so thoroughly bombarded and lam- 

 basted by bee-keepers that they probablj^ 

 will not rehash any more of the stuff. But 

 in the mean time the Eastern papers began 

 to pick up the old stories and rehash them. 

 Among these papers is the Philadelphia 

 Record, one of the very best and most influ- 

 ential papers in the East. Another one 

 was the New York Tribinie, one of the old 

 standards. I suggest that our Eastern bee- 



