996 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 15 



the hives and sort them over to see how many- 

 are completed, nearly completed, etc. The 

 number of grades we are to make depends upon 

 the use we make of the unfinished ones. After 

 sorting out all that are "completed I usually put 

 the rest into three classes. The first class are 

 those which have very little if any honey in the 

 cells. If any have from ten to fifty cells of un- 

 sealed honey, they are allowed to go in this class, 

 but no sealed honey is allowed with this lot. In 

 the second are those that are less than two-thirds 

 finished. In the third class go all that are above 

 this." 



"And now what do you do with each class.''" 



" The sections in the first class are carefully 

 stored away in supers, ready to be put on the 

 hives at the very opening of the next honey-flow, 

 if they are not needed for baits." 



" Do you mean that you put on a whole super 

 of these at the beginning of the flow.''" 



"Yes, if I have them so I can; for with such 

 sections the swarming fever is almost always 

 done away with, because the bees enter them be- 

 fore any honey is crowded into the brood-cham- 

 ber; and by giving more supers, as we have just 

 been talking about, such colonies will, more oft- 

 en than otherwise, pass through the season with- 

 oiif swarming at all, giving a large yield of hon- 

 ey every time. The second class is set away to 

 have the honey extracted from them at the first 

 opportunity, after which the bees are allowed to 

 clean them up, when they are used for baits in 

 preparing the supers for the next season; or they 

 are reserved for feeding any colonies which may 

 need it the next spring. After the bees have taken 

 the honey from them, they are used as bait sec- 

 tions. I prefer to use enough to make two rows 

 through the super, if I can have that many. By 

 putting these rows of baits so there is only one 

 row of sections on either outside of them it is no 

 trick to get a super completed all at once, as the 

 bees always do more work in the center of the su- 

 per, where left to themselves, than they do at the 

 outsides. But by thus placing the baits they be- 

 gin at or near each side first, and thus the sides 

 are completed as quickly as the center, and all 

 come off completed equally. If I am short of 

 baits the sections in the third class are treated the 

 same as those in the second; otherwise I sell them 

 either at home or ship them to New York. A 

 few years ago I did not think this latter could be 

 done; but I tried a few cases one year, when I had 

 more than was needed, and the returns gave me 

 within 2/^ cents as much as for my fancy honey. 

 Since then I have remembered it, and I find 

 that my first experience with shipping is the rule, 

 and that it is more profitable to ship all two- 

 thirds-sealed sections, having the remaining third 

 filled with unsealed honey, than to dispose of 

 them in any other way unless I am short of baits. 

 If short, I sometimes think it would pay to ex- 

 tract or feed fully completed sections for the 

 baits they would make." 

 Borodino, N. Y. 



A California paper states the Imperial Valley 

 Bee-keepers' Association have practical control 

 of the honey output of the valley, and are secur- 

 ing good prices on the cars shipped East. There 

 are now 7000 stands of bees in the countv. 



General 

 Correspondence 



SWARMING. 



Some Facts to Prove that the Scouts Usu- 

 ally Search for a Home Before the 

 Issuing of the Swarm. 



BY J. E. HAND. 



Mr. Greiner's article, p. 1507, last year, revives 

 an interesting subject that was discussed pro and 

 con in the bee-journals a number of years ago, and 

 calls vividly to my mind some experiments that 

 I conducted some 20 years ago in Iowa, with a 

 view to finding out the truth about the scout 

 theory. 



A prairie country where the timber grows in 

 belts along the streams, and where trees suitable 

 to lodge a swarm are scarce, offers superior 

 advantages for studying the habits and instincts 

 of bees relative to their choosing a home before 

 and after the issuing of a swarm. 



I lived on the banks of the Iowa River, in 

 Hardin Co., Iowa, and in conducting these ex- 

 periments I loaded a flat boat with empty hives at 

 swarming time and scattered them along the 

 banks of the river, usually in some tree, and some 

 eight or ten feet from the ground. I visited these 

 hives every day, and have had swarms enter such 

 hives the same day they were put up; and, again, 

 I have known the scouts to take up their abode 

 in a hive every day for nearly a week before the 

 swarm took possession. 



Again, I have known of more than one instance 

 of a swarm issuing from the parent hive and mak- 

 ing off to one of those decoy hives without clus- 

 tering. Like Mr. Greiner I have had strange 

 bees come into my apiary, and take possession of 

 an empty hive in which the scouts have been 

 working for several days. All my experience 

 along this line goes to prove that bees usually 

 search for a home for several days before the is- 

 suing of a swarm. However, they are not al- 

 ways successful in locating a suitable abode, in 

 which case the swarm will fly in a straight line 

 for some distance and then cluster again and re- 

 peat the operation of searching for a home, and 

 doubtless this was the case with the swarms that 

 entered Mr. Greiner's hives. Undoubtedly those 

 swarms came from a distance, and clustered not 

 far from Mr. Greiner's apiary. 



I believe bees search for a home in very much 

 the same way that they search for stores of pol- 

 len and nectar, and that more than one swarm 

 often choose the same hive is evident from the 

 fighting of the guards at the entrance of these 

 hives. After a swarm once chooses a decoy hive 

 for their future home it is as faithfully guarded 

 until the swarm takes possession as it is after- 

 ward, and no intruder is allowed to enter. 



Bees seem to prefer to seek a home at some 

 distance from their present abode, and I have 

 known swarms to leave the hive the next day 

 after being hived, and go straight to a decoy hive 

 1%. miles away. The scout theory is an estab- 

 lished fact, and offers an interesting theme for 

 the student of bee nature. 



Birmingham, Ohio. 



