1908 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1509 



sealing tliey seem to work in the supers as well 

 with the honey-board on as off — at least most of 

 them do — and the improved appearance of the 

 surplus honey well repays the trouble of using 

 the boards. 



My brood-combs are mostly old, and, of course, 

 pretty dark, and the top-bars are thin and narrow. 

 I think that, with thicker and wider top-bars, 

 whiter surplus could be produced; but this may 

 be only a fancy. 



Another method of protecting surplus honey is 

 to use, as far as possible, new combs in the brood- 

 chamber, taking away the old combs about the 

 time the bees begin to seal the section honey, re- 

 placing them with new white combs or founda- 

 tion, or even allowing them to build new combs 

 in the brood-chamber. If one has a surplus of 

 old combs on hand that he desires to use he can 

 place four of them in the center and two combs 

 of foundation on each side with a honey-board, as 

 above described, between the brood-chamber and 

 super. The object is to keep old dark combs, as 

 far as possible, from the super honey. 



It is desirable to keep every thing about the 

 hive as clean and free from propolis as possible. 

 It is my present intention to remove slowly or 

 exchange my old brood-combs for new ones, sav- 

 ing the best of the old for extracting purposes, 

 and then melt the rest into wax. I can get from 

 three to four pounds of wax from eight old Lang- 

 stroth brood-combs; and since it requires but lit- 

 tle more than one pound of foundation to fill 

 them, there will be but small loss in making the 

 change. 



By the above methods I find the evil of travel- 

 stain can be in a large measure remedied, and we 

 have the satisfaction of having combs very much 

 whiter than I had formerly supposed possible. 



Middlebury, Vt. 



SWARM-CATCHERS. 



The Advantage of Light Strong Cages 

 which can be Quickly Placed over the 

 Front of a Hive as the Swarm is Issu- 

 ing. 



BY C. W. DAYTON. 



I have never seen the need of a long pole for a 

 swarm-catcher, and it was long ago when I began 

 to use the kind which I am about to describe. It 

 is convenient, as we are passing to and fro, busy 

 at other work, when we see a big swarm begin- 

 ning to issue, to pick up a light cage and clap it 

 over the front of the hive. It saves their mixing 

 with other swarms which may be already out, 

 and prevents their going into high trees or drift- 

 ing into the yard of some pettish neighbor. This 

 cage that I use has wire cloth upon five sides, 

 while the other side is open. The open side fits 

 so closely against the hive that no bees can get 

 out. The bees will cluster rather compactly in 

 the course of an hour. After that the catcher 

 can be handled in almost any way. If I am not 

 ready to hive the bees I put the catcher contain- 

 ing the swarm into a sack, and hang it up on the 

 shady side of a building, or the bees can be shaken 

 out into any confining box. 



The illustration shows the front of one of my 

 hives and the ^-inch auger-hole entrances which 



I have used nearly exclusively for about 20 years. 

 I have an arrangement to enable the bees to climb 

 up to these entrances, but it is out of the scope 

 of this article to describe it. The three small 

 holes prevent the swarm from issuing as rapidly 

 as it would if an ordinary hive-entrance were 

 used. More ventilation is necessary, but it is se- 

 cured in another way rather than at the entrance. 



At a, a, in Fig. 1 and 3 are the furniture tacks 

 which are driven into the hives to hold the swarm- 

 catcher. This swarm-catcher is made entirely of 

 galvanized iron and wire cloth. The dark shad- 

 ed part of the catcher shows about the usual ap- 

 pearance of a swarm when clustered in it. 



The side rails of the catcher are made of 2%- 

 inch strips of galvanized iron of 28 gauge bent 

 into V shape and firmly soldered to corner caps 

 as indicated. It does not take very much time 

 to bend enough for 5 or 10 of these swarm-catch- 

 ers in case there is no tin-shop handy by. 



If the bees of a swarm are kept in this screen 

 until near night they can be hived without any 

 of the trouble and anxiety about queens, or about 

 the disposition of the swarm to stay hived. We 

 always know that the bees will stay until morn- 

 ing, and then if they have gone inside the hive 

 and taken possession and appear contented, it can 

 be seen at a glance. If they are dissatisfied they 

 usually remain partly outside all night, and do 

 not cluster among the combs or hang on the emp- 

 ty frames. They act shy of every thing we fur- 

 nish. When the bees act willful — that is, when 

 they remain in close cluster and do not start to 

 the fields to work in the morning — it is best to 

 keep them confined for two or three days. Aft- 

 er we furnish a colony a good hive, and stores to 

 live on all winter, and spend our time, labor, and 

 patience to get them built up to good working 

 strength, and then have a great lot of old bees 

 pull up stakes and hike away to the woods, they 

 ought to be " put in chains." Besides swarm- 

 catchers I have about 20 boxes of simple and 

 cheap design into which I can shake bees. It is 

 no use to put the bees in a hive until they are in 

 want of it. They will realize the need of one 

 sooner if they are clustered without hive or combs. 

 The object of the catcher is quick adjustment. 

 When we see a swarm beginning to issue we need 

 to get there quickly. I usually set my extract- 

 ing-house or work-shop as much among the hives 

 as possible, and the hives facing toward it as much 

 as possible. Instead of using one or two small 

 screened windows I have a 24-inch screen extend- 



