1909 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



301 



General 

 Correspondence 



SWARM CONTROL. 



Dr. Miller's Present System of Comb hon- 

 ey Production; a Valuable Article. 



BY »R. C. C. MILLER. 



I have the following: 



Please cive in Glhaninc.s Dr. Miller's present system of 

 swarm control. Is the method he used in l'*08 described in his 

 book? 



I followed in 1908 the plans given in "Forty 

 Years Among the Bees." I say "plans," for 

 there is no one plan that is always followed. I 

 will give here a short statement of what was 

 done. Let me say in advance, however, that if 

 any one is expecting " a sure and easy method by 

 which one may be certain of having no swarm- 

 ing at all," he may as well stop right here. For 

 more than 45 years I've been studying the swarm- 

 ing problem, and experimenting upon it, but 

 havent fully got there yet. Do my best, I still 

 have two to five natural swarms every year. If 

 you want to know how I manage to do no worse 

 than that, read on. 



I clip my queens' wings. That doesn't hinder 

 swarming; but if a colony does swarm it can't 

 go off. 



As a help toward limiting the amount of 

 swarming, I rear young queens from stock that 

 ihows little or no inclination to swarm. You 

 say, "Why, I thought you reared from colonies 

 giving the biggest yields." Well, that's pretty 

 much the same thing. The colony that gives 

 the biggest yield is about certain to have fooled 

 away no time making preparations for swarming; 

 and a colony that never starts queen-cells is pret- 

 ty sure to give a bumper yield. 



1 use bottom boards that leave a space of two 

 inches under bottom-bars. That leaves good 

 chance for ventilation. Just before storing be- 

 gins I put in a bottom-rack, which prevents the 

 bees building down without interfering much 

 with ventilation. I try to let the bees have, at 

 all times when they are storing, more surplus 

 room than they need. They should never for a 

 minute feel that they are crowded for room. A 

 bait section in the first super starts them to stor- 

 ing there before they are cronvded into the sec- 

 tions. When the first super is half filled — per- 

 haps quite a bit sooner if a big flow is on — an 

 empty super is put under. When this is half fill- 

 ed or more, another is given, and still another is 

 constantly put under as fast as the last one is half 

 filled. Not only this, but an empty super is gen- 

 erally put on top of all. The bees may not need 

 it; but if they happen to, it's there. Next round 

 it can be put under. 



So much by way of breeding and giving plen- 

 ty of ventilation and room. Now let us come 

 to the swarming time. Last summer the very 

 fint white-clover bloom was seen May 25. June 

 3 the bees appeared to make a beginning at stor- 

 ing, and we began to look through the hives for 

 qneen-cells. In most of them no cells were 

 found. It no cells were found in a colony we 



left it till the next round, ten days later (that ten 

 days might b2 a day or two sooner or a day or 

 two !ater,according to the weatherand our conven- 

 ience); and so long as we found no cells at each 

 round we did nothing but thank our stars that 

 that colony was putting in all its energy at stor- 

 ing honey. 



But suppose at the first, or some succeeding 

 round, we found queen-cells. We destroyed 

 them. At the next round we might find one of 

 three things: We might find no cells started, in 

 which case there was nothing to do; we might 

 find eggs or very young larvae in queen-cells, in 

 which case we destroyed them and left the colo- 

 ny for another ten days; we might find biglarvse 

 or sealed cells, in which case it was time for 

 something to be doing. 



That " something " was to give the bees in 

 some way a vacation from brood-rearing. It 

 might be by taking away all the brood — that 

 is, shaking a swarm. But that is equivalent to 

 stopping the laying of the queen for 21 days, 

 and it would interfere less with the harvest if we 

 did not reduce the force of the colony so severe- 

 ly. So we shook no swarm last season. 



In some cases we used the "foundation plan." 

 We killed all cells, put a lower story under the 

 full one, an excluder between the two stories, 

 and put in the lower story the queen and two or 

 three frames of foundation. Ten days later we 

 destroyed any cells found, took away the lower 

 story and the excluder, and restored the queen to 

 her old place. The frames from below were 

 used in nuclei or wherever needed. Very little 

 was generally found done in them — nothing be- 

 yond very young brood, and perhaps only a small 

 amount of eggs. The queen appeared to have 

 sulked. That colony might go the rest of the 

 season without thinking of swarming again; but 

 we couldn't feel sure of that. So we had to 

 watch it every ten days; and if it again persisted 

 in starting cells it had to be treated again. 



Instead of putting foundation in the lower 

 story, perhaps we put from the upper story the 

 frame with least brood in it, and added two emp- 

 ty frames, not even starters in them. The little 

 comb built in these could be melted up into wax. 



In many cases, after killing the cells we 

 took away the queen with two frames of brood 

 and adhering bees, and put them in an empty 

 hive. Perhaps we "put up " the queen. That 

 is, we put the hive over the colony, on top of su- 

 pers and all, of course having no communication 

 with the colony below. Ten days later, after 

 killing cells we returned the queen and her two 

 frames. If in need of a nucleus, instead of "put- 

 ting up " the hive we put it on a new stand. Ten 

 days later we returned the queen with one frame 

 of brood, and had a nice nucleus left, with bees 

 having no inclination to return to the old stand. 

 I might remark that, whether we put up the hive 

 or put it on a new stand, we shook in some extra 

 bees to allow for some that would return to the 

 old hive. But when the queen is taken with 

 them, not so many will desert for the old hive. 



In any case, where a queen was not above the 

 average in quality, or if for any reason we did 

 not care to keep her, when her colony needed 

 treatment we killed her, killed the cells, ten days 

 later killed the cells again, and introduced a 

 young queen that had been laying but a few 



