1909 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



335 



General 

 Correspondence 



IS THERE A NON-SWARMING RACE 

 OF BLACK BEES? 



The Climatic Conditions of Europe, and 

 ho>v they Affect the Swarming Prob- 

 lem; the Influence of Large Hives. 



BY C. P. DADANT. 



[The Didants, of Hamilton, HI., have (or many years been ad- 

 vocates of large hives. They adopted the Langstroth frame, 

 Qoinby size, IS^ixU^i inches, ten frames to the hive. They 

 have for many years back run almost exclusively for extracted 

 honey, and us the Quinby frame is a little large to extract from, 

 they nse a shallow exttacting-frame of the same length as the 

 brood-frame, but only 6ii inches deep. With this hive and 

 their system of management they have been reducing swarm- 

 ing down to approximately two per cent a year, and apparently 

 have no difficulty in accomplishing this result with any strain of 

 bees. 



Many years ago the late Charles Dadant began writing a se- 

 ries of articles for the European journals, in which he advocated 

 the Dadant-Quinby hive above described. He met with consid- 

 erable opposition from the old-fashioned bee keepers, who still 

 stuck to immovable combs, or what we would cull, in this coun- 

 try, box hives or straw skeps. In the mean time Dadant's Lang- 

 stroth's revised work in English, French, and Russian, has been 

 spreading the gospel of large hives over all Europe. So successful 

 were the Dadants in the advocacy of a large hive and system that 

 it came into very extensive use among modern bee-keepers. 

 Out of this has since grown throughout Europe the use of large 

 hives. 



In the discussion that occurred in our May 1st issue, page 269, 

 VIr. Kramer held that the bee-keepers of Switzerland were able 

 to control swarming Decauie they had a non-swarming strain of 

 bees. In our footnote we somewhat questioned whether this con- 

 trol of swarming was not rather due to the fact that the Swiss 

 were using large hives or " chests," and running for extracted 

 honey. We appealed to Mr. C. P. Dadant, of the well-known 

 firm of Dadant & Son, and the reviser of the above-mentioned 

 work, for further paiticulars, and here is his reply. — Ed.] 



Mr. Editor: — I have your letter asking me for 

 an opinion on the above question as discussed in 

 the article in the May 1st number of Gleanings, 

 p. 269, by Dr. C. C. Miller and by Mr. Kramer 

 and otheis in Switzerland as to the breeds of bees 

 that s.varm least. 



I am very tree to say that I do not believe there 

 has been any special characteristic bred into any 

 race of bees by artificial selection thus far. Practi- 

 cal bee culture by the late advanced methods is too 

 new to have secured such results. In the breed- 

 ing of domestic animals we usually control both 

 parents. In the breeding of bees we have only a 

 very limited control of the male. Changes and 

 improvements are, therefore, slower than in other 

 stock. A few years ago it was thought by many 

 that a race of bees had been bred with longer 

 tongues, but it was readily ascertained that no 

 positive progress had yet been made. 1 do not 

 wish to imply that no progress Ttv// he made, for 

 I believe in evolution, and also that the cultiva- 

 tion of tendencies by human help is bound, soon- 

 er or later, to cause changes in any desired direc- 

 tion in animals as well as in plants. But we 

 must not be too sanguine, and think that we can 

 work a sudden reform in conditions that have 

 taken centuries to form. 



1 do not believe that there is a marked differ- 

 ence between the common bee and the Italian in 

 the propensity to swarm. We have bred both 

 races, as well as the hybrids, and find very little 

 difference if any. 



It is well to say, however, that experiences dif- 

 fer as to the comparative qualities of the twQ 

 races, and it is quite possible that those differ- 

 ences are due to the character of the bees that are 

 native in the countries where the test is made. 

 Our Swiss friends, Mr. Ed. Bertrand in the lead, 

 have often asserted that the Italian bees were in- 

 ferior to their common bees, and have advanced 

 the theory that each country has the bee which is 

 best suited to its climate and flora. This is in 

 the line of the Darwinian idea of " natural selec- 

 tion " and the "survival of the fittest." These 

 things were called theories once; but the older 

 we get, the more evidences we see to prove that 

 they are cold facts. 



America did not have the honey-bee. The 

 Indians called it "the white man's fly." There- 

 fore we were in good position to make a selection 

 from different sources, and the results have been 

 different in different locations. Might it not be 

 that we have simply struck different conditions, 

 and that one race is better in some States and 

 another in others.? 



The Swiss and the French are succeeding in 

 preventing swarming. They are following the 

 Dadant ideas, and are succeeding even better than 

 the Dadants. This is a positive fact. I have on 

 my desk, with a view of writing a criticism of it, 

 an article which has appeared in several French 

 publications, in which the writer speaks of 

 the absence of swarms as a very general 

 occurrence in the use of the large movable- 

 frame hive, and laments it as a defect, under 

 the plea that the apiaries will diminish in size. 

 So it would appear to be quite common to see 

 several summers without a swarm. I ascribe this 

 absence of swarms to three causes, but do not ac- 

 cept as a cause the special breed of bees. To 

 my mind the absence of swarming in modern 

 European methods is due, first, to the large hives; 

 second, to the production of extracted honey; 

 third, to the milder climate of Europe. 



1. The large hives are quite uniformly adopt- 

 ed in Switzerland, France, Italy, Belgium, etc. 

 A very lively fight was made in the bee-journals 

 of those countries some forty years ago by my 

 father, as your readers already know, in favor of 

 the movable-frame hives as against the straw skep 

 and the eke hives, which were all of very dimin- 

 utive sizes. When the fight was won, as it was 

 sure to be, in favor of the new methods and the 

 movable frames, many took the large hives. As 

 it happened, the DeLayens hive, brought forward 

 at the same time or shortly afterward, was also a 

 very large hive. So the majority of practical 

 bee-keepers in those countries use very large 

 hives. 



2. The production of extracted honey has not 

 met the same difficulties in Europe that it has 

 found in America. The old-time bee-keepers 

 were producers of strained honey, rendered in 

 such a way as not to alter its capacity to granu- 

 late. So the Europeans do not have to make a 

 fight in order to sell granulated honey. If there 

 is a demand for it at all, over there, it is accept- 

 able without melting it. Here, thousands of our 

 producers have taken it for granted that they can 

 not educate the consuni' rs, and they go to a great 

 deal of trouble to melt their honey before put* 

 ting it on the market. The result is a discourag- 

 ing prospect for the producer of extracted honey j 



