GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



turn of the swarm, which occurs soon after 

 they find themselves without a queen. 



I thinii that, in many cases, the disposi- 

 tion to swarm is clipped with the wings. 

 I once clipped a two-year-old queen that 

 lived and worked for six seasons, without 

 taking out a swarm or having a queen-cell 

 built. She worked seven seasons with her 

 own bees — two seasons undipped and five 

 seasons clipped — and in the eighth season 

 she was put with a weak stand ; and in July, 

 after they were strong, she died of old age. 

 Can Mr. Harrington tell why those bees 

 did not discover in all those >eais that she 

 was maimed? 



I clip my queens in the queen-rearing 

 hive, and introduce them clipped and with- 

 out caging. Caging queens in the hive be- 

 longs to the methods of the past. 



I cage the queen in the afternoon, and 

 leave the cage on the frames of the small 

 liive; then, after sundown (always), when 

 the field workers are all in, I take the queen 

 in the cage to the large hive; open it, and 

 give the bees a little smoke; then let the 

 queen run down with the bees, shut the 

 hive, and do not open it for three days. 

 The queen then will be safe. I have not 

 lost a queen, introduced by this plan, for 

 ten years. 



TWO PLANS FOR MAKING ARTIFICIAL SWARMS. 



I am not a lover of natural swarming, 

 so I clip all my queens, cut queen-cells, and 

 make my swarms artificially by two plans. 

 The first is old, and the most simple, and is 

 one which I use only after the honey-fiow 

 is in, which is usually some time in July. 

 At nine o'clock some fine morning, when 

 the field workers are beginning to come in, 

 I take from a strong stand a frame of 

 brood having fresh eggs, paying no atten- 

 tion to the Cjueen, and place it in a hive witli 

 seven frames filled with full sheets of foun- 

 dation, putting one frame with foundation 

 in the old hive in place of the frame I have 

 taken out. Then I remove the old hive to 

 a new stand, and place the new one on the 

 old stand in time to catch the field workers. 

 If the queen is left in the old liive she will 

 have no disposition to swarm when robbed 

 of her bees, and will destroy the queen-cells, 

 if there are any. If she is in the new hive 

 on the old stand, the first young queen out 

 in the old hive will do the same. 



With the other plan, which I now use 

 the most, I do not disturb the working colo- 

 nies. Early in the season, as soon as there 

 are drones, I take four queen-rearing hives 

 that hold three brood-frames each, dividing 

 among them the frames from an eight-frame 

 colony, giving each hive one frame having 

 fresh egg's. I then put in each liive a third 

 frame having comb or foundation. The old 



queen will be in one of the four hives. 

 When the other three parts of the colony 

 find themselves queenless they will build 

 queen-cells and rear a queen for them- 

 selves. As soon as the old queen has the 

 three-frame hive filled so that she wants 

 more room I place her in an eight-frame 

 hive having five frames of foundation. 

 When the (|ueens in the other three hives 

 have hatched, mated, are laying, and want 

 more room, I place them also in eight- 

 frame hives having five frames of founda- 

 tion. By this I Ian I disturb only one colo- 

 ny and add three; but if I have a colony 

 that has the swarming fever and will not 

 stay, I take it to a new stand and place 

 one of the young queens with her bees on 

 the stand which has just been vacated. The 

 field workers will go into the hive with her, 

 and live happy ever after. 

 Dayton, 0. 



AN EARLY TYPE OF STEAM-HEATED UNCAP- 

 PING-KNIFE 



BY ARTHUR C. MILLER 



The accomiDanying photograph is of a 

 steam-heated uncapping-knife which the 

 writer had made and experimented with in 

 the summer of 1896. A rubber tube led 

 from the steam-generator to the nipple 

 nearest the handle, and the steam was al- 

 lowed to blow freely from the other nipple. 

 Later the second orifice was reduced with a 



Arthur C. Miller's steam-heated uncapping-knife 

 which he had made in 1896. 



grooved plug. So far as the writer knows, 

 it was the first steam-heated uncapping- 

 knife in existence. It was far from being 

 the perfect device now on the market, but 

 it served to demonstrate the principle, also 

 to inflict sundry burns, and was soon laid 

 ciside for a good old-fashioned Bingham 

 knife. It was experimented with on two or 

 three subsequent occasions, but was finally 

 put among the "curios" of the "has been" 

 collection which all good bee veterans pos- 

 sess. 



Many persons saw this knife in opera- 

 tion when I first made it, and I exhibited 

 it at Toronto several years ago, and I tliink 

 at Amsterdam, N. Y., the year before. The 

 man who made it for me is in business just 

 across the street from this office. I recall 



