1896. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



51 



time the hiver is attached to the main hive, and the swarming. 

 As it is readily understood, the working bees have to go 

 through the hiver every time they go out and come baclf. The 

 drones can, and will, come out tlirough the queen-escape and 

 be confined in the hiver. There they will stay quite awhile, 

 being fed by the bees. The mischief is, that they are in the 

 habit of clustering on the inside zinc (between tlie hiver and 

 the main hive). The bees do so, also, to some extent. The 

 result is, not only the ventilation of the main hive is inter- 

 fered with, but the coming in and going out of the field-bees 

 is considerably hindered. Frequently the bees take possession 

 of the combs or foundation placed in the hiver without swarm- 

 ing. This gave me the idea of putting sections in the hiver, 

 and from that I readily got the idea of turning the field-bees 



Fiq. 1. 



into the supers, as described in some of my previous writings 

 in the American Bee Journal. 



In calling the attention of the readers to this, it is to point 

 out in what direction improvements should be attempted, but 

 not to advise using the hiver as above described, as I was com- 

 pelled to abandon it altogether. 



The second type of self-hiver used so far is as shown in 

 Fig. 2, that is, a queen-trap large enough to admit the placing 

 of combs in the apartment where the queen is caught and con- 

 fined when swarming occurs. This having but one zinc be- 

 tween the main hive and the outside world, will not interfere 

 appreciably with the working of bees or the ventilation, pro- 

 vided, however, that the zinc at the entrance of the hiver and 

 all the openings are of a suliBcient size. But it will not retain 

 a full swarm ; the majority of the bees will go back to the 

 main hive rather than climb into the hiver through the inside 

 zinc. I think, though, that with some ingenuity a disposition 

 of the zincs could be found that might prevent it, but what- 

 ever may be attempted in that direction ought to be with 

 having the bees to pass through only one zinc in their work to 

 and from the field. The disposition of the escape and zincs 

 shown in Fig. 2 is adopted in view of leading the queen into 

 the hiver. Nevertheless, she will sometimes go back into the 

 brood-nest instead of through the escape. 



QUEEN-TRAPS VS. HIVERS. 



If I could be in my apiaries every day, or every other day, 

 I would simply use queen-traps, or perhaps entrance-guards, 

 rather than any kind of hivers. But if the apiarist may be ab- 

 sent a whole week or more, then the second type of hiver just 

 described is better than a queen-trap. When the queen finds 

 herself a prisoner in the trap, she institutes a thorough inves- 

 tigation as to the means of escaping, and in the course of two 

 or three days succeeds in going back to the main hive through 

 the cones. No sooner back there, she swarms again, and, 

 knowing how to go back, does it at once, then daily swarm- 

 ing, or rather attempts at swarming, take place, and last as 

 long as queens and queen-cells are present — that is, until the 

 last queen has emerged. In fact, the queen-trap is not much 

 better in such cases than a mere entrance queen-excluder. 



When a swarm issues and the queen is retained in the 

 hiver, enough bees stay with her, and combs are there, so the 

 <}ueen does not even attempt to go back ; some work is done 

 there, and is that much gained. Until a virgin queen emerges, 

 ao swarming will take place, and the usual work is resumed 

 in the main hive, as well as it was before swarming. With 

 the appearance of a virgin queen, swarming is resumed, and 

 the young queen gets into the hiver. There a fight between 

 the queens takes place, and one of the two is killed, almost 

 invariably the old one. 



In all my experiments with queen-traps, hivers and ex- 

 cluders, only one laying queen has held her own against the 

 virgin queens. The next day the same will be repeated, and 

 so on until eventually no more cells are left in the brood-nest; 

 one virgin queen is in the hiver, and another in the brood- 

 nest. In the course of a few days the latter comes out to 

 mate, and meets the other in the hiver. A last fight takes 

 place, and only one virgin queen is left in the hiver. When 



the apiarist comes, all he has to do is to remove the hiver and 

 allow the queen to mate — that is, if it has not interfered 

 before. 



When the old queen gets into the hiver, no more eggs are 

 laid in the brood-nest, and, more than that, hardly ever are 

 any more queen-cells started after she has left, from the fact 

 that the number of bees in the main hive is considerably re- 

 duced. The queen-cells already started will be all matured, 

 generally in from 12 to 15 days. By that time the last virgin 

 queen has emerged, and swarming is at an end. 



With a queen-trap as an excluder, the case is different. 

 The old queen will remain in the hive and lay eggs until she 

 is killed by one of the virgin queens — generally the first one 

 emerged ; and since the hive remains crowded, new queen- 

 cells will be started as long as there is any brood old enough 

 to make a queen. 



As I have stated above, no queen will stay in a queen-trap 

 more than two or three days. The majority of them will get 

 out during the night after they have been caught. Perhaps 

 my queen-traps were not very well made. 



Of course, all the above supposes that the apiarist has 

 not been able to attend to his bees sooner. I have only a 

 limited number of hivers and traps, all the other hives having 

 queen-excluders. A swarm issuing the first time may come 

 out late in the day, but the following days they are sure to be 

 out early; they may come back at once, or perhaps later dur- 

 ing the day, generally before 12 o'clock. A returned swarm 

 will hang on the outside of the excluder quite awhile, so by 

 going into the apiary between 10 and 12 o'clock, a.m., the 

 apiarist will early discover which hives have been swarming 

 and need attention. The sooner they are attended to the 

 better. 



If increase is desired, move the old hive to a new stand, 

 except a comb or two with a queen-cell on the old stand un- 

 less the queen is there. Better destroy all the queen-cells but 

 one in the queenless hive, but leave the excluder on in case a 

 queen-cell was overlooked. If no increase is needed, remove 

 the old queen and allow requeening by leaving one queen-cell. 

 (This in order to prevent further swarming.) Have an ex- 

 cluder on (a queen-trap or hiver will do as well) ; wait until 

 the young queen has emerged and destroyed the old one, then 

 destroy the queen-cells. Do not spend more time than neces- 

 fary to find the cells, but leave the excluder. If any cell has 

 been overlooked, swarming will take place sometime during 

 the next two days, if the weather is not too bad. No queen- 

 cell will be started in the presence of a virgin queen, at least 

 that has been my experience so far. 



FINDING QUEENS AND QUEEN- CELLS. 



To find the queens and queen-cells, have an excluder be- 

 fore the hive ; put in front of this a board or platform about 

 2 feet square, one side resting on the alighting-board, and the 

 other propped up from the ground. Take the combs out one 

 by one, shake the bees on the platform, and set the combs 

 anywhere, but not in the hive. It is not necessary to shake 

 them clean, the queen falls easily, and all that you need is 

 that enough bees are off to permit you to see the queen-cells. 



Fig. 2. 



Do not take too much time. The queen will be found prob- 

 ably before the excluder, trying to get in, perhaps in the hive, 

 perhaps on one of the combs. If you leave a virgin queen in 

 the hive, leave the excluder on for two or three days. If any 

 queen-cell has been left, you will know it by the bees swarm- 

 ing. 



Bees shakeu on a platform as above described, will stay 

 there, or, at most, will partly hang at the edges; while if 

 shaken on the ground, they would crawl everywhere, es- 

 pecially inside the operator's trousers. 



QUEENLESS SWARMS. 



The behavior of queenless swarms under circumstances as 

 above described is interesting. The first day a queenless 

 swarm comes out, it hardly ever clusters, and returns in a 



