226 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



April 9, 



Fourth — In no respect is the stimulating effect of these 

 things more potent than upon the queen. A (low of nectar 

 hardly rouses the bees themselves more than its ingathering, 

 and the hatching of young bees as well, does the one bee 

 whose strongest instinct and only duty is to lay eggs. 



Fifth — This, the climax of the series, consists in the fact 

 that in the month of June all these conditions are present in 

 the highest degree. Throughout the season thus far there 

 has been an almost uninterrupted boom. Now the boom has 

 reached its height. The weather is the most propitious, more 

 honey is coming in than ever before, there is more brood in 

 the hive, more bees hatching, more house as well as field bees 

 with nervous powers stimulated to the utmost, and as a result 

 of all these things, the queen will lay more eggs than at any 

 time in the season. 



It may be you knew all these things before. If you did 

 not, you know them now. But I want to note particularly 

 how these conditions, in their effects, forces upon the instinct 

 for procreation, that same ponderous thought I gave you 

 awhile ago. All incited to brood-rearing, and upon that one 

 thing centers all the activities of the hive. The propensity to 

 store honey itself is subsidiary to this, even though upon it the 

 bees may for a time expend the greater share of their energies. 



Right at this juncture the other set of conditions arises. 

 Honey is now coming in so rapidly that there is not sufficient 

 room in the hive — now pretty well filled — in which to store it. 

 Bees will not go into empty chambers and build comb in which 

 to store honey so long as there is any empty comb in which to 

 put it. It is much the simplest and quickest way to run it 

 into the receptacles already constructed. When they are 

 finally driven into surplus apartments, the process of secret- 

 ing wax and building comb is slow. Hence, every empty cell 

 in the brood-chamber, and often perhaps those in which eggs 

 have been laid, are speedily filled with honey. As fast as the 

 brood in the outer circle of the brood-nest hatches, the comb is 

 filled and sealed, while all through the nest are cells filled 

 temporarily, especially in the latter part of the day. Often 

 there is scarcely a cell left in which the queen can lay an egg. 

 As a result, we have now the following set of conditions : 



First — At the very time the queen wants to lay the most 

 eggs, she is most hampered for room. 



Second — At the very time the nurse-bees are prepared to 

 feed the most brood, there is least of it — unsealed — in the hive. 



Third — At the very time the nervous powers of the house- 

 bees are most excited, they must, to secrete wax, be most 

 quiet. This is an item that alone would be insignificant, but 

 along with the other causes it helps to swell the aggregate. 



Fourth — The blood of the queen acquires an enriched 

 character owing to the check in egg-production. It is Hasty 

 that says this, but it meets my indorsement. 



Fifth — The vessels in the bee-anatomy in which are stored 

 the supplies for future brood-rearing become "turgid" 

 (Hasty again) — simply gorged for want of brood to which to 

 give the food. 



It is easy to see that; we have here a state of things that 

 makes queen and bees alike uneasy and discontented. Now it 

 is that, according to Nature's law, the instinct to reproduce 

 their kind, which cannot he satisfied in the hive under exist- 

 ing circumstances, develops into the impulse to swarm. 



If what I have written is true — and it is — the way to pre- 

 vent swarming is briefly this : Allow unrestricted room for 

 brood-rearing. Simply have a large brood-chamber, then to 

 keep the bees from filling it with honey, have plenty of avail- 

 able storage-room above — that means empty combs. Notice 

 what Mr. Draper said at the convention (page 103). He uses 

 a large Quinby hive, keeps plenty of combs in the upper story, 

 and runs for extracted honey. In that way he keeps down 

 swarming. Of course. I could have told you so. I knew 

 swarming could be prevented that way, before he said so. 



But how to prevent swarming when running for comb 

 honey, and not at the same time seriously interfere with 

 honey-storing, is the problem. Four methods have been 

 tested, and some success claimed with each, viz.: 



1st. Remove the queen, or cage her in the hive for about 

 ten days. 



2nd. Replace queens with young ones before swarming 

 season arrives. 



3rd. Remove the brood a short time before the swarm is 

 likely to issue — perhaps a week, more or less. 



4th. Practice shifting the bees back and forth from one 

 hive to another. Only one of these methods exactly meets the 

 conditions laid down. This is the third one. It is easy to see 

 why the first method succeeds. I do not know what to say 

 about the second one. If the fourth one is successful it is be- 

 cause — 



1st. Any considerable derangement of the internal affairs 



of the hive tends to disturb and divert the bees from their pur- 

 pose for a time. 



2nd. It takes some time to get queen-cells started in the 

 hive that catches the bees. 



3rd. It meets in part the conditions that cause swarming. 



It takes some time for the boom in the colony that has for 

 awhile been so depleted of bees, and to some extent of honey, 

 to again reach its height. By this means swarming can be 

 delayed until the sum of conditions that cause it begin to stag- 

 nate and decline. I think I kept two colonies, sitting side by 

 side, from swarming, by this method in 1893, when a regular 

 swarming mania had struck my apiary. I simply set one hive 

 off the stand about a foot, turning the entrance at right an- 

 gles (or less) to the other, and iu four or five days put it back, 

 and set off the other one. Of course, I shifted the supers with 

 the bees. About four shifts did the work. For two years I 

 have had no chance to test the plan, as the seasons have been 

 so poor that there has been no swarming at all. If it is a 

 success, the Langdon non-swarming device, or something like 

 it, is just the thing. I hope I shall have occasion to try this 

 method the coming season, then it may be I will tell what I 

 have learned. 



I have frequently prevented a colony from swarming en- 

 tirely by taking away the brood. Sometimes I have replaced 

 with empty combs, but if I want to get a good crop of comb 

 honey, I remove every comb, putting the queen and older bees 

 into an empty brood-chamber contracted to five or six frames, 

 the latter containing only starters of comb foundation. This, 

 of course, is practically artificial swarming. 



There are some other points upon which I would like to 

 touch, such as requeenlng a Id Hutchinson, and the possibility 

 of breeding out the disposition to swarm, but as this is already 

 one of the longest articles I have ever written, I forbear. 



Mechanicsburg, 111. 



Peppermint as a Honey- Plant. 



BY CARSON VAN BLARICUM. 



Peppermint is a stranger to the readers in general, as a 

 honey-plant, but known as an oil-product, although quite fre- 

 quently found growing by roadsides, in pools of water, and 

 waste-places. Its greatest value is supposed to be that of its 

 relation to our medical fraternity. It is not produced as uni- 

 versally as wheat or corn, and for this reason it is not famil- 

 iarly known to a large number of our inhabitants. Only a 

 small area is given up to its culture, nor is this the only rea- 

 son why the industry is not becoming larger. Only certain 

 acclimated localities will produce oil, and to produce a valua- 

 ble crop of oil it must blossom. Bees cannot gather nectar 

 from hay or corn stover, but must visit numberless multitudes 

 of most fragrant blossoms; likewise, if peppermint does not 

 bloom in a locality in profusion, its value does not become ap- 

 parent to the oil-producer or bee-keeper. 



Peppermint is generally harvested before it attains the 

 required age to give a very large flow, and seems to secrete 

 nectar in larger quantities the older it gets. You go to your 

 nearest wild mint plat ; gather the roots — take th^m home 

 and plant on your lowest ground, in rows 33 inches apart, 

 and place two or three long roots side by side, or so as to 

 make them as continuous as possible. These plants will 

 give you the required flowers, but no oil. You can plant on 

 high or low ground, but with better success on low land or 

 muck marsh. 



The plant is a perennial, smooth stem, decumbent, four- 

 angled ; leaves opposite, ovate, acute at end, serrate, thin, 

 flowers in dense, axillary clusters, small, pink or light purple, 

 labiate, very slender petioles. 



The oil is volatile, and belongs to the genus mentha 

 (menthol for catarrh is made by a special process from the 

 oil, which contains from 30 to 50 per cent, of its specific 

 gravity, of menthol). For cholera plague it is used in large 

 quantities, both in home and foreign climes. For rheumatism 

 it has no superior in immediately relieving the most acute at- 

 tack of this much-dreaded disease, when mixed one-half ounce 

 pure oil with one-half ounce of either chloroform orlaudanum ; 

 agitate briskly, and apply externally, but under no considera- 

 tion apply near the heart. 



Peppermint is planted in continuous rows and cultivated 

 like corn or potatoes, or a vegetable garden. Although it 

 seeds freely, it is propagated from the roots only. Planted in 

 March or April it attains in five months (at maturity) from 

 three to five feet in height. It begins to blossom in August 

 and September, and for its profusion of flowers is likened unto 

 a clover or buckwheat field. When in full bloom it entirely 

 covers from view the dark green foliage of the mint plants. 



