1896. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



611 



Natural Swarmiue vs. Artificial or Dividing. 



BY HON. R. L. TAYLOK, 



Suprrinleiident of the Mifhigau Experimeid Apiary. 



It is a pretty general received opinion among bee-lfeepers, 

 I ttiink, that the operation of natural swarming gives the bees 

 an impetus that causes them to work more rapidly, both at 

 honey-gathering and comb-building, than would have been the 

 case had they not gone through that process. Whether that 

 opinion is sound or not is a question of much practical interest, 

 because It would often be convenient, and desirable, if the net 

 results were not to be thereby diminished, to prevent natural 

 swarming by artificial swarming, through the use of some 

 method of division. On the face of it there is strong evidence 

 that natural swarming gives the Impetus referred to, but there 

 is reason to believe that we may cherish a just suspicion that 

 the swarming is a mere coincidence, and that the apparent 

 evidence is produced by other causes. For instance, it might 

 easily prove to be the fact that the more rapid progress of the 

 work of the hive is caused by the absence of the necessity of 

 making provision for any considerable amount of brood, for a 

 somewhat prolonged period of time, as the chronology of the 

 apiary goes. To produce better results in the matter of sur- 



be futile to attempt to show that either class did the better, 

 without knowing the amount of honey required for the rear- 

 ing of a pound of brood, and it would be equally impossible to 

 make a valid argument showing the amount of honey required 

 for the rearing of a given amount nf brood, unless it is first 

 determined whether the two classes gathered honey equally 

 well In proportion to their strength. Still, if we assume that 

 the two classes gathered honey with equal zeal, which is prob- 

 ably not a very violent assumption, we may, especially if sup- 

 ported by facts drawn from the swarms of June 23, arrive at 

 a tentative conclusion, and, perhaps, open the way for a satis- 

 factory solution of these questions hereafter. 



First, a few words In explanation of the table : Of the 

 swarms of June 6, the first three are artificial ; that Is, made 

 by shaking the bees with the queen from a hive In which no 

 preparations for swarming had been made, and hiving as In 

 the case of a natural swarm. Colonies 4 to 7, inclusive, are 

 natural swarms of the same date. As the table indicates, all 

 were given brood-chambers, consisting of a single section of 

 the Heddon hive, each furnished with full sheets of founda- 

 tion. As will be seen, hives, bees, and supers were carefully 

 weighed separately, so that at the end of the experiment, July 



plus honey some apiarists practice caging the queen for a 

 time, thus putting a stop to the depositing of eggs, and to that 

 extent to the feeding of brood. Is not natural swarming 

 Nature's way of cheeking the queen ? And, if so, may not 

 artificial swarming be so managed that the same check Is 

 given and equally desirable results obtained? 



The accompanying table gives the details of an experi- 

 ment, such as circumstances permitted, conceived for the pur- 

 pose of gaining, if possible, some satisfactory information on 

 the matters referred to. The scantiness of the honey-flow has 

 prevented the attainment of the degree of success hoped for, 

 and, besides, the experiment, cast in an entirely new field, 

 has been a sort of groping one, and yet, I think It will be 

 found far from barren of valuable results. 



One of the most perplexing, and at the same time one of 

 the most natural things, that enter into the problem, is the 

 satisfactory estimation of the amount of food necessary to 

 produce the brood which each colony has reared during the 

 process of the experiment ; for it is evident that unless the 

 colonies are of the same strength, and the amounts of brood 

 reared equal, or, at least, unless the amounts of brood reared 

 by several colonies bears the same proportion to their several 

 strengths, this matter Is in the highest degree important. It 

 is evident, referring to the accompanying table, that the dis- 

 parity between the strength of the artificial swarms of June 

 6th and the natural swarms of the same date is so great, and 

 the amount of brood of each class bears such different ratio to 

 its strength, as compared with that of the other, that it would 



] 1, it was easy to determine the amount of the increase in 

 each. At the same time the hives were gone over carefully to 

 determine the amount of brood in each, which is expressed In 

 Heddon frames, and the weight of the brood is determined 

 from the showing In the case of the colonies 4 to 7 whose hives 

 were practically free from honey, and the frames full of brood 

 had an average weight of about IJ^ pounds. From this, 

 when the amount of brood is determined, it is easy to find the 

 amount of the honey in each brood-chamber. In the case of 

 the swarms of June 23, the same course was pursued, except 

 that 8, y, and 10 were hived on starters, 9 being an artificial 

 swarm, and 10 a natural swarm with a virgin queen. 



Starting with the above assumption, then, that the two 

 classes of swarms of June 6 each gathered the same amount of 

 honey per pound of bees, it is only necessary (not to be cap- 

 tious about minor points) in order to find the amount of honey 

 expended in the rearing of brood, to find the number of pounds 

 of brood in each class will give results which if added respec- 

 tively to the number representing the pounds of honey in 

 evidence in each class will give sums which will take the sec- 

 ond and fourth place in a true proportion in which the num- 

 bers representing the weight of the bees in the two classes are 

 the other two terms, in other words to find the value of X in 

 the expression : 12 :X 20 plus 27: :28k:X4IK plus 79«. 

 The value of X will be found to be almost exactly 2%. 



But it is 35 days since the bees were hived, and if we 

 allow 5 days for the time that elapses before active feeding 

 begins, 80 days remain — nearly time enough for a generation 



