294 



Tmw m^^mmi^mm mM'm j@^MifMir. 



of turning iip-side down, plans that 

 seem to have no possibility of failing. 

 But I am afraid that j'ou will not like 

 the plan. I am afraid that your colo- 

 nies, in most cases, will swarm, and if 

 thej- do, I hardly see what you will 

 gain. The only difference would be, 

 that, in this case, the swarm would 

 come off with a virgin instead of a lay- 

 ing queen. 



So long as you have raised only the 

 question of prevention of increase, and 

 not prevention of swarming, let me 

 give you a plan that I used with a good 

 deal of satisfaction, viz : 



Wlien a swarm issues, cage the 

 queen (her wing must be clipped, of 

 course), and either immediately, or at 

 any time when it suits your conven- 

 ience within 2 or 3 days — possibly you 

 might wait several days — proceed to 

 operate as follows : 



Take out of the hive every comb 

 that by any possibility might contain a 

 queen-cell, and put these combs in an 

 empty hive, shaking off about half the 

 bees, the idea being to leave on these 

 combs just as few bees as you think 

 can take care of the brood. Generally 

 I took all the combs the colony had. 

 In the old hive j-ou must leave or put 

 anywhere from 2 brood-combs to the 

 hive full. These combs may be with- 

 out brood, but I suspect it is better 

 that they should contain brood, and at 

 least part of it eggs or brood just 

 hatched. This gives the bees a chance 

 to rear queen-cells, and if you want 

 anj', you may count on these being 

 good. Now put back the super and 

 cover up the hive just as it was, and 

 put the new hive on the top of the old 

 one. Put the queen in this upper hive, 

 and leave them thus for 10 or 11 d.ays. 

 At the end of this time lift off every- 

 thing from the stand, and put on it the 

 hive containing the queen. If in the 

 first place you had filled it with combs, 

 you have nothing to do now but put it 

 on the stand without taking out a 

 frame, otherwise you must fill it up. 

 Put on the supers, and you are done 

 with that colony for the season, unless 

 it should again swarm, when jou are 

 to repeat the first treatment. ' 



You may ask me, what about the 

 queen-cells that were left in the hive 

 on top ? Well, you have nothing to 

 do with them. Let them alone, and 

 the bees will destroy them just as well 

 as you could — in fact better, for they 

 never miss any when they hunt for 

 them. You see there are uot enough 

 bees in the hive to make them want to 

 swarm, and, what is perhaps more to 

 the point, there will be little or no 

 honey brought into the hive for a day 

 or two, and I think that the bees will 

 not swarm when such is the case. 



The hive taken away from below 

 may be put in a new place as a nucleus. 



and in a day or two it will have a 

 young queen, or its contents maj' be 

 distributed wherever they are needed. 



During the time the hive was on top, 

 a number of bees have marked that as 

 their location ; after the upper story is 

 taken away, these bees, when they 

 come back from the field, will fly about 

 confusedly, then settle in a cluster on 

 the cover, and soon some one of them 

 will find the entrance to the lower 

 hive, when the whole crowd, like a 

 flock of sheep, will march down the 

 front of the hive to the entrance below. 



Marengo, Ills. 



BEE-ESCAPES. 



Priority of Invention of tlic 

 Latest Device. 



Written for the American Bee Joiiriuil 

 BY JOHN S. REESE. 



While bee-escapes seem to be one of 

 the absorbing topics of the present, 

 and knowing from experience that dis- 

 cussions bring .such valuable devices 

 to notice, let us have it out before we 

 get busy. 



Mr. Dibbern's article in the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal under date of Dec. 

 14, 1889, certainly proves the introduc- 

 tion of horizontal escapes (used inside 

 the hive), and I do not call to mind 

 that any one has yet doubted it. His 

 letter to me, dated Dec. 3, 1889 (11 

 days before his introductory), and 

 published in Oleaningsior Jan. 1, 1890, 

 will also prove beyond a doubt that I 

 was the first to write for publication 

 the plan of placing an escape inside a 

 hole in the honey-board. , Mr. Dib- 

 bern's article and my own were brought 

 together in Gleanings by my special 

 request, so that each should have full 

 credit. Here is the letter : 



Dear Friend Reese :— Your welcome let- 

 ter of yesterday, together with your model 

 of bee-escape, is just at hand. I am much 

 pleased with your escape, and I know it 

 will work perfectly. In so far as there are 

 no projections, it is perhaps an improve- 

 ment on mine. Still, as all modern hives 

 have bee-spaces, I see no objections to it on 

 that account. 



Again, when used for an inner cover, 

 yours could be covered by a piece of tin, 

 while mine would have to be removed, 

 unless there was a full bee-space in under 

 the board, in which case it would be neces- 

 sary only to plug up the hole, and turn it 

 over. I presume it will require a season's 

 experience to decide which is really the 

 better— I admit that yours is an ingenious 

 arrangement — something that I tried to 

 conceive, but failed. 



Since writing you before, I have made a 

 board with a center escape, and it is a 

 beauty ; still, I do not know that it is any 

 improvement on the single-exit escape. 



C. H. UlBBEUN. 



MUan, Ills., Dec. 3, 1889. 

 Now ought not this to settle the 

 matter ? The thickness of the board 



(provided it is as much as a bee-space) 

 cuts no figure at all, neither does the 

 outlet to the escape. The writer con- 

 ceived the idea of placing the horizon- 

 tal escape in the board, and flush with 

 the top and bottom, and gave it to the 

 readers of bee-papers, and his thoughts 

 have ever been to make it simple, in- 

 expensive and easy to make — one that 

 £ftiy bee-keeper ought to make from 

 the picture, and certainl}' after seeing 

 a model. He is not in the supply busi- 

 ness, and would like to see every one 

 make and use them. 



The models that I have been making 

 are in a thin block, 5-16 of an inch 

 thick, 3} inches wide, and 6J inches 

 long. This oblong, square escape 

 (model) can be let into any thickness 

 of honey-board, and is as readily 

 movable as any escape ever made ; but 

 you will not want to move them. 



As regards testing escapes with the 

 robbing plan, and preventing robbing, 

 I gave that plan as far back as two 

 years since — no st}'le of escape will 

 clear a super of bees in their regular, 

 every-day condition, as quickly, or as 

 clean, as we would like it done, unless 

 we induce the robbing state, then any 

 style (not excluding the old, reliable, 

 single, vertical cone) will clean the 

 super so quickly that we will be sur- 

 prised. 



Many of us will test escapes this 

 season, and I predict success for the 

 horizontal kind ; and the writer would 

 like to hear from those who fail, as he 

 thinks that he can set them right. Be 

 sure to protect the supers from the 

 sunshine, when the escapes are used. 



Winchester, Ky., April 19, 1890. 



HONEY-PLANTS. 



Some Observati«»n§ on Various 

 Plant $1 for Honey. 



Written for the American BeeJoy/rrwZ 



BY JOSHUA BULL. 



I was much interested in reading 

 Dr. C. C. Miller's remarks on the sub- 

 ject of " Farm land for honey alone," 

 on page 21-1, and it prompted me to 

 ofler some of mj' observations and 

 conclusions concerning honey-plants 

 and their probable value. Although 

 my experience has uot been very ex- 

 tensive in the cultivation of plants for 

 honey only, yet for the last five years 

 I have been experimenting in a small 

 way with a few varieties of plants, and 

 from the result of those experiments I 

 submit the following : 



Spideb-Plant. — When all conditions 

 are right, it will yield large quantities 

 of very thin nectar, which can be seen 

 in early moruing amid the stamens of 

 the flowers, but ou account of the 



