THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



43 



fore the honey flow; hives made up and 

 painted, shipping cases and crates 

 nailed up and supers filled; be sure to 

 ha.\e plenty of supplies on hand in time 

 for the seasons use. 



Clip all queens and keep none over 

 two years. Keep track of the best 

 ones, and g^et the best stock possible. 

 Give all your time to the bees. Do 



not try to work in the field, and keep 

 bees on a large scale. Dairying or 

 poultry-raising, or, perhaps fruit 

 growing on a small scale, may go 

 with it. I give my bees all of my 

 time; and m3' ten years' average has 

 been nearly 100 pounds of comb 

 honey, per colony, spring count. 



Brazelia, Miss., No. 14, 1004. 



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)iFe©oi] 



le S^^arminiM Instind 



BY L. M. GULDEN. 



^^Hl?2 remark has recently been made 

 -^ by a prominent apicultural writer, 

 in one of our leading bee journals, 

 that our new acquisition, "shook 

 swarming," is, in reality, a retrograde 

 movement. The claim is made that it 

 has been the constant aim of our 

 apiarists to stamp out the swarming 

 propensity, as much and as soon as 

 possible, by selecting, for breeding, 

 those queens the bees of which are 

 least given to swarming, and that 

 "shook swarming," is in direct oppo- 

 sition to this aim, from the fact that 

 by its practice, colonies are swarmed 

 artificially, thus the swarming instinct, 

 or inclination of the individual colonies 

 is lost sight of. 



When any really difficult work is to 

 be acomplished, it is the practice to 

 supply some temporary means of over- 

 coming obstacles which hinder, until 

 the main work has been perfected; the 

 temporary provisions are then dis- 

 carded. This is practically the posi- 

 tion which "shook swarming " now 

 holds in the work of suppressing the 

 swarming instinct. 



There is no doubt that the suppres- 

 sion of swarming is the great problem 

 before the bee-keeping world. It is 



apparent to every practical apiarist. 

 When he works in a yard or several 

 yards, and compares the work of the 

 individual colonies which have not 

 swarmed with that of those given to 

 swarming, the truth of the above asser- 

 tion is brought very forcibly to his 

 mental recognition. Our large yields, 

 comparatively, come from the colonies 

 least given to swarming. Indeed, ex- 

 cessive warming, with its consequent 

 insufficient stores, and resultant winter 

 losses, has turned many a prospective 

 bee-keeper from his "bee line," to 

 wing his course over fields less hazard- 

 ous, and where he is more certain of 

 obtaining a fair remuneration for his 

 toil. Excessive swarming is worse 

 than moderate swarming, in degree 

 only. Swarming may denote prosper- 

 ity, but prosperity does not necessarily 

 follow swarming; indeed, the opposite 

 is often true. 



When shook swarms are made in a 

 wholesale way, irrespective of a cer- 

 tain knowledge that the colonies will 

 swarm, normally, within a natural 

 lapse of time, it is certainly detri- 

 mental to the permanent suppression of 

 the swarming propensity. However, 

 little, we think, is to be feared in this 



