108 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



[an ©f Msuma^emmeKitc 



BY L. STAGHELHAUSEN. 



¥ITH interest I have read the article 

 of H. G. Sibbald in the March 

 Review, and j-oiir foot-note to it. 



To pre/ent swarming- in this way is 

 very old, I tried the plan more than 20 

 years ago; and, in 18ft9, a little book, 

 written by Geo. Wurz, was published 

 in Germany, in which this plan to pre- 

 vent swarming- is explained exactly in 

 the same way; besides some other 

 plans are g-iven. 



With me the plan did not work as 

 satisfactorily as the shook-swarm 

 plan. The swarm with this one frame 

 of brood, a few queen-cells, and mostly 

 old bees, is very dissatisfied; and the 

 bees, missing- the old queen, are hunt- 

 ing for her around the outside. If the 

 parent colony is nearby, they will find 

 it out, and will, in a larg-e degree, 

 enter this hive. The consequence is, 

 that the swarm is a weakling, and 

 in the parent colony the queen-cells 

 are not destroyed, because of the return 

 of the bees. To prevent this the parent 

 colony must be removed far from the 

 swarm, or be hidden by cloths or 

 boards. Nevertheless, a part of the 

 old bees will enter other hives; and, 

 with me, the swarm was always too 

 weak to do any super-work. To make 

 the colony work, it was necessary to 

 unite again as soon as possible; that 

 is, as soon as the queen cells were de- 

 stroyed, in about five or six days, if 

 everything worked all right. 



But, after uniting, and with large 

 brood-chambers, as I prefer them, the 

 colony is not in a good condition for 

 storing honey in the sections. For 

 this purpose, the colony should be in 

 the condition of a very strong swarm, 

 and should have no empty cells in the 

 brood-chamber, in which honey can be 



stored, at least, not till the work in the 

 sections is advanced considerably. 



If increase is desired, and the two 

 colonies remain separated, the parent 

 colony can be removed far enough, so 

 that the bees can not find it any more; 

 but, in this case, the swarm with a 

 3'oung queen and mostl_v old bees is in 

 a very bad condition; and three weeks 

 afterwards will be a very weak 

 nucleus; and nothing else. 



If moderate increase is wanted, it is 

 a much better plan to make three out 

 of two, as recommended by Doolittle 

 and others. 



The swarm is in a better condition, 

 and the bees are more inclined to stay 

 in the hive, if the old queen is given to 

 the swarm, and at least some young 

 bees. We can do this by hunting up 

 the queen, but with less work by the 

 shook-swarm plan, and this is the 

 reason why I gave up this described 

 plan, and commenced to shake the 

 bees. In this case, too, it is not diffi- 

 cult to unite these two colonies again, 

 if tite manipulation has no other purpose 

 thati to prevent swarming ivhen queen- 

 cells are already started. If we find a 

 colony with queen-cells started, we 

 make a shook-swarm on the old stand, 

 the parent colony with enough bees 

 and the queen cells is set on top of this 

 hive with the flight hole in the opposite 

 direction. When one of the young 

 young queens is out of the cell and has 

 destroyed the other cells in the parent 

 colony we can reunite by manipulating 

 hives only. At evening we set the pa- 

 rent colony with the j'oung queen on the 

 place of the swarm, and one hour after- 

 wards every colony is placed again 

 on its old stand. Next morning we 

 will find that the young queen is 



