25: 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[For the Americau Bee Jourual. 



Artificial Swarming. 



The season of swarming will soon be here, and 

 it is exceedingly important to know how to mul- 

 tiply stocks with the probabilities of the greatest 

 success. 



Mr. Wurster, of Kleinsburg, Canada, proposes 

 to mulliply colonies by filling an empty hive 

 with combs and setting it on the stand of a strong 

 stock, while the bees are out gathering honey, so 

 that when they return they will be compelled to 

 accept this new hive as their home ; after a short 

 time a virgin queen is to be given them, when the 

 process will be complete. 

 This plan lacks two elements of success. 

 1. The new swarm would consist of old worker 

 bees, whose instinct for rearing young bees would 

 be mainly at an end. 



3. The bees could only be 'made to adhere to 

 the new hive after a long and exhausting effort 

 to find their home, wherein hundreds would per- 

 ish ; and others would seek to join other colo- 

 nies ; and still others would continue their search 

 till they found their old home. By this time 

 their numbers would be so reduced, that they 

 would be almost worthless. 



Our profits come chiefly from early and large 

 swarms. To secure such should be the grand 

 aim. If you have ten populous colonies, crowded 

 with bees, ten new colonies can be best formed, 

 according to my experience, in the manner fol- 

 lowing : 



Eiglit days before you propose to make swarms, 

 select the very largest colony and purest stock of 

 •Italians, and drive out a swarm by drumming, if 

 in a box hive, or shake them from the frames, if 

 in movable combs, being sure to get the queen 

 with them, and let them enter a new hive, plac- 

 ing it where the old stock stood. Give them one 

 frame oontaining combs with honey, eggs, and 

 young bees, to prevent desertion. This will of 

 course be your first swarm. 



Place your colony from which the swarm was 

 driven, a few feet at one side from where it for- 

 merly stood, so that it may catch up a few of the 

 returning bees. At the eighth or ninth day ex- 

 amine this colony and count all the finished 

 queen cells ; and proceed to form as many swarms 

 as you have queen cells, (except one which is to 

 be l^t in the first old stock,) driving all the time 

 from your most populous colonies, proceeding 

 just as with the first. The next day give each 

 of the old colonies a mature queen cell, placing 

 it in a cavity cut in the midst of the brood. 



If there are not cells enough at the end of eight 

 days, those needed can be taken from the stock 

 which was left without a queen for this purpose. 

 Thus proceeding until all your bees are swarmed, 

 they will do as well- as though they had 

 swarmed naturally, with the advantage that your 

 swarms have beeu«iade just at the right time. 



Now put on your honey boxes, and if your 

 swarms have been made about the time the white 

 clover begins to yield honey plentifully, you will 

 secure the greatest results in tlie yield of honey. 

 If you have good clean worker comb, use that 

 for your new swarms; it is just bo much saved 

 to the becB. 



Of course you now use the movable comb hive 

 and the Italian bees, or will soon make provision 

 to do so, if you expect the largest profit. After 

 an experience of eight years, in my Mount Pleas- 

 ant Apiary, I have found them superior in every 

 respect. Friends are invited to call and look at 

 our stock. Mr. J. L. Strong, my jihrtner, will 

 take delight in showing them our manner of 

 managing the honey bee. 



E. L. Briggs. 



Mount Pleasant Apiary^ Henry Co., Iowa. 



[For tlie Americaa Bee Journal.] 



Stopping Fugitive Swarms. 



Mr. Editor : — Inasmuch as you are almost 

 daily in receipt of letters from the Northern and 

 the Western States, perhaps you will not object 

 to a line occasionally from the " Old North 

 State," written by one who heretofore unknown 

 in the columns of the Bee Journal, as Lang- 

 stroth, Gallup, Grimm, Thomas, Green, or 

 Novice, but who will answer through the Amer- 

 ican Bee Journal whenever called Ignor- 

 amus. 



As this is my fivst article for a Bee Journal, I 

 shall be brief as possible until I see that Ignor- 

 amus has a place in line with your other corres- 

 pondents. But for a start, I will state that a 

 neighbor of mine was in an open field last spring, 

 when his attention was attracted to a vagrant 

 swarm of honey bees rushing past, on the wing. 

 He followed through field and forest until nearly 

 exhausted, when he found that the bees made no 

 signs of wanting to cluster, and that they were 

 two hundred and more yards from woods, or 

 nearest shrubs. Having gone through many of 

 the Dutch manoeuverings in trying to stop them, 

 he was so tired that to follow them further was 

 out of the question. So he drew fiom his pocket 

 a small "looking glass" with which he thought 

 he would "blind the bees" in the sunshine, and 

 make them stop anyhow. Immediately after 

 using his glass, the bees turned, went directly 

 back to the woods, and clustered on the nearest 

 bush. 



Will the editor, Mr. Gallup, or some one else, 

 please inform me what the turning of the look- 

 ing glass had to do in stopping a swarm of bees 

 when running away ? 



Ignoramus. . 



Sawyersville, iV. C. 



III^"We have frequently heard of arresting 

 fugitive swarms by means of the looking-glass, 

 but never saw it done. Mr. Langstroth, on page 

 114, " Hive and Honey Bee," third edition, says — 

 " The most original of all devices, for stopping 

 them [a decamping swarm] is, to flash the sun's 

 rays among them by a looking-glass. I have 

 never had occasion to try it, but an anonymous 

 writer says he never knew it to fail." 



If wet weather occurs to prevent your bees 

 from flying out while blossoms abound, feed 

 them moderately every day, to keep them iu heart 

 and stimulate brooding. 



