10 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



OUR NEW IMPROVPH) AUTOMATIC 

 SWAKM-HIVKR. 



Sometime ago it was stated in the Api 

 that we had so improved the self-hiver 

 that it would prove successful in hiving 

 ninety-nine per cent of all swarms issu- 

 ing from hives where the hiver is used. 



B 



with them they at once return to the lo- 

 cation from which they started. In the 

 meantime a few young bees have found 

 their queen in tlie trap C and all the 

 bees of the returning swarm join her and 

 enter the new hive. 



When the bees start to swarm the 



Fis:. 1. 



During the swarming. -season of 1890 

 we began to experiment with various 

 devices for hiving swarms of bees auto- 

 matically. 



The self-hiver sold in the season of 

 1890 failed to self- hive all the swarms 

 that issued through it. The queen 

 could not seem to find her way through 

 the end of the cone-tube as readily as 

 she does the one in the drone-and-queen 

 trap. We saw at once how to remedy 

 the trouble. The self-hiver here de- 

 scribed and illustrated is the result of 

 the experiments conducted in the year 

 1890. Figs. I and 2 give the reader 

 some idea of how the improved self- 

 HiVEK is constructed. 



When a swarm issues the queen is 

 checked *t the entrance by the queen- 

 excluding metal in Box A. The worker 



queen comes out into box A and readily 

 finds her way up into box B , and then 

 down through the cone-tube in box C. 

 When she has once passed through one 

 of the tubes she cannot return. 



By the time the queen has found her 

 way into box C the bees have missed 

 her and return to the old location and 

 hive themselves. 



The reader, of course, understands 

 that box A is placed at the entrance of 

 the hive from which a swarm is ex- 

 pected. Box C is placed at the entrance 

 of the new hive, or at the entrance of 

 the hive the new swarm is to occupy. 

 The two hives are then connected by 

 placing box B upon boxes A and C as 

 shown in the illustration. All outlets to 

 the hives except those through the 

 metal must be closed to prevent the 



Fis:. 2. 



bees have no difficulty in passing the per- 

 forations and going into the air as they 

 usually do when a swarm issues. But 

 the queen being much larger cannot 

 pass the metal to take wing and join the 

 swarm as they do when no trap is used. 

 When the bees find they have no queen 



queen from taking wing and joining the 

 bees. 



If the Swarmer is used as illustrated 

 in fig. I, the new hive must be placed 

 at the side of the one the bees are in. 

 If used as shown in fig. 2, the entrance 

 of the empty hive may be at right an- 



