THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



121 



ican boys. We teach other trades to 

 our boys and why not beekeeping? 

 Not often do invalids and persons wlio 

 have failed in other callings make 

 good beekeepers. They have failure 

 to begin with. But take a boy and 

 bring him to handle bees and he will, 

 if at all adapted to the business, make 

 it a success. The young blood of our 

 country is needed in apiculture as 

 well as in other vocations. To the in- 

 ventive genius of the boys of our land 

 must be relegated for solution many of 

 the knotty problems that vex us older 

 heads. The energy, the originality, 

 the enthusiasm of youth are only qual- 

 ities that will press to successful issue 

 many of the experiments of the da3^ 

 How many of our boy readers are 

 already beekeepers? I would like to 

 know. Send me a postal card giving 

 your name, age, address, number of 

 colonies, etc., and I will report it all 

 in the Api. 



That Self-hiver, etc. 

 Kit Clovek. 



I am still on the "tenter hooks" of 

 uncertainty regarding that self-hiver, 

 and I want more light. "Will not 

 "Bro. " (that's vphat all the bee-men 

 seem to call each other) Pratt forgive 

 my "swear words" and help me out a 

 httle. 



Here is my trouble. Will the self- 

 hiver catch a vh-gin queen, and if so, 

 is it all right that she should not be- 

 gin laying until after swarming time? 



I can make matters all right with 

 the old queen, not, Mr. Editor, because 

 I read "two-penny" papers, for I read 

 about all the bee papers published, 

 but simply because I canH "shin" trees, 

 worth a cent. I snip the queen's wing, 

 and that ends my trouble. I can hive 

 the first swarm that comes off, all 

 right, but that miserable, high-flying 

 second swarm, that is what troubles 

 me. They go to the very tip-top of 

 our oak trees, and I can't follow. 



Now, after the first swarm has is- 

 sued, can one put on an Alley self- 

 hiver, or queen-trap, or anything else, 

 and let it stay there until the hive has 

 swarmed its second time, and will the 

 queen go to laying after the cluster 

 has been hived in a new hive. 



Another qiaestion is this; can we 

 keep down increase by putting this 

 afterswarm back mto the parent hive? 

 This can be done in some cases, I 

 know, for I have done it, myself, and 

 the bees went to work sj)lendidly, but 

 do they usually do so? And is there 

 any plan by which one can prevent 

 afterswarming except by cutting out 

 all the queen cells? 



I have tried that process with three 

 hives this spring and the result is, I 

 have six good fioui'ishing young col- 

 onies, from the three, but no surplus 

 honey. I supjpose I skipped some 

 cells, or did they build cells later on? 

 I cut them out the fifth day after the 

 first swarm issued. In one case the 

 second swarm came out on the tw^elf th 

 day, and when I opened the hive, I 

 found two or three empty queen cells 

 in plain sight, where there were none 

 the day I cut out cells. Did they 

 build them later? 



How would it work to have good 

 laying queens in nuclei, and introduce 

 one to the old hive just after the 

 swarm has issued? And now, Mr. 

 Pratt, do the Carniolan bees swarm 

 more "early and often" (as a bad man 

 votes) than any other breed of bees? 



I began the season with five col- 

 onies, and by the last of June had 

 eleven. My neighbor had five colo- 

 nies of Italians. He now has six. 



Another neighbor began with ten; 

 has nine now, since one starved. An- 

 other had one hundred colonies of 

 Italians and has not had a swarm. 



My new colonies have filled ten 

 brood-frames, having only one strip 

 of foundation two inches wide, and 

 the parent colonies have theh brood 

 chambers full. 



From what I see of other bees, I 

 think I want nothing but Carniolaus; 



