THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



151 



American Bee Journal. It strikes me 

 that any one with half an eye to busi- 

 ness can see that this new device will 

 not work successfully. In the first 

 place the queen cannot leave the hive 

 b}' the rei»;ular entrance, as she natur- 

 allj' would and does do when a swarm 

 issues. To prevent her from going into 

 the air with the swarm a piece of ex- 

 cluding metal is placed at theentrance. 

 Well, now, the same thing that will 

 prevent the queen from leaving the 

 hive also prevents the drones from 

 passing out. What is the result? 

 Why, the drones will crowd into the 

 excluder so that the bees can only get 

 out with the greatest difficulty. Now 

 this will not only be the case at swarm- 

 ing time, but in the middle of every 

 warm day when the drones take a 

 flight as they do on each pleasant day 

 at noon time. 



The arrangement of the device is 

 given below by the inventor. 



"It is a combination of two hives, wntii- 

 out the use of any front ont ranees. Tiiere- 

 fore the alijiliting-board and bee-entrance 

 is at the orifice of vacant hive (No. 2) 

 which is provided with a queen-excluding 

 screen at the time of swarmiug. 



The closing doors are so made as to 

 come entirely off, and allow the two hives 

 to come close together, and it will be seen 

 that the bees must pass entirely through 

 hive No. 2 in order to reach their home. 

 At first I regarded tiiis as objectionable, 

 but I soon found that the delay of the 

 bees in traveling through hive No. 2 was 

 more than made up by the warding off of 

 robbinir bees, and the perfect security of 

 hive No. 1 from the spring winds and 

 stormy weather. The colonies with hives 

 so arranged have done fully better tlnu 

 any others in the yard. This is a point 

 wherein experience is better than theory. 



At the time of swarming, the queen-ex- 

 cluding screen is to l)e atljusted, which is 

 quickly manipulated. It will be seen that 

 hive No. 2 becomes the swarm- receiver." 



I will bet a small sum that not one 

 swarm in 10.000 that issues will ever 

 be self-hived by that device. The in- 

 ventor says lie has hived several first 

 swarms with the device, but not even 

 one second or third swarm. Yet the 

 fellow says "It needs no argument to 

 show that this device is a success." 



Pretty good. It needs no argument 

 to prove that the device can never 

 succeed. Any sensible man can see 

 that. The principle of the whole 

 thing is wrong. One need not pos- 

 sess a great amount of ingenuity in 

 order to invent such a device. When 

 we were ex|)erimenting with our svvarra- 

 hiver, all the things Mr. Lacy claims 

 for this new device were considered. 

 We saw that a self-hiver could not be 

 made practical if the drones that would 

 want to leave the hive every day, and 

 especially at the time the swarm is- 

 sued, were not taken care of and got- 

 ten out of the way. 



Our device is not only a self-hiver 

 but is a drone-and-queen catcher as 

 well. It is placed at the entrance of 

 a hive in the spring and need not be 

 removed till fall. Now how would it 

 work if no 'provision was made to 

 catch the drones that want to take 

 wing each day? Why, the thing would 

 destroy a colony in a short time ; prob- 

 ably on the first warm day, as the 

 drones would clog the entrance to the 

 hive and no bees could leave or enter 

 it. This is not so with our swarm- 

 catcher. Place it on the hive and go 

 about your business. It needs no 

 care, and you are not obliged to stay 

 in the apiary ready to clap it on a hive 

 when a swarm attempts to issue. 



As we sold thousands of the swarm- 

 ers to the readers of the Api we will 

 say here that the only trouble with 

 the swarmer was that the queen could 

 not in all cases readily find her way to 

 the empty hive through the end of the 

 svvarmeron the home hive. This little 

 difficulty has been remedied, and we 

 expect in 1891 that not one failure to 

 hive a swarm will be reported. 



Our swarmer will catch an}' swarm 

 that issues whether it be a first or third 

 swarm. As soon as we had described 

 our swarmer in the American Bee 

 Journal, the man who claims a patent 

 on the one that will not catch only a 

 first s war in, put his wits at work and 

 soon described what he supposed 

 might be an improvement on our 



