THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



99 



perience I hold this method to be 

 in most cases the best one. 



2. Alighted swarms. These are 

 established in the well-known 

 way, by placing an empty hive 

 which is provided merely with 

 starters, before a strong colony. 

 We must give, however, the new 

 hive at first for the beginning, oyie 

 brood frame, where the queen is 

 imprisoned, in order to make it 

 easy for the bees to cluster on. A 

 young impregnated queen will do ; 

 but it is better, to take the queen 

 of the old colony for the swarm, 

 and if this queen should be found 

 on a frame with a brood issuing, 

 this frame with the adhering bees 

 must be given immediately to the 

 new swarm without imprisoning 

 the queen, and the old colony must 

 be re-queened in some other way. 

 This brood-frame must be taken 

 away from the colony the next 

 day, and the bees brushed from it 

 back into the hive, in order to 

 establish the latter completely in 

 the state of a swarm. 



Such artificial swarms consist 

 now exclusively of w^orker bees, 

 which are but little apt to take 

 care of the later issuing brood. 

 To remedy this evil, we must brush 

 immediately in establishing the 

 swarm, some young bees from some 

 brood-frames into the hive. 



The old colony is now in a less 

 favorable condition ; it is deprived 

 of all carrying worker bees and 

 must be fed so that the young 

 brood shall not sufi'er. But even 

 then it takes always several days, 

 before any bees fly out again to 

 gather food. 



In order to avoid this evil, Mr. 

 Gravenhorst gives all the frames 

 together with bees to another hive, 

 which has just furnished a brushed 

 swarm, i. e., we unite the two old 

 colonies and obtain thereby a very 

 strong colony, which will yield one 

 or more after-swarms. If vee in- 

 tend to prevent after-swarms, we 

 must add on the eighth or ninth 

 day an impregnated queen in t\\% 

 cage, and form with her an alighted 

 swarm the next day ; at the same 

 time we must cut out all queen cells 

 except one. These last alighted 

 swarms consist almost exclusively 

 of young bees and build the most 

 beautiful worker combs. The old 

 hive has no longer any unsealed 

 brood, and does not suffer therefore 

 by the displacement. 



3. Gathered swarms. The estab- 

 lishing of these gathered swarms is 

 very complicated, because they must 

 be transported to a point two miles 

 or at least one mile distant ; we can 

 recommend them, however, when 

 some colonies become so strong, that 

 they can be prevented from swarm- 

 ing only hy taking away a number 

 of bees. A queen in the cage is 

 put in an airy transportation box, 

 and so many bees must be brushed 

 into the same from the different 

 colonies, that the swarm is strong 

 enough, and the box is carried to 

 the new place. In the evening the 

 swarm is put in its future hive, and 

 the cage is loosely closed with wax, 

 leaving it to the bees to liberate 

 the queen. Of course, such a 

 swarm consists likewise only of 

 starters. 



The establishing of such swarms 



