PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE W T FALCONER MANFG CO 



VOL. II. 



SEPTEMBER, 1892. 



NO. 9. 



How to Separate Swarms 



when they Cluster 



Together, 



BY II. L. JEFFERY. 



Under the above title M. H. Pewitt 

 on page 68, May number of the Bee- 

 Keeper, has described the laborious 

 job of pawing over two, three or more 

 swarms to find the queens, and then 

 divide them up to equal as many 

 colonies as you have found queens, 

 or in such parts as suits the apiarist. 

 I formerly practiced that plan myself 

 some fifteen years ago. but I learned 

 an easier way by am accident, as far 

 back as 1878. It happened as follows: 

 One day while caring for an apiary a 

 sw r arm came out, and after it had 

 clustered, and while 1 was getting the 

 hive and stand read}' for . the bees, 

 along came a run-a-way swarm, and 

 in passing the tree on which was the 

 cluster the decamped swarm united 

 with it. and before they were quiet 

 another swarm came out and the 

 three went in together. I began to 

 "sweat "in contemplation of my job, 

 and being at a strange place (I was 

 caring for the bees during the owner's 

 absence) I did not know where to find 

 things quickly, so I improvised a 



large hive directly under the cluster 

 by fastening two boards up edgewise 

 on the ground so that I cold hang 

 frames on them as in a hive. I hung 

 in thirty or more empty frames with 

 a comb in every llf'th frame, and then 

 knocked down the cluster. I threw 

 a thin cloth over the whole of them 

 and then attended to the hives that 

 had swarmed. This being about 

 noon, I gave them no further atten- 

 tion until perhaps three or four 

 o'clock in the afternoon, when upon 

 lifting the cloth I found that the bees 

 hail separated into swarms, and there 

 was very little if any mixing up of 

 bees from the different colonies. One 

 of the hives that had swarmed con- 

 tained pure Italian cells and they 

 were to be saved. Another was Hy- 

 brids and the other Blacks. The cir- 

 cumstance as it happened gave me a 

 chance to see how far they would 

 separate. I watched them closely as 

 a test. Since then, if two or more 

 swarms go together 1 never hunt up 

 either queen, but hive them between 

 two boards on the ground, and always 

 have the bottem e(]'j:e of the boards 

 raised from the ground by a half brick 

 or stick of wood. 



