158 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



The first swarm that issues will 

 be hived in the usual waj'. In 

 case another swarm comes off the 

 same day or on the day thereafter, 

 it will be hived on the combs that 

 the first swarm came from, but not 

 till after the first hive has been 

 opened and the queen cells re- 

 moved, lu this way increase may 

 be prevented and the bees kept at 

 work in the boxes. 



Of course the combs must be 

 examined very closely for queen 

 cells and all destroyed or cer- 

 tainly all removed, — though it is 

 my opinion that the bees will per- 

 mit the old queen which came off 

 with swarm No. 2 to destroy them 

 instead of swarming again from 

 their new home. 



If this plan works as well as I 

 think it will, I have no doubt it 

 will be generally adopted by bee- 

 keepers who have all the bees they 

 desire to keep. 



I will suggest that the readers 

 of the " Api" test this method and 

 report in the fall. 



So far as I know, this plan is 

 new ; if not, there is no great dam- 

 age in thoroughly testing it the 

 present season. 



Wenliam, Mass. 



Answers by Practical Apiarists. 



BBOOD-liEABING vs. HONEY 

 GATHEBING. 



MANAGKMKNT OF COLONIES JUST BE- 

 FORE THE HONEY HARVEST BUGINS. 



Query No. 25. In Mr. C. W. Day- 

 ton's article on pajje 89 of April issue 

 he says that in his st-ction the honey 

 harvest lasts but thirty-seven days, the 

 length of time it requires to get bees 

 from the new-laid egg to work in the 

 field. 



The above stiggests the following 

 query : how would it do to confine the 

 queen to one or two combs at sucli a 

 time, by using perforated-zinc divisiou- 



boards, keeping the queen on the few 

 combs for about three weeks? Would 

 not such a method retard or prevent 

 swarming wholly? What objection can 

 there be to such a practice? Reader. 



ANSWERS BY IRA BARBER. 



In answering query No. 25, I 

 would recommend feeding thin 

 hot food for three weeks before 

 the honey season commences in all 

 sections where the honey season 

 lasts only twenty or thirty days. 

 In this locality, it is quite a com- 

 mon thing to have the season cut 

 down to ten da^^s that the bees get 

 more than a living, and in that time 

 get a large crop of honej^, but if our 

 bees were not on hand in strong 

 forces, failure would have been the 

 result. 



I have never confined a queen 

 on a few combs near the swarming 

 season and cannot say what the 

 effect would be. 



ANSWERS BY DR. C. C. MILLER. 



" Reader " has a large field be- 

 fore him, but I hope he'll keep to 

 work at it. If he reaches a desir- 

 able plan to prevent swarming, 

 (and I think it will sometime be 

 reached) he will lay beekeepers un- 

 der a heavy debt of gratitude ; but 

 his present plan will not be a suc- 

 cess. In the first place, he can 

 hardly take a surer course t^o make 

 the bees swarm. As soon as the 

 queen finds no room to lay, the 

 swarming fever will almost surely 

 be induced if the harvest continues. 

 Secondly, the young bees seem to 

 be needed, and without fully un- 

 derstanding all the reasons, 1 have 

 found by a large number of ti'iais 

 that taking away the queen as long 

 as three weeks will not give good 

 results. 



What is wanted is a plan that 

 will prevent the bees from wanting 

 to swarm while the queen keeps 

 right along laying. 



