186 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



March 1, 1906 



Here, a colony that is not shaken until the bees have 

 one or more sealed queen-cells, will invariably swarm out 

 or desert the new hive in a day or two, and if they are 

 get back all right they may try it again. Some colonies 

 act in the same way if they are swarriied before they 

 have cells very far under way; and again, some colonies 

 that do not swarm out. sulk or refuse to work for a 

 number of days, and others work in a listless, half-hearted 

 way that does not accomplish much. These are some 

 of the disadvantages of brushed swarms here. Still, in 

 large yards, this method of artificial swarming is far 

 ahead of natural swarming, for while the natural swarms 

 from a small yard are easily handled, it is many times 

 impossible, here, for one or even two men to handle them 

 in a yard of ISO to 200 colonies. Large hives, ventilation, 

 and shade will not here prevent a strong colony, if the' 

 bees are of a vigorous strain, from swarming. They are 

 almost certain to swarm if nothing besides is done to 

 prevent, and, after a few rainy days, few who have not 

 had actual experience in the matter would believe the 

 number of natural swarms that might issue the first fair, 

 hot day from a yard of 200 or more colonies. I know, 

 for I allowed natural swarming one season in a yard of 

 225 colonies, spring count, and handled the swarms alone, 

 or what I could of them. 



Of course, clipped queens give one a great advantage 

 when natural swarming is allowed, but in a large yard 

 it is a pretty hard matter to keep track of the exact con- 

 dition of each colony, and there is always liable to be one 

 or more young queens out to lead a swarm (or a number 

 of them in one bunch) to the woods, for it very often 

 happens here that a strong colony supersedes its queen 

 in the swarming season, and swarms when the first young 

 queen is old enough to accompany it. Then if that hap- 

 pens to be "swarming day" in a large yard, that one 

 young queen may lead off half a dozen or more swarms 

 all together, or, what is sometimes about as bad, they 

 may stay clustered all right, and swarm after swarm come 

 out and keep joining them, and all that can be done is to 

 keep dipping and dumping them in front of empty hives. 

 One of the clipped queens has to be given to each colony 

 right away or the bees will soon come out again. Of 

 course, the bees are all mixed up and some queens will 

 be balled or killed. I soon found, though, that there is 

 no need of having any queens balled or killed under these 

 conditions, for if she is caged and laid on the bottom- 

 board under the frames, the bees will stay in the hive 

 just as well as if she were free, and then the next day 

 she can be released without any danger. 



After being "all through the mill," as I have, it is 

 hard for me even yet to realize that I now have absolute 

 control of the swarming problem. Three years ago I 

 treated a colony in a certain way, that had sealed queen- 

 cells and was about ready to swarm. I expected they 

 would swarm out within the next day or two, but, instead 

 of doing so, they went to work with a vim and vigor 

 that astonished me. I was too familiar with the vagaries 

 of bees, though, to let my hopes run too high over the 

 actions of one colony. This occurred when the swarming 

 season was about over, but among my bees and those in 

 the surrounding country I found about 30 colonies that 

 were preparing to swarm. Some of these had sealed 

 queen-cells. All were treated in the same way, and none 

 of them offered to swarm, or swarm out. 



The next year I treated a number of hundred colonies 

 in this way, treating the bees of others for nothing in 

 order to test the plan. Hundreds more were treated the 

 past season (190S), and now what I do not expect many 

 to believe, and what I can hardly realize as possible 

 myself, is the fact that in the hundreds treated the last 

 three seasons, not a single colony offered to swarm out 

 or failed to work with all the vim and vigor of a natural 

 swarm! 



This method is as much ahead of brushed or shook 

 swarming as a modern express train is ahead of an ox- 

 team. It means simply this: An operation requiring 

 3 or 4 minutes to a colony— though I have frequently 

 performed it m less than 2 minutes; then the next day, 

 or at any time within 15 days, another operation requiring 

 less time. Two minutes is ample time for this second 

 operation. This not only solves the swarming problem 

 but secures more honey than by natural swarming, or if 

 the colonies had not offered to swarm. This is another, 

 thing I do not expect any one to believe, but after the 

 treatment is understood it would be easy to understand 

 why it might be so. 



There is no searching for queens by this method, no 

 jumping of hives around; no possibility of any eggs or 

 brood being chilled or lost; no possibility of afterswarms; 

 and, unless it is desired'to breed from a certain queen, 

 artificial queen-rearing need not be practised, for with 

 this method each colony can, if desired, be allowed to 

 requeen themselves with a queen reared under the swarm- 

 ing impulse. In fact, there are possibilities about this 

 method that I do not yet fully know myself, but what 1 

 do know is, that when it becomes known to the bee-keep- 

 ing world it will revolutionize our pursuit. I would rather 

 produce honey, either comb or extracted, for 10 cents a 

 pound and practice this method, than for 20 cents a pound 

 and have either to practice natural or "shook" swarming. 



I have not decided yet whether it would be best for 

 me to give this to the bee-keeping world or not. 



Southern Minnesota. 



[We wish to invite Mr. Davenport to describe his 

 latest method of preventing swarming, which' he mentions 

 in the foregoing article, for the benefit of our readers 

 and the bee-keeping public in general. If he does not do 

 so, in all probability some one else will, and then Mr. 

 Davenport will get neither the credit nor honor that he 

 would if he were to publish it now. — Editob.] 



Queen-Breeders and Their Difficulties 



BY HENRY ALLEY. 



ON page 97 L. A. Smith complains of the bad treatment he 

 received from two queen-dealers. I plead guilty to one 

 of those complaints, as I find on referring to my book 

 that Mr. Smith ordered a queen from me June 27. 1905. As I 

 cannot now place my hand on his letter, I cannot say more 

 about his order. Presumably he is correct in his statement. 

 Had I so understood it. he surely would have had his money 

 by return mail, as at that time of the season it is impossible for 

 me to fill an order inside of a week. My wife records all or- 

 ders and keeps my books and it is more than probable that she 

 mentioned the fact to me, but as the queen was sent much 

 later, and accepted, it seems to me he had no very great rea- 

 son to complain. It was his duty to have returned the queen 

 and demanded his money. I intend, in all cases when such 

 orders are sent in. to return the money at once, as I cannot 

 carry such business in my head, and I know of no other way 

 to keep a record of orders of that kind. 



In all my experience of 45 years in queen-rearing, I have 

 never been able to fill all orders sent me for queens; but when 

 a man wants a queen at once, as did Mr. Smith. I try to 

 accommodate him ; and as his order was out of the usual 

 course, it brought me trouble. Last fall I returned several 

 hundred dollars sent me for queens, as I could not begin to 

 fill the orders. In many cases I wrote thus : 



"I have queens, but the weather is unfavorable, and I will 

 ship queen on certain date or return the money." 



More than one hundred readers of the American Bee 

 Journal can testify to the truthfulness of this statement. I 

 have had no complaint from any one — not even from Mr. 

 Smith. The principal part of Mr. Smith's complaint was the 

 loss of the honey-flow, which he says was over when he 

 received the queen. Now let us see about that part of it. 



I received Mr. Smith's order June 27: he gave 5 days 

 to fill it in — that would haye been on July 2. Had the queen 

 been mailed on that date, it would have required 5 or 6 days, 

 at least, to have reached him at that far off part of the coun- 

 try (Montana) — that would have been July 7. Now, had he 

 made a good job of introducing the queen, she would have 

 commenced to lay in about 3 days more — say July 10. In 21 

 days more the young bees would have commenced to appear. 

 That would be Aug. 1 or 2. In about a week more a few of 

 the young bees would fly out. and in 10 days more would 

 commence work. That would bring the bees working on the 

 fall honey-flow about Aug. 15. But Mr. Smith says his flow 

 of honey was over when he received the queen, which was 

 Aug. 10, as the queen was mailed Aug. 4. So it will be seen 

 that the bees from the "Adel" could not have been any good 

 to him had she been mailed to him just as he requested. What 

 does this show? 



I will add a few words more and close. I do not plead 

 guilty to "carelessness," by any means. On the other hand, I 

 assert that I work hard every day to fill all orders promptly, 

 and I believe all queen-dealers do the same. Experience has 

 shown that only 3 dealers in queens and other supplies have 



