Juno 21, 1906 



American Itee Journal 



made by Mr. Holtermann, and that is as to the importance 

 of ventilation. I have had from year to year what I call 

 "piles," that is, piling them up 3 or 4 stories high, and allowing 

 each colony to have an abundance of ventilation ; in other 

 words, the full entrance to each story. I never had one of 

 these piles swarm. I wouldn't like to say that will always be a 

 certain preventive of swarming, from the fact that these 

 piles were generally formed from what were rather weak 

 colonies in the first place, and built up gradually to very 

 strong ones. The ventilation of the colony can always be 

 made a success with extracting supers, as Mr. Holtermann 

 says; and I have wondered rhany a time why men working 

 for extracted honey did not have a current of air running right 

 up through the whole thing. Mr. Holtermann says that 

 by having the air come out through the brood-chamber 

 but not through the supers will work for section honey. A 

 good many years ago, before any such thing as sections' were 

 known, I was in the apiary of Adam Grimm, of Wisconsin — 

 he was working at that time for comb honey, and had little 

 boxes upon his hives and over them a telescope cover, and 

 the day I was there, he was raising up these covers and block- 

 ing them up a little so that the air could get up through the 

 brood-chamber, and I remember, with his very emphatic Ger- 

 man way of saying things, he turned to me and said, "I con- 

 sider that very important." From that time on for a number 

 of years I had that same kind of ventilation. But I want 

 to tell Mr. Holtermann this, that in the upper part of the 

 story, all of the sections near that will be much slower in 

 completion than the others, and that is the objection to it. 

 I am dreaming some time of having a kind of way of ven- 

 tilating the super sections right up through the center. In 

 some such way I would like to have the advantage of the 

 ventilation and still hold on to the sections. But in the matter 

 of ventilation when working for extracted honey, T believe 

 you have the key of the whole situation; I don't believe you 

 need have much swarming there at all. 



Mr. Holtermann — You know why that is, Dr. Miller ? 



Dr. Miller— No, I don't. 



Mr. Holtermann— The impression I had at one time was 

 that if I made an opening at the top of the hive the air would 

 go in at the front and come out of the top, but the fact of 

 the matter is you will find that the air is drawn in at the 

 top. That air is cool when it first strikes the hive, compara- 

 tively, and it has not been raised to the temperature neces- 

 sary for that evaporation to go on, and therefore in using 

 ventilators in comb-honey supers there is the tendency for the 

 bees not to cap as readily there as in other places, because 

 it does not ripen as rapidly. 



Mr. Taylor— Will not bees carry the honey out there, too, 

 as well as not cap? 



Mr. Holtermann — There may be a tendency for them to 

 do that because they can't ripen it as well. 



Mr. Taylor — The ventilation would help to ripen, if any- 

 thing, and they would not carry the honey out. 



Mr. Holtermann— If the temperature outside is 80 de- 

 grees and the hive temperature is nearly 100, the temperature 

 of the air when it first enters the hive has to be raised to the 

 inside temperature by the bees. 



Mr. Taylor— That is in the shade. But out in the 

 apiary, it is generally as hot outside as it is inside. 



Mr. Holtermann — It is night and day. 



Mr. Taylor — The reason I have given for that is, that 

 the bees to guard their honey will carry it away from an open- 

 ing for fear of robbing. 



Dr. Bohrer — The question under discussion is not a new 

 one. Mr. R. C. Otis once put this question to me: "Why 

 do bees swarm at all?" The reply was that it is their na- 

 ture to. It applies to the honey-bee as well as every other de- 

 partment of the animal kingdom — to propagate their species. 

 There are two things that come as near controlling it as 

 anything — one is when there is an abundant flow of honey, 

 provided you give (hem room. I think the first movable 

 hive I made had 18 frames, and I had one of the largest 

 swarms I ever had come out of that hive. I never had a 

 swarm cast where bees were hived in sugar hogsheads. And 

 I have never seen swarms cast from an old-fashioned salt- 

 barrel, or any receptacle of that kind. Take a large hive 

 and give them abundance of room, and if the honey-flow 

 is abundant they will work at that and not have much swarm- 

 ing, but give them small hives and they begin to give trouble. 

 At the present time I can't think of any plan that will 

 effectually prevent swarming. 



Mr. Holtermann — Isn't the reason because they are 

 confined in those hives during the daytime and they are com- 

 paratively warm and the ventilation is not proper? 



Mr. Taylor — I would like to ask a question of Mr. Hol- 

 termann. He spoke of looking for the starting of queen- 

 cell cups. Are there no cups left over from the previous 

 year in your hives? 



Mr. Holtermann — There are cups, but I don't think any- 

 one would mistake this year's cups. There is a very distinct 

 difference. If those cups are there, and you expect a honey sea- 

 son ahead of you, that is the time you should deal with the 

 swarming matter. When they begin to put brood and larvae 

 and eggs in the queen-cells, in my estimation you have gone 

 a step too far to prevent the swarming without a seriou& 

 breaking up of your colony. To protect your colonies tem- 

 porarily requires a great deal of labor, and a good many ex- 

 tra hives. 



Mr. Baxter— Hunting for cups is too much work 

 for me. I have found by 25 years' experience that there 

 is an absolute rule to prevent swarming, and that rule is 

 to have large hives and see they have room which, with- 

 out giving any other ventilation, gives them ventilation. 

 But under certains conditions that is not enough. I 

 want ventilation from below — I don't want it from above. 

 It is sufficient if you raise a hive about % of an inch above the 

 bottom-board. I have hives, some of which could be raised, 

 and some could not be, and no matter how many supers I 

 put on top of those movable bottoms, when the weather be- 

 came warm they would swarm anyway ; but where I raised 

 the hives from the bottom and gave them sufficient room 

 above I have never had any trouble with swarms ; and I 

 have had as many as 250 colonies. 



Mr. Holtermann — What is the length of your honey- 

 flow? 



Mr. Baxter — It begins about the first of June and ends 

 the middle of July, and occasionally in the last of September 

 or the beginning of October. It is for extracted honey. I 

 wouldn't bother with comb honey ; I have tried it long 

 enough. 



Dr. Miller — In my locality, working for section honey, 

 raising up the hive will help, but it won't prevent swarming; 

 a whole lot of them will swarm. With reference to this 

 matter of the size of hives, I believe in that general rule, 

 and if I didn't believe in any other wise I would because 

 of the testimony of the men I believe in so thoroughly as I 

 do the Dadants; and yet in my locality that does not work as 

 I would like it to. One year I got 2 of the Jumbo hives, 

 deep frames — 10 frames — and deeper than the Langstroth, 

 and I was going to have that, and have nothing else if those 

 things didn't swarm. The next spring after they were filled, the 

 very first colony that swarmed was one of those Jumboes. 



Mr. Bohrer — With regard to ventilation, that big salt- 

 barrel had no upward ventilation, but it had lots from below. 

 In addition to Dr. Miller's trouble I had lumbago in handling 

 the same hive. 



Mr. Holtermann — What did you put in the supers of 

 those Jumbo hives? 



Dr. Miller — The same as I did in the others. 



Mr. Holtermann — Drone comb? 



Dr. Miller — No, sections with foundation. I am not sure 

 whether they waited until I had the supers on. 



Mr. Ferris — There is nothing I have studied more than 

 the question of producing the most brood from the least 

 number of bees I winter, and getting the most honey from 

 them. To keep them entirely from producing any swarms 

 until after the flow is over, I divide them at my will. I use 

 both 10-frame Langstroth and a special hive which holds 

 14 Langstroth frames, 2l*4x2i}4, and a division-board 

 through the center. This makes a large hive. Provide that 

 through the center with a solid division-board which is re- 

 movable, place a queen in the fall on each side of that di- 

 vision-board. I winter 2 queens in an ordinary colony of 

 bees in this hive. Then in the spring I work each division 

 up to 7 frames full of brood. Then 1 add on another story, 

 and as each story has a place for the division-board, I put 

 in a division-board, and in that way I get both sides worked 

 up to an exceedingly strong colony in brood, up to the time 

 when the honey-flow begins. At this point I take away both 

 queens, and let them be a few days queenless. and then either 

 give them a capped queen-cell or a queen already mated. In 

 this way you can prevent swarming, 1 think, as well as in any 

 other way. An old queen will swarm quicker than a young 



