896 



Oct. 25, 1906 



American Ttee Journal 



article does not exist there. It is quite 

 probable that there are two brood dis- 

 eases there, the same as here. It is 

 difficult to get around the evidence 

 brought forward by C. P. Dadant, on 

 page 719, that the real foul brood ex- 

 ists there. It may be that they have 

 simply never been differentiated, and 

 that Cheshire's error has prevented an 

 earlier recognition of the facts. 

 Grand Junction, Colo. 



Swarming— Queen-Cells and 

 Superseding Queens 



BY EDWIN BBVINS 



Dr. Miller : — I have just been read- 

 ing your "Forty Years Among the 

 Bees," and am impressed with the 

 thought that you must have found some 

 things in the pursuit of bee-keeping in 

 its early stages that you would not sell 

 for cash if you could, or else you would 

 have sold out at a moderate price. 



I observe also your complaint that 

 you are not an expert at hiving swarms. 

 It is probable that I do not like swarm- 

 ing much better than you do, but I 

 would rather have some prime swarms 

 than to do the work necessary to pre- 

 vent swarming altogether. Without 

 pretending to be an expert on hiving 

 swarms, I will try to give you some 

 idea of the way I do things in swarm- 

 ing time. The wings of my queens 

 are not clipped, nor would I have them 

 so long as I have but one apiary and 

 am able to give that my undivided at- 

 tention. With me the risk of losing 

 valuable queens is very small. It is 

 so seldom that a swarm goes, off with- 

 out first clustering, that when I see a 

 swarm issuing from a hive I do not so 

 much as watch to see where it will 

 cluster, knowing that it will be found 

 somewhere near by. 



My yard is surrounded on all sides 

 by low-growing trees— apple, peach, 

 pear, and plum — and has some grape- 

 vines in it. Many swarms cluster so 

 low on these trees and vines that all I 

 have to do is to set a prepared hive on 

 the ground, and knock the cluster 

 down in front of it. When bees clus- 

 ter a little too high for such treatment, 

 I tumble a big box under the branch 

 of the tree and set the hive on the box. 

 Swarms that cluster higher, if on a 

 branch that can easily be cut off, are 

 taken down and carried to the hive. 

 Occasionally I find it necessary to run 

 a wagon under an apple tree and set 

 the hive in that. I have found the 

 Manum swarm-catcher very useful to 

 me at times. 



On the west side of my yard, at a 

 distance of 40 or SO feet, is a rather 

 tall oak-tree. Some swarms issuing 

 from hives nearest this tree will clus- 

 ter so high that I have to use a Manum 

 catcher to get them down. Tie the 

 legs of the catcher to the pole, and 

 have an able-bodied man to handle the 

 pole. Have a hive standing near on 

 the ground. Have the man with the 

 catcher shove the basket close up un- 

 der the cluster. Another man hits the 

 limb a smart rap and drops the cluster 

 into the basket. The man handling the 

 pole lowers the basket and lays it in 

 front of the hive, then, dropping the 



pole, he shakes the bees on the alight- 

 ing-board. No need to delay opera- 

 tions trying to swing the cover shut. 

 Some bees will go back to the limb. 

 Then repeat. The few bees that will 

 go back to the limb after this will, in 

 a little while, go down to the hive. 



In the Appendix to " Forty Years 

 Among the Bees," you give a plan for 

 starting queen-cells which you seem to 

 think is an improvement over the plan 

 given on page 238. I am not sure that 

 the plan would suit me any better, in- 

 asmuch as one must wait till some 

 colony is found to be starting queen- 

 cells, and I am not sure that I should 

 always want to wait for this, and, be- 

 sides, I have no love for the work of 

 hunting up the colonies that are mak- 

 ing preparations to swarm. This is 

 done mostly at a time when the bees 

 are busy storing, and I dislike to in- 

 terrupt them unless there is a strong 

 necessity. But allow me to say here, 

 that the plans given in your book for 

 rearing queens on a small scale are 

 just what I have been looking for for 

 a long time. They seem, at least, to 

 be what most bee-keepers need, to en- 

 able them to supply their own apiaries 

 with good queens at little expense. 



Is it a fact that yourself, Dadant> 

 Doolittle, and Hutchinson never do 

 any requeening, but leave the matter 

 of superseding queens entirely to the 

 bees ? This is the inference that I 

 draw from what is said by Miss Wil- 

 son, on page 784. In this matter of 

 requeening there seem to be two ex- 

 tremes. One extreme is to supersede 

 all queens every year ; the other is to 

 leave the superseding of queens en- 

 tirely to the bees. I would avoid both 

 extremes. The first involves the de- 

 struction of many valuable queens. 

 The second is almost sure to be at- 

 tended with the loss of a good deal 

 of honey the following season, because 

 many colonies have failed to requeen, 

 and the old queens have died or become 

 worthless as layers. 



"Use judgment in the matter of 

 superseding, but be sure every spring 

 to have a good many colonies in the 

 yard with queens of the previous sea- 

 son's rearing," is my motto at the 

 present time. 



Leon, Iowa. 



Mr. Bevins : — Thanks for particu- 

 lars as to your management of swarms. 

 They may be of service to others, if 

 not to me. Unless it may have been 

 the first 1 or 2 swarms I had, I think I 

 never had a swarm issue by deliberate 

 intention on my part. The season of 

 1906 stands out clearly as the one that 

 has given me less trouble on the 

 swarming question than any other 

 year of my experience. In only one 

 case was anything done toward pre- 

 vention of swarming ; queen-cells were 

 destroyed in one colony — in that col- 

 ony none was started again — and if 

 any colony swarmed throughout the 

 whole season I never knew it, except 

 one colony. Sept. 18, in the afternoon, 

 I had a telephone message that at the 

 Wilson apiary little Katharine had 

 seen a small swarm hanging on the 

 apple-tree. I hardly thought it was 

 worth while to bother with it, but as I 

 thought I might want the queen, we 

 went over the next morning and found 



it hanging low, within easy reach. We 

 filled a hive with combs, mostly solid 

 with sealed honey, cut off the little 

 limb and laid the cluster in front of 

 the hive, and the bees did the rest. It 

 was a fair swarm of yellow bees with 

 a virgin queen. So you see the sea- 

 son's work, so far as concerns swarm- 

 ing, amounts to cutting out cells once 

 in one colony, and hiving one swarm. 

 And possibly that swarm came from 

 elsewhere. 



Some one may want to congratulate 

 me on having non-swarming bees. It 

 wasn't that ; for while I have gained 

 something in that direction, the prin- 

 cipal reason that there was no attempt 

 at swarming was because there was 

 such a dearth of pasturage (although 

 clover bloomed bounteously) that the 

 bees had sense enough to know that 

 they couldn't afford to swarm. In my 

 45 years of bee-keeping in no other 

 year did I meddle so little with the 

 bees as in the season of 1906. 



So you think the fussy plan on page 

 238, of " Forty Years Among the Bees," 

 is better than the one on page 333. Not 

 for me. But it may be for you. Be- 

 cause the work of hunting up colonies 

 making preparations for swarming for 

 which you have no love, is work that I 

 would do anyhow. For you give bees 

 full consent to swarm ; I don't, and 

 that makes a difference. 



Yes. you are right in understanding 

 that I have the company of Messrs. 

 Doolittle, Hutchinson, and Dadant in 

 leaving the matter of requeening 

 chiefly in the hands of the bees, only 

 Mr. Doolittle has a little different prac- 

 tise in his latest plan with his out- 

 apiaries. You don't approve of leav- 

 ing superseding to the bees because 

 the plan " is almost sure to be attended 

 with the loss of a good deal of honey 

 the following season, because many 

 colonies have failed to requeen, and 

 the old queens have died or become 

 worthless as layers." I have very 

 little of that sort of experience. I won- 

 der if it may not be that local condi- 

 tions, or possibly the strain of bees, 

 may make a difference. There ought 

 not to be much chance for queenless- 

 ness from superseding, for if I am not 

 mistaken, at least in my locality, the 

 superseding is generally done toward 

 the close of harvest, the old queen con- 

 tinuing to lay until the young one is 

 fertilized, and if the young one is lost 

 on her wedding-flight there is plenty 

 of time to rear another. At any rate, 

 it is a rare thing for me to find in the 

 spring a queen so old that she is not 

 able to bring the colony up to full 

 strength in time for the harvest. Of 

 course it is right to use judgment, and 

 if any queen seems to fall short, off 

 comes her head at first opportunity to 

 replace her. C. C. Miller. 



Marengo, 111. 



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