93 _ 



Nov. 8, 1906 



American Dee Journal 



confidential line of trade, and would, 

 if closely followed, create an almost 

 unlimited demand, because there would 

 be unlimited confidence. But we must 

 not forget that it furnishes an open- 

 ing for unscrupulous breeders to step 

 in and abuse the market. It would be 

 the same with the breeding of bees as 

 it is with the honey or fruit market. 

 About as fast as the market is toned 

 up by those who sell properly produced 

 product, it is brought down by the 

 careless and crafty. A great deal of 

 the poor honey that is in the market 

 is honey which has been bought up 

 by dealers at a low price because of 

 their taking a large quantity, then 

 holding it in an unsuitable storage 

 warehouse until the elements of Nature 

 have divested it of its delicacy and 

 freshness. 



A particular strain of bees which are 

 distinguishable because of their color, 

 size, temperament, etc., when tested 

 for actual utility may result in a waste 

 of time and labor in their propagation. 

 It would appear that a race of bees 

 should be left largely to their own de- 

 velopment except to weed out the poor- 

 est queens as they appear. Only Nature 

 can make the improvements, and, 

 therefore, Nature should be allowed as 

 free a hand as is possible to give. 



And that is what I claim for the 

 swarming system described somewhat 

 briefly on page S04 — merely Nature's 

 way. I doubt that it is the real nature 

 of the bees to wish to depart for " the 

 woods," except that the surplus of 

 queens makes it appear to the bees as 

 necessary. I could produce a long line 

 of evidence to bear out this statement, 

 and may do so at a more favorable time 

 for it. 



When the bees and queen are placed 

 in a box and retained in the apiary, 

 many of the bees will begin to desert 

 and go back into the original hive 

 again, and this is kept up, more or less, 

 for several days, according to the agree- 

 ableness of the conditions which ex- 

 isted in the old hive from which the 

 swarm embarked. If the old hive was 

 crowded so that the bees were obliged 

 to cluster outside, very few will return ; 

 but if there was plenty of inside space, 

 a large portion may return. In deter- 

 mining the truth along this line, the 

 laying capacity of the queen must be 

 considered, because bees are loth to 

 cast their lot with a queen which may 

 soon fail. On several occasions I have 

 known bees which clustered outside 

 the hive for several days to swarm 

 without queen-cells, and, farther than 

 that, without a queen, and go a mile 

 or more from the apiary, settle on a 

 tree, and remain clustered there for 

 days, until old age or starvation 

 brought them to an end. Such cir- 

 cumstances would not occur with large 

 hives. 



Fifteen years ago contraction of 

 hives was prevalent to secure more 

 compact storage and more rapid finish- 

 ing of the honey-combs. At present 

 there is a wholesale movement toward 

 an opposite extreme to prevent swarm- 

 ing, so that the business may be pur- 

 sued and managed on broader lines. 

 If the results of contraction were worth 

 working for once, they must be of 

 some value still. 



There are few fruit-growers but that 



will admit that the proper pruning of 

 trees, thinning of the fruit, and en- 

 richment of the soil, will improve the 

 quality of the fruit. This is also a 

 species of contraction. Yet I have 

 known fruit-growers who would leave 

 just as much of the fruit on, provide 

 just the least enrichment of the soil, 

 and bestow as little labor on pruning 

 the trees as the market would admit of. 

 One year the disposal of the fruit may 

 be the result of clever bargaining or 

 the personal bearing and importance 

 of the seller, or a slight scarcity in the 

 market may exist. This will encour- 

 age the producer to permit still more 

 "expansion" methods of production. 

 The producer and dealer obtained 

 their profits in the first case, but the 

 consumer was not quite satisfied. 

 Although this dissatisfaction may not 

 produce an audible sound, its effect is 

 reflected back to one dealer and an- 

 other, so that the producer comes up 

 face against the results the following 

 year, and may be compelled to haul his 

 product home and deposit the same 

 alongside the hog-pen. 



When a swarm is hived and there is 

 fear that it may not stay hived, it is 

 customary to give it a frame of brood. 

 Brood will cause the swarm to stay 

 even though they have no queen at 

 all — probably to care for and protect 

 the brood. This is artificial, and not 

 in accordance with Nature's way. The 

 brood being the cause of the swarm's 

 staying in the new hive and new loca- 

 tion, we are deceived as to the real 

 value of the queen ; for if the queen is 

 poor, and the bees are allowed their 

 liberty, they will mostly return to the 

 hive they came from. The only 

 swarms that it is advisable to hive in 

 a new location are those where the 

 bees all stay. These are the swarms 

 which do the best work — those that 

 can not be induced or driven back to 

 the old hive, and will stay " hived " on 

 a fence-post if their queen is confined 

 there. 



Now, we arrive at the kernel of the 

 matter : " The size of the first swarm 

 is varied a great deal by the amount of 

 reverence the bees possess for the old 

 queen." This does not refer to the 

 size of the swarm as it issues from the 

 old hive. It refers to the number of 

 bees that will stay after hiving, and 



without brood or other inducement. It 

 may have been an induced swarm 

 through lack of ventilation, restriction 

 of the queen's laying space, or an 

 aged queen which should have been 

 replaced the previous season. Then, 

 again, swarms may be delayed by the 

 sudden addition of room for brood or 

 stores, ventilation of the hive, or un- 

 favorable weather, and many bee- 

 keepers destroy the queen-cells one or 

 more times. All these things tend to 

 make swarms artificial and unnatural. 



I have the following from a promi- 

 nent Eastern bee-keeper: "A clus- 

 tered or clustering swarm is not fussy 

 as to the queen it has, as you know, as 

 ' afterswarms ' not infrequently have 

 many virgin queens, and I have seen 

 ' prime ' swarms with the old and sev- 

 eral young queens." 



I have often seen the same. For sev- 

 eral years I clipped queens. Several 

 times I saw the old, clipped queen come 

 out and hop about on the ground, until 

 finding that she could not go with the 

 swarm, turned to re-enter the same 

 hive she came out of but a moment be- 

 fore. As soon as she approached the 

 alighting-board she was seized, and 

 although she moved lively to get past 

 the guards, she became balled, and 

 would have been killed had I not 

 opened the hive and rescued her. And 

 the cage I placed her in was balled for 

 one or two days. Is that not somewhat 

 "fussy?" It shows that the young 

 queens which go with a "prime" 

 swarm are not in their intended place, 

 although the bees of the swarm would 

 not object to the young queens. If the 

 swarm is hived, however, and no brood 

 put in, most of the bees would desert 

 and return to the parent hive during 

 the following few days. Such are not 

 natural swarms, because the procedure 

 is not in accordance with what Nature 

 intended. It is two swarms in one. 



After we find out a successful method 

 for the treatment of natural swarms, 

 by a slight variation we can manage 

 the freaks. When there is less tam- 

 pering with the colonies to prevent 

 swarming, there will be less freaks. 

 Freak swarms are apt to be more or 

 less freakish in their work and call 

 for freakish management, which is the 

 complete annihilation of system. 



Chatsworth, Calif. 



Canadian 

 Beedom 



fSL 



Conducted by Morlet Pettit, Villa Nova, Ont. 



Retail Packages for Honey 



At this time of year, and especially 

 this year, almost any beekeeper can 

 dispose of his whole honey crop by re- 

 tailing amongst his neighbors, or in 



the nearest town. I have long been 

 an advocate of the house-to-house can- 

 vass for selling. Dealers in other 

 lines, such as tea and other groceries, 

 medicines, etc., find it profitable, and 

 honey-producers would do the same. 

 Along comes J. L. Byer, in the Cana- 



