280 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[June, 



season I ever saw. Well, as I said, they came 

 out poor, and I had of coarse to resort to feed- 

 ing. There being not any fat ones among them 

 to take frames from, I had to feed the poorest 

 some other way. I purchased some sugar, dis- 

 solved it in water, and mixed some honey with 

 it as long as I had any. Afterwards I fed it 

 clear, using bee-feeders similar to those described 

 by Mr. Langstroth. The bees increased rapidly 

 and commenced swarming on the 13th of May. 

 The way I managed through the swarming sea- 

 son is this: T cut my queens' wings in the spring 

 when I overhauled the stocks to cut out some 

 comb and introduce worker comb in its place. I 

 keep my bee-yard seeded down to grass, and the 

 grass cut short. I like this better than Novice's 

 sawdust ; anyway, it is not so liable to catch lire 

 and burn iip my bees. When a colony swarmed 

 and the queen came out she crawled as far as 

 she could on the grass, and of course I was there 

 to assist her majesty. I generally put her in a 

 queen cage till the swarm alights, and then pixt 

 her with the bees. The first thing to be done is 

 to secure the queen, that is when she starts to 

 come out ; and the next is to remove the old 

 hive and substitute your new hive in its place, 

 and when the bees commence to return put your 

 queen on the bottom board, and your swarm is 

 hived. Take your new swarm and place it where 

 you like. Or if your bees alight on a tree, 

 carry your queen there, and hive the swarm. 

 That's the way I manage my bees. Where 

 swarms are numerous I do not know any better 

 ,way to do so, without trouble and vexation. 



W[ell my bees kept on swarming last summer, 

 iintil I had filled all the hives I had calculated 

 for 'new swarms. In the first place I made 

 several artificial swarms, so as to get a little the 

 start of the bees ; but it did not make much 

 difference with them, for they got ready and 

 swarmed within a week or two as quick as the 

 others. So I hived a number of them together, 

 uniting sometimes two and sometimes three of 

 the swarms, taking away all the queens but one, 

 and putting on surplus honey boxes at once — 

 removing the honey-board and setting the boxes 

 directly on the frames. 



. I increased my colonies from fifty old stocks 

 to one hundred, and obtained two tons of sur- 

 plus honey, all in boxes, except eight hundred 

 (800) pounds taken out with the machine. The 

 most taken from any one hive was one hundred 

 and fifty (150) pounds. 



I wish some one would communicate through 

 the Journal how to keep the bees from swarm- 

 ing and throw their whole force into the surplus 

 boxes, without queen-yard or queen-cages. I 

 should be thankful to receive such knowledge. 

 Another thing — I should be thankful to know 

 how to keep my bees cool enough in my winter 

 repository, in a warm spell such as often occurs 

 in the winter. The room that I keep them in is 

 ten feet by twenty-four, inside measure, with 

 five ventilators overhead. One of these, six 

 inches square, running up through the roof; 

 anothei', one foot square, through the floor and 

 sawdust ; and one comii;g under the ground, 

 four inches square, insitle measure. With all 

 these open in a warm still time, the bees get too 



warm. If I should open the doors at night they 

 would warm up in daytime, and I might over- 

 sleep and let daylight in and the bees would 

 leave their winter quarters. 



Albert Potter. 

 Eureka, Wis. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Chloroforming Bees. 



I cannot conceive why the use of chloroform 

 should be i^rockiimed objectionable in taming or 

 subduing bees, unless it is that, in applying it 

 for that i)urpose, bee-keepers generally have not 

 understood what quantity to use, and for what 

 length of time. With me it has proved the very 

 best of bee charms. You can render your bees 

 merely drowsy and good natured, lay them fast 

 asleep, or bring them to the snooze that knows 

 no waking. It all depends on the quantity ad- 

 ministered, and the time they remain exposed to 

 the fumes of the chloroform. Chloroforming 

 bees, as described Yol. V., page 142, of the Bee 

 Journal, is chloroforming with a vengeance and 

 sure death. 



Since 1803, studying and adopting the plans 

 laid down in the Patent Office Eeport (Agricul- 

 tural Part, page 89), I substitute for the table, a 

 bottom-board to suit the size of the iiive to be 

 chloroformed. A tin or wooden dish, ten or 

 twelve inches square, is tightly fitted in this 

 bottom-board, and I nail a three or four inch 

 cleat at each end of the lower side of it, to raise 

 it from the ground and keep it from warping. 

 In the middle of this dish put the small plate to 

 be covered by a funnel-shaped piece of wire- 

 cloth, after it has received the one-sixth part of 

 an ounce of chloroform, whicli is an ordinary 

 teaspoonful, and enough I tliink for most hives 

 when perfectly closed with cloths or blankets, 

 to prevent escape of fumes. I set the hive to be 

 chloroformed directly over the dish in the bot- 

 tom-board, and in from ten to twenty minutes 

 the bees will either be harmless or lay fast asleep 

 in the dish below, according to the degree you 

 wish to have them initiated into the mysteries 

 of chloroform. But after being brought to the 

 fresh air, they will soon awake and revive. For 

 further particulars, see Patent Office Report for 

 1860. 



If the object is to deprive the swarm of honey, 

 without the visitings of its wrath, the most 

 timid can thus obtain, with this fragrant anaes 

 thetic, a well-flavored sweet article, and not an 

 ill-scented, repulsive nauseous mess, ungrateful 

 to the taste and unfit for man or bee, as is the 

 case when using tobacco, puff-ball, sulphur, or 

 any other smoke. Any hive, with or without 

 movable combs, that has a movable bottom- 

 board (and no hive should, in my opinion, have 

 a stationary one) can easily be brought under 

 the influence of chloroform. No trouble and no 

 harm to the bees, applying the quantity during 

 the time above specified. It will not poison the 

 hive, the bees, or the honey. 



I have thus united stocks, removed old queens, 

 and the Salic law not being in practice or cus- 



