AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



401 



lSelf*Ili¥er§ and the Queen-and- 

 Drone Trap. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY HENRY ALLEY. 



Self-hivers seem to be receiving a 

 share of notice by the various bee- 

 papers. This, of course, is all right, 

 though there are claims made for some 

 of the hivers that the queen-trap has 

 always possessed. We are told that 

 some of the hivers now used under the 

 colony that casts the swarm, are so used 

 merely to detain a part of the swarm, 

 while the larger part of the bees ascend 

 to the brood above, and continue work 

 in the supers they deserted when they 

 swarmed. This seems to be a new use 

 for an automatic hiver. Well, now, if 

 this is the design of a self-hiving ar- 

 rangement, I think bee-keepers will go 

 to considerable trouble and expense to 

 accomplish a thing that can be done 

 equally as well by using a plain, simple 

 drone-trap ! 



I venture to say that it is not half 

 as much work (and no bother at all), to 

 place a queen-trap on a hive, as it is to 

 adjust some of the hivers. When once 

 there, the trap is in plain sight, and one 

 can see at a glance whether a swarm of 

 bees has issued in the absence of the 

 bee-keeper. Now this cannot be done 

 where a self-hiving arrangement is used 

 in a brood-chamber, and placed under 

 the hive the colony is in that a swarm 

 issues from. 



I will explain briefly how the trap 

 works : When a swarm issues, the 

 queen will surely b<5 found in the trap. 

 That she is there lay be known by the 

 presence of a considei'able number of the 

 worker-bees. If there is no queen in the 

 trap, there will be no cluster of bees. 

 When a queen is in the trap, there will 

 be towards night, at least, about half a 

 pint of bees in one corner of the trap. 

 During the day the trap will be pretty 

 well filled with bees if there is a queen 

 in it. 



The bees, as is well understood, when 

 they swarm and miss their queen, return 

 to the hive they issued from, and return 

 to work the same as though nothing un- 

 usual had happened. Now if not de- 

 sirable to increase the number of colo- 

 nies in the apiary, this operation is all 

 right. But to hive the swarm at the 

 time it issues, of course it is necessary 

 that some one should be in the apiary to 

 change the hives. That is, the hive the 

 bees came from should be removed to 

 one side, a new one put in its place, the 

 trap taken from the home hive and 

 placed at the entrance of the new hive, 

 when the swarm will quickly hive itself. 



Now if comb honey and not increase 

 is the object, the hives should not be 

 changed, nor the trap meddled with 

 until the third day after the swarm is- 

 sued. At that time the queen that ac- 

 companied the swarm (or any other 

 queen will do) should be introduced to 

 the home colony. If done as here stated, 

 there will be no need of opening the hive 

 to destroy the queen-cells, as the queen 

 will attend to that in the course of a 

 few hours after she is introduced. There 

 will be no more swarms from that hive 

 during the season. 



Well, now suppose it is not desirable 

 to give the queen back to the old colony, 

 and it is not convenient to procure 

 another for two or three weeks ; the 

 proper thing to do under the circum- 

 stances, is to let the trap remain with 

 the queen in it until it is known that a 

 second swarm will not issue. In the 

 mean time, the young queens will hatch, 

 and several will be found dead in the 

 trap. That is a sure indication that no 

 more swarms will issue, and the trap 

 can be removed for the season. 



If the old queen is a valuable one, and 

 the apiarist dislres to preserve the cells 

 that were built by the bees before the 

 swarm issued, let the trap remain with 

 the queen in it until the seventh day, 

 and then cut out all the cells but one, 

 and let the remaining one be the largest 

 and finest of the lot. 



Some time last summer I read an arti- 

 cle in the Bee Journal by a writer 

 who was describing some sort of a 

 swarm-catcher. He said among other 

 things, that he did not like the queen- 

 trap, as several swarms would issue at 

 one time, and all alight in the same 

 place, and that made a bad mess of it. 

 Well, what has the trap to do with pre- 

 venting several swarms issuing at the 

 same time ? Now suppose there are four 

 or more swarms in the air at one time 

 where there are no traps in the apiary — 

 the swarms surely will all settle in the 



