THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



197 



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For the American Bee Journal. 



The Swarming of Bees. 



It has often struck me as strange that 

 bees never select a prepared home — that 

 is, a hive made ready for their occupation. 

 I have l^ept hives near the swarming 

 colonies all in complete order, but not a 

 swarm would ever pay the least attention 

 to one. On the contrary, they will rise to 

 the loftiest trees near, and there remain 

 uncomfortably perched, as one would 

 suppose, until their scouts report a hollow 

 tree, aftbrding poor accommodation at the 

 least, and likely a long way off in the 

 forest, to which they betake themselves 

 in preference to any Laugstroth, Quinby, 

 or other patent hive ever invented. 1 

 take it that the little fellows are shrewd 

 enough to know that they are in a state of 

 slavery while under man's control, and 

 that their running off is simpl}^ a strike 

 for liberty. A swarm of my Italians, the 

 past Spring, were found in a tree eight 

 miles from home and safely captured. I 

 have read in the books, and heard related, 

 that if you could catch the queen during 

 the swarming operation, and place her on 

 a pole or limb, the whole colony would 

 immediately gather to her, but such has 

 not been my experience. We have a little 

 pet darkey of ten years, who has an eye 

 like a hawk, and is as vigilant to catch a 

 queen as is a cat to steal cream, and at 

 the first signal of swarming, he is sure 

 to be on hand at the mouth of the liive, 

 bravely, regardless of the thousands of 

 bees darting and buzzing around his 

 naked head, and he often intercepts the 

 queen as she comes out, and sometimes 

 finds her on the ground near by, and I 

 have clipped their wiugs and placed them 

 in many various positions, and held them 

 in the very thickest of the swarm, yet 

 never in a single instance have I succeed- 

 ed in collecting the swarm to her. 



Nevertheless, by securing the queen the 

 object of preventing the swarms leaving 

 is effected, for when they fail to find her 

 majesty they invariably return to the 

 mother hive, and so if you have the queen, 

 all you have to do is to move the old hive 

 out of the way, substitute a new one in 

 its place, and when the returning bees be- 

 gin to enter it, put in your queen, and, 

 presto, your bees are hived without the 

 trouble of climbing a tree to get at them, 

 to say nothing of stings and other vexa- 

 tions too often attended on the operation 

 of hiving in the good old way. I always 

 give my newly-hived colonies a frame or 

 two of brood comb, by way of giving them 

 a new start in the world, in which case 

 they will never desert their home, as they 



frequently do if left alone to their own 

 resources. 



I lately witnessed, at my friend W. 8. 

 Gary's, in the town of Tangipahoa, a most 

 remarkable circumstance in comb-build- 

 ing. He had a second story of frames, 

 which being filled some month or more 

 ago, he cut the comb out and returned the 

 frames. Now, what did the bees do but 

 build tJie comb upward from the tops of the 

 lower tier of frames. True, they did not 

 build very perpendicularly, but thev evi- 

 dently did the best they could to'ward 

 it without an upright to guide them. 

 Does not this indicate that they possess 

 reasoning powers ? Their inference doubt- 

 less was that the comb had fallen off from 

 the upper bar by its superincumbent 

 weight, hence their wise conclusion to 

 reverse the order of operations, and build 

 upon a base instead oi from it. If any 

 person doubts this wonder in beeology, 

 there the thing is to be seen for itself, 

 plain, undoubted and unquestionable, 

 near a dozen combs all being built up- 

 ward from a bottom foundation. But that 

 is tautology. 



Some time last year, being hard pressed 

 for frames to fill my hives, it occurred to 

 me to put in a single straight bar for the 

 bees to build from, and it succeeded so 

 well that I have this year tried whole 

 hives in that way, and in every case they 

 build smoother and straighter comb from 

 them than they do within the frames. So 

 I flattered myself that I had made quite a 

 useful discovery ; but the wind was taken 

 completely out of my sails by seeing in 

 the Bee Journal that Dzierzon, a Ger- 

 man apiarian, had some years ago recom- 

 mended the Ytry same thing. 



In building from a single bar, they will 

 attach the comb at intervals to the ends of 

 the hive, which merely serves to hold it 

 steady, and in lifting it out, all you have 

 to do is to run a knife down the ends and 

 separate it from the boards. A common 

 case knife will do the work, and I find it 

 less inconvenient than prying out the 

 frames, which will, in spite of you, be 

 glued in their places in one way or an- 

 other. For extracting honey the frame 

 would be perhaps preferable ;' but for all 

 other purposes, and especially for straight, 

 smooth comb, the bar has the advantage! 

 J. B. R., of Abbeyville, says he puts in 

 two nails in the ends of his frames, as one 

 does not hold them steady enough. 



Now, the design of the nail in the end 

 is to let the frame swing to its proper per- 

 pendicular, as the bees in making comb 

 form themselves into a plummet, and 

 work to a perpendicular line; so if your 

 frame does not hang right, the comb will 

 not be made to follow it. With two nails 

 in the ends it would be an accident if the 

 frame hung perpendicular. 



I am aware that some successfuU-bee- 

 keepers make their frames to slide in 



