AMERICAN Bee Journal. 



EDITED AND PUBLISHED BY SAMUEL WAGNER, WASHINGTON, D. C. 



Vol. II. 



NovEM:BEit, isee. 



No. 5. 



Bee-Culture in Cottage Hives. 

 . No. 5. 



We remarked in the preceding number that, 

 in building up an apiary, the multiplication of 

 colonies must ever be regarded as a means, and 

 not as an end. The intelligent bee-keeper uses 

 it merely for the purpose of procuring in a 

 speedy, cheap, and gratifying manner, the full 

 number of stocks which he proposes to keep 

 permanently; and thenceforward subordinates 

 it to his main object, the maintenance of a pro- 

 ductive and profitable apiary. Unless he adopts 

 and inflexibly adheres to this as a fundamental 

 principle, he must forego all expectation of 

 abundant honey harvests, making up his mind 

 to feed to weak swarms and reduced parent 

 stocks, the surplus honey which his non-swarm- 

 ing hives may yield. It is true that the num- 

 ])er of stocks can be rapidly increased by 

 swarming and driving, but regular profit is de- 

 rived not from the number, but from the qual- 

 ity of the stocks he possesses. An irregular, un- 

 systematic mode of management, by which the 

 apiarian becomes dependent in large measure 

 on his bees, instead of having them dependent 

 on him, is precisely the prevalent and predomi- 

 nant evil among bee-keepers, and is sure to re- 

 sult in the swift destruction of their apiaries. 

 Undoubtedly years occur when, even in poor 

 honey districts, bees have an overweening pro- 

 pensity to swarm; but those are not the richest 

 honey-yielding years, for in the latter, the bees 

 indulging their uncontrolable greed for honey, 

 devote all their energies to the accumulation of 

 stores, filling up the cells so rapidly and so 

 generally that little space is left in which the 

 queen can deposit eggs. Thus swarming is pre- 

 vented at a time when the wants of young colo- 

 nies could be most easily provided for. It is 

 altogether a mistake to suppose that, in this 

 matter of swarming, the bees iiave an unerring 

 guide in their natural instincts ; for it not un- 

 frequently liappeus that the weather suddenly 

 changes and supplies fail a few days after a 

 swarm has issued, and it must then be liberally 

 fed or it will perish. This is one reason why 

 the swarm, whether it came with our consent 



or not, must always be set in the place where 

 the parent stock stood, and the latter removed 

 to a new location. 



We have already said that when increase of 

 colonies is our object, whether by natural 

 swarms or by artificial process, the stocks must 

 be managed differently from what is proper 

 when they are designed to be made honey pro- 

 ducers. We have only to add now to what 

 was then stated, that the annual increase must 

 be limited to oue swarm — whether natural or 

 artificial — from each stock ; and that all after- 

 swarming must be absolutely prevented. This 

 rule is not to be restricted to poor honey districts 

 only, but must be rigidly adhered to also in 

 those which usually yield fair honey harvests. 

 Only in first-rate honey districts can a deviation 

 from it be permitted, and it must be borne in 

 mind that such districts are never found where 

 highly improved agriculture has been intro- 

 duced and established. In all others the gov- 

 erning principle must be inflexibly enforced,not 

 to permit after-swarming in any case. Without 

 this, bee-culture can never be made permanently 

 a source of profit, but Avill speedily become a 

 losing business, as experience has frequently 

 shown. 



After a prime swarm has issued, after-swarms 

 usually follow, if the parent stock is not trans- 

 ferred to a new location ; but they come very 

 irregularly. When reading the treatises of 

 even experienced bee-keepers, we are led to 

 imagine that this whole matter of swarming 

 proceeds as it were by system, and many of 

 them name the very day when the after-swarms 

 will make their appearance. Generally speak- 

 ing, no such regularity is observed, andthe no- 

 vice will soon discover that all calculations of 

 this kind are deceptive. He will be told, also, 

 by some, that the first after-swarm is ahvays ac- 

 companied by a single queen only, because all 

 her rivals are guarded in their cells by the 

 workers, and not permitted to emerge till the 

 first-born has departed. This, too, he will fre- 

 quently find to be erroneous. The first after- 

 swarm will sometimes return and re-enter the 

 parent hive, after having gone through the usual 

 demonstrations of actual swarming. The re- 

 sult is then great tumult and confusion in the 



