86 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



beginning to be constrained to "hang out" at 

 night, it can be expeditiously done, and seldom 

 fails to be successful. First drive in the bees by 

 a few whiffs of smoke, then remove the hive 

 some twenty or thirty paces from the stand, in- 

 vert it and set over it an empty hive as nearly 

 of the same size as may be, and tie a strip of 

 muslin around them at the line of junction, to 

 confine the bees during the operation. Now 

 take two sticks or light mallets and commence 

 tapping or drumming below near the now in- 

 verted top of the hive. Continue to do so five 

 or six minutes; and after pausing a few moments 

 resume drumming, passing slowly around the 

 sides of the hive upwards, occasionally recom- 

 mencing below. Gorging themselves with 

 honey after their first alarm, the bees Avill com- 

 mence humming and ascend in a regular stream 

 into the upper or empty hive, usually accompa- 

 nied by the queen. In twenty or twenty-five 

 minutes from the commencement of the drum- 

 ming the exodus will be complete ; and if it is 

 designed that the driven swarm shall remain in 

 the hive in which it then is, this may at once 

 be set in place of the parent stock, and the lat- 

 ter removed to a new location. Should several 

 days of bad weather ensue, preventing the bees 

 from flying, the driven swarm should be fed 

 with honey ; and the parent hive should have 

 some water given it. An empty decoy hive 

 should be substituted for the parent hive, when 

 it is removed for drumming. The returning 

 bees will collect about it, and thus be kept from 

 joining other stocks and being killed. 



This method is always successful, if the queen 

 accompanies the emigrating bees into the upper 

 hive. But this docs not invariably happen, 

 and it is hence necessary to ascertain whether 

 she has passed vip, before proceeding to locate 

 them permanently. Return the old hive to its 

 former location to receive the bees hovering 

 there, and set that containing the driven swarm 

 on a sheet or on the ground, slightly elevated 

 to admit air. If it contains the queen, the bees 

 will remain quiet ; if not, they will speedily 

 begin to desert the hive and rejoin the parent 

 stock, and the operation has been a failure. 



We append a few useful suggestions : 



1. Driving should not be undertaken till the 

 bees have been "hanging out" several day's in 

 succession, rather from want of room than from 

 too much heat. The colony should be a popu- 

 lous one, the hive be full of combs well stored 

 with brood, and mature drones should be seen. 

 Such a stock ought, however, to be taken in 

 hand promptly, for each day's delay involves a 

 loss of honey. Driving is ahnost indispensable 

 in seasons when honey is abundant, because 

 tlien the bees gather supplies so eagerly that the 

 (pieen finds no cells in which to tleposit eggs, 

 and the colony grows weak in numbers as it 

 increases in stores. 



2. We may occasionally succeed in capturing 

 the queen of a hive tilled with brood and honey 

 by giving it a small super or a glass jar contain- 

 ing empty combs, into which she will ascend to 

 supply the cells with eggs. This should be lif- 

 ted next morning and examined. If the queen 

 is not found, replace the super or jar, and 

 examine it again the ensuing morning ; and if 



still unsuccessful, proceed to drive out a swarm. 

 But if the queen is found in the super, remove 

 the old hive from its stand to a new one; at 

 noon set an empty hive in its place, on Avhicli 

 place the super containing the queen, and open 

 the communication between them. A supply 

 of bees will thus be provided for the nucleus, 

 and we are spared the trouble and risks of driv- 

 ing out a swarm. 



8. If driven swarms cannot be introduced into 

 hives furnished with combs and honey, they 

 must be carefully fed in bad weather, till they 

 have had time to establish themselves. The 

 honey thus supplied will be liberally repaid by 

 them sooner or later; and feeding is, moreover, 

 now indispensable if we would hope to make 

 store hives of them. Until we attain the full 

 number of such, which we purpose having in 

 the apiary, liberal feeding must be resorted to. 

 He who stints his bees here is sure to be a loser 

 in the end. 



5. The hive into which a driven swarm is 

 placed should resemble the parent hive in form 

 and color as much as possible and have its en- 

 trance in the same position, or the returning 

 bees will be loth to enter, preferring often to 

 join some other colony. 



All other modes of making artificial colonies, 

 whether by inserting brood combs or queen 

 cells, or by introducing unimpregnated queens, 

 are useless and vexatious experiments, when 

 common cottage hives are used in poor honey 

 districts. 



Honey is a vegetable secretion which appears 

 at different seasons of the year, especially when 

 fiowers in general are in bloom. The bees lick 

 it from the flowers with their long tongue or 

 proboscis, swallow it, and on their return to the 

 hive, disgorge it into the mouth of the cells. 

 Being a vegetable production, its properties 

 depend entirely on the nature of the plants 

 from which it is collected. That gathered 

 from mignonette is of superior fragrance. 



It is commonly believed that an apiary is not 

 well situated vmless it stands in the sun. This 

 is an error; bees like the shade when working 

 at home, and like the sun only when in the 

 fields, as it then animates and sustains them. 

 They thrive well in dense forests, and delight 

 in them, because they there find a uniform tem- 

 perature and a propitious shade. 



Whether we consider bees in the light of ma- 

 chines, a sort of clock-work, or as having a soul 

 connected with the maclnne. it is certain they 

 never improve in instinctive sagacity. All 

 their wonderful works, habits, and economy 

 are precisely the same now as they were known 

 to be in the infancy of their history. 



Bees should be carefully protected from the 

 heat of the sun in summer, which in some situ- 

 ations is at times so intense as to dissolve the 

 adhesion of the comb, which in its fall crushes 

 the bees, and the hive is ruined. 



