PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE W. T FALCONER MANPG CO 



VOL. VII. 



f\UGUST, 1897. 



NO. 8. 



Clipped Queens and Swarming 



BY G. M. DOOI.ITTLE. 



A correspondent writes thu?: "Will 

 you please tell us in the American 

 Bee Keeper how you manage swarms 

 having queens with their winsrs clip- 

 ped? As I believe you favor the 

 clipping of queens. I have had so 

 many swarms go away this year where 

 the queens were not clipped, that if I 

 were sure I could manage ray apiary 

 in the swarming season with the wings 

 to my queens clipped, I would clip 

 the Avings of every queen as soon as 

 fertile." 



The above carries me back twenty- 

 seven years, to the time when I re- 

 solved something similar to what the 

 correspondent has, after loosing some 

 of the best swarms of that year, 

 though I decided, management or no 

 management, not another swarm 

 should run away, from the queen 

 being allowed to have her wings so she 

 could use them in flying off with the 

 first or prime swarm ; and as to after- 

 swarms, 1 long ago decided that they 

 were a nuisance, and they should not 

 be allowed to come at all, in any well 

 kept apiary. Having the wing of 

 every queen clipped in 1871, I now 



went about to find out the best plan 

 of management daring the swarming 

 season, and have kept experimenting 

 ever since, whenever anything new 

 came up in my own thoughts or in the 

 writings of others, and have settled 

 down to the use of the following as 

 being the best of anything that I 

 know of up to date: I first get some 

 light strong poles from 10 to 18 feet 

 long, finding that the nicest thing in 

 the pole line can be had where any- 

 one resides near a basswood thicket, 

 by going m the month of June and 

 selecting such as are suitable and peal- 

 ing the bark off, which is readily done 

 at this season of the year, when they 

 will dry through in three or four days, 

 making something nice and light to 

 use forever afterward, if kept housed 

 when not in use. Having the poles 

 of different length, a suitable sized 

 hole is bored in the small end of each 

 so as to take the Manum swarm 

 catcher, which is easily slipped into 

 the one having the right length to 

 reach the clustering swarm. We next 

 want a wire-cloth cage about an inch 

 in diameter and six inches long, with 

 a permanent stopper in one end and 

 a movable one in the other. Having 

 these things in readiness, as soon as I 



