82 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



June 



tempt, (the queens were not clipped nor 

 crippled) but usually when the bees 

 have made a second or a third attempt 

 to swarm and the queen is unwilling to 

 go with them, she is balled and killed, 

 and a lot of young queens are reared, 

 which will wind up their colony in a 

 lot of small swarms, unless attended to 

 properly. When you have a colony 

 so eager to swarm, and the queen is so 

 unwilling to go with them, just try ex- 

 changing this queen, with the queen 

 of some other colony, liable to swarm 

 and which you wish to prevent. I 

 trust that the readers of the Bee Keep- 

 er in general have had a better spring 

 for their bees than Southern Illinois 

 has given me. 

 Steeleville, J 11. 



In Swarming Time. 



BY WILDER GRAHAME. 



Nothing, perhaps, is more exaper- 

 ating to the bee-keeper than the 

 lodgement of a fine swarm in the top 

 of some high tree, unless, indeed, it be 

 the departure and loss of the swarm 

 entirely. It is safe to say that a good 

 many losses of this kind occur each 

 season throughout the country, and 

 every such occurrence helps a little 

 in putting the big figures on the 

 wrong side of the balance sheet and 

 making bee-keeping unprofitable. Be- 

 sides, personal discomfort, and even 

 danger to life is involved in this 

 point. Only last season a neighbor of 

 the writer of this article, a novice in 

 bee-keeping, foolishly carried a hive up 

 into a large tree and undertook to hive 

 the truants direct. He was soon after- 

 wards picked up unconscious and for 

 days his life hung in a very delicate 

 balance. It was not for several weeks 



that he was able to resume his work 

 and in the meantime the bees he was 

 after had gone. 



It does not seem to be generally 

 understood, and yet is none the less 

 true, that the flight of bees can be 

 controlled. I do not mean by this the 

 old tin pan and dipper of water meth- 

 od, nor the psuedo scientific one of 

 clipping the wings of the queen. But I 

 refer to the previous preparation of a 

 suitable alighting place at some con- 

 venient point for both bees and apiar- 

 ist. How can one expect even the best 

 disposed of bees to light in convenient 

 places if none are provided? I have 

 seen people foolish enough to place 

 their hives remote from any suitable 

 perch and then wonder why "their 

 bees always went direct to a neighbor- 

 ing woods to light when swarming," 

 Bees don't carry a rail feuce or bush 

 with them when they start, nor are 

 they usually provided with tents or 

 camp-stools. None the less, is it 

 natural for them as soon as they have 

 issued from the parent hive to cluster 

 somewhere, probably to collect their 

 forces well together, before starting 

 upon their journey. If they do not do , 

 this it is, nine cases out of ten, be- 

 cause no suitable place is discovered 

 near the hive. If compelled to fly 

 some distance in search of one it is 

 not surprising if they forego their pre- 

 liminary stop entirely, as, after once 

 fairly started, it is possible they do 

 not care to stop off at every station. 



Those who have tried the effect of 

 a few shrubs and grape-vines trained 

 in the vicinity of the hives and on the 

 entrance side, will, I think, bear me 

 out in the assertion that these will 

 catch nearly all swarms issuing. 



