244 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



expected unreasonable or impossible re- 

 sults and were so easily discouraged that 

 they made no effort to overcome difficul- 

 ties. If all bee-keepers acted thus, im^ 

 provement in methods would be impossi- 

 ble. And the worst of it is that promi- 

 nent, not to say celebrated, apicultural 

 editors are willing to use such reports, at 

 least inferentially, to show that such con- 

 traction is to be condemned. Is it to be 

 supposed that Mr. Hovis would have got 

 hone}- in sections if he had given each 

 swarm an entire one or two-story brood 

 nest ? The difficulty is evidently that either 

 there was little or no nectar to be gather- 

 ed, or the swarms were too small to oc- 

 cupy even six frames. The explanation 

 of Mr. Bunch's case is that in some sea- 

 sons the desertion of contracted brood 

 chambers by swarms is a difficulty; but 

 it is easily met. To remedy that — and it 

 is a remedy — I hive each swarm in a 

 brood chamber of two sections of the 

 Heddon hive and when the swarm gets 

 settled down, in three or four days, I 

 remove the lower section. 



Editor Root (Gleanings 519) reniiidsme 

 that I report him as saying that "two 

 and three-story colonies do not swarm;" 

 a sentiment he now affirms he does 

 not believe in. I am glad of this explic- 

 it statement. His exact former statement 

 was that such colonies went right on 

 "piling ii) the honey and not swarming" 

 and that they were "the bast solution of 

 the swarming question." The sentiment 

 iie now disavows seemed to me to be 

 fairly drawn from his exact words. 



I discover, Gleanings 5 2, that Dr. 

 Miller is also at loggerheads with the 

 editor as to the meaning of the word 

 contraction. He asks whether taking one 

 of two stories away when the sections are 

 put on isn't "about as near contraction as 

 you can come to it ?' ' The doctor being 

 the lexicographer ought to know, but 

 the editor disagrees. I woiild like to 

 have the editor give a categorical answer 

 to this question: Hasn't the word con- 

 traction always, till within the last few 

 weeks, been used with reference to a 



reduction of the size of the brood 

 chamber, and never with reference to 

 the size of the surplus apartment in 

 any shape ? If we use the same words 

 wdth different significations we can never 

 know whether we agree or not. 



PREVENTION OF AFTER-SWARMING. 



It is so seldom that I find anything to 

 critici.se in Doolittie's statements that I 

 must not fail to take advantage of it when 

 I do find something. In the American 

 Bee Journal, 402, he details his plan of 

 preventing second .swarms, which is done 

 by cutting out queen cells on the morn- 

 ing of the eighth day. Perhaps Doolittle 

 is led to practice this method from the 

 fact that he is largely engaged in the 

 production of queens, since by this pro- 

 cess, he gets plenty of good queen cells 

 almost ready to hatch. In the absence 

 of some such reason I would never follow 

 the method he gives; because it is a la- 

 borious time-consuming operation, at a 

 season of the year when it is especially 

 wise to enconomize both in time and labor, 

 without any corresponding advantage. It 

 is no small task to go over five or six col- 

 onies every day or two in such a way as 

 to find ever}' queen cell. Then there is 

 still an element of uncertainty, with the 

 greatest care. It is possible to overlook 

 a cell, or the first swarm may have been 

 so delaj-ed that the second swarm issues 

 before the eighth day. I had one case in 

 which a young queen emerged from her 

 cell the verv day the prime swarm issued. 

 As the old queen was clipped there conld 

 have been no mistake about it. A greatl}' 

 preferable plan, in my estimation, is 

 that of reducing the bees in the old hive 

 by hiving the prime swarm on the old 

 stand, then gradually turning the old hive 

 around beside it and carrying it (the old 

 hive) away, while the bees are flying, on 

 the sixth or seventh day, using a queen 

 trap in connection. I get, also, all of the 

 bees remaining in the supers by remov- 

 ing them at once to the new hive; and 

 generally remove the honey board and 

 shake off all bees adhering to it into the 



