1894 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



405 



injury from the use of galvanized vessels, we 

 should all know it. 



IJees wintered well here. Out of 108 I lost (J 

 I'olonics. I took 44 colonies from the cellar 

 March 17, and they gathered quite a little 

 pollen from hazlenut, and some willow. I re- 

 turned them again on the '.24th. on account of 

 the cold spell, and removed them on the l.'5lh of 

 April, since when they have gathered honey 

 from the soft maple every fair day. 



Hillsboro, Wis., Apr. 2^. Ei.iAs Fox. 



[This is valuable and to the point. We shall 

 take pleasure in having the honey submitted to 

 a chemist— nut to ascertain its purity, but to 

 determine whether there is present enough of 

 the zinc to be poisonous to even a child. 



We should be very glad to hear from others, 

 especially from the California bee-keepers, be- 

 cause it is so important to know whether or 

 not there is any danger in the use of such metal 

 when used for storage-tanks —Ed.] 



KG BAD KESUI.TS FROM THE USE OF GALVAN- 

 IZED TANKS. 



In reply to your article, p. 334, in regard to 

 galvanized tanks, etc., being poisonous, I will 

 say I have been using such a tank, 110 gallons, 

 constantly, for three years, and have never ex- 

 perienced any bad results. I always keep about 

 15 or 20 gallons in the tank, from one season to 

 another, from which I send you a sample that 

 has stood for 13 months. Please test it and let 

 us hear further from it, as I have been anxious 

 to get more light on the subject. 



Hermanville, Miss., April 25. R. W. Bkuce. 



[Yes, so are we. — Ed.] 



PREVENTION OF SWARMING. 



A NEW PLAN FOR CONSIDERATION. 



liy Edson Hains. 



Swarming as related to the production of 

 comb honey is a problem that has engaged the 

 attention of the bee-keepers of the country for 

 many years, for the reason that a swarm of bees 

 is likely to leave the hive at the time when 

 they are most needed, taking with them so 

 many bees that the parent stock would be so 

 weak as to store but little if any surplus honey, 

 as tlie honey season would often be over by the 

 time they could regain their strength, and the 

 colony would be without surplus honey, and 

 still have a hive full of bees to eat the honey 

 through the autumn months, but too old at the 

 beginning of winter to be of any use in the 

 spring, when we should find the colony weak 

 in bees which were young enough to help in 

 caring for the brood for the building-up of the 

 colony for another season. 



My method of preventing swarming consists 

 in placing the entrance of the hive so as to let 

 the bees in at the side of the combs instead of 

 their going on to the ends of them. This en- 

 ables me to put a queen-excluding division- 

 board back of the first and second combs. Back 



of the excluding division-board I place the 

 remaining eight combs and queen. I then 

 cover them with another piece of zinc excluder, 

 con lining the queen and brood to the eight 

 frames. 



When I put on the surplus case I place it so 

 the bees can have ready access to it from combs 

 in front of the excluder, without passing 

 through the zinc. This partially keeps the 

 honey-gatherers out of the brood-nest, and 

 saves them the trouble of going through the 

 zinc heavily laden with honey, and it prevents 

 them from emptying their load right in the 

 brood-nest where the queen is about to lay her 

 eggs. As the brood-nest is not overcrowded 

 w^ith bees, the queen lays her eggs without 

 being bothered, and the nurse-bees are not in- 

 cited thereby to prepare for swarming. In this 

 way the desire to swarm on the part of either 

 bees or queen is in a great mea'sure prevented; 

 and if the queen, in her efi'orts to leave the 

 hive, should work her way through the excluder, 

 as she might if a small queen, and clipped, she 

 has yet combs to go on to; and, as I see the 

 bees returning, I can open the hive; and if I 

 find the queen in front of the excluder I return 

 her to the brood- nest. 



As an experiment, in the fore part of the 

 season of 1893 I placed a zinc excluder over the 

 hive-body, full of surplus combs for extracting; 

 above the zinc I placed a hive containing 

 brood -combs, bees, and queen. When I went 

 to extract the honey, the upper story, where I 

 put the queen, was full of brood and honey; 

 but failing to find the queen or young brood 

 1 looked below, where I found the queen and a 

 few square inches of very young brood in one 

 frame. All, excepting that one, were full of 

 sealed honey. I extracted the honey and 

 returned the queen to the upper story, where 

 she remained until I prepared the stock for 

 winter. Had I left the colony (a strong one) 

 without an excluder, the bees most likely would 

 have swarmed and the queen been lost, ff lost, 

 a batch of queen-cells would have been started, 

 and probably the bees would have left the hive 

 just at the beginning of the basswood flow. 

 This is the principal reason why bees in box 

 hives (where the extractor can not be used) are 

 so apt to swarm, and so rarely to be of any 

 profit to the bee-keeper. The same condition 

 renders apiculture unprofitable in movable- 

 frame hives not guarded against swarming by 

 some one of the various methods. 



The question may be asked, " How do the 

 drones get out to fly ? " The remedy is, simply 

 to place drone brood which is from the best 

 queens (and especially if queen, drones, and 

 workers are good) in front of a queen-excluding 

 division-board. Undesirable drones should be 

 kept in the brood nest or destroyed. Virgin 

 queens, being smaller, will be able to get 

 through the excluder to take their flight. The 

 question has been asked, " Why not nail an 



