1921 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



191 



HIGH YIELDS FROM COLONIES 

 HAVING SWARMED EARLY 



By F. Greiner 



Under normal or ordinary condi- 

 tions almost every colony makes the 

 attempt to swarm. After the crea- 

 tion God said : "Be fruitful and mul- 

 tiply." All creatures obey this com- 

 mand. The instinct to propagate its 

 kind was imparted unto every living 

 thing, the bee included, and we can- 

 not get away from it. The modern 

 beekeeper would like to control the 

 instinct of the honeybee, which he 

 cultivates or keeps, as the case may 

 be. Especially is this true in case of 

 the comb-honey producer who is pes- 

 tered in a greater degree with the 

 swarming nuisance than one who pro- 

 duces extracted honey. He might 

 have plain sailing if it was not for 

 that trouble, and all our methods of 

 successful comb-honey production 

 center largely around it. In this ar- 

 ticle I do not intend to deal with the 

 different methods to produce comb 

 honey, but confine myself to one 

 emergency method, which gives me 

 exceedingly gi-atifying results. If 

 one of my readers should have occa- 

 sion to use it, even on but one colony, 

 the extra gain will pay for his Jour- 

 nal several years. When we visit our 

 bees in early May when the fruit 

 trees bloom, it is not an unusual 

 occuiTence to find here and there a 

 colony having already swarmed and 

 the swarm having absconded. Of 

 course this is quite a loss, and we 

 can do no more than to save the 

 pieces. I sometimes utilized the 

 queen cells or broke up the whole 

 colony into nuclei or mating colo- 

 nies. I have reared very fine queens 

 in this manner. But I did not care 

 to handle the colonies I found in my 

 yard this season this way; they had 

 good queens, to be sure, but were not 

 of pure Italian blood. I resorted to 

 the entrance guard to prevent fur- 

 ther swarming for the time being. I 

 have learned not to depend on the 

 cutting out of queen cells to prevent 

 afterswarnis. I have made too many 

 misses. With the entrance guard I 

 acomplish the object much easier. So 

 these were adjusted. Three or four 

 days later I returned to the yard. 

 There were a number of other colo- 

 nies which were making preparations 

 for swarming. These had to be 

 shaken or brushed or driven and were 

 so treated, for this is our method of 

 forestalling swarming. The so gained 

 beeless brood-combs were placed over 

 an excluder upon the colonies having 

 cast the formerly mentioned run- 

 away swarms, two brood-chambers 

 full to a hive. Before doing so we 

 made an examination to see whether 

 or not the queen cells had hatched or 

 were destroyed. Not until this is 

 done can the entrance guard be re- 

 moved with safety. After the beeless 

 brood-combs are so placed upon the 

 colonies, the bees from below will 

 soon cover them and young bees will 

 be hatching day after day by the 

 thousand and fill up their hives with 

 an abundance of them. At 5 days 



old they make their first flight. They 

 do this for the two-fold purpose of 

 voiding their accumulated feces and 

 to mark their location. It is said, 

 and it is orthodox teaching, that 

 honeybees do not become field work- 

 ers until 16 or 18 days old, doing 

 house work during this time. But the 

 condition in these hives is i-ather ab- 

 normal and there is really little house 

 work to be done, although there are 

 three brood-chambers to take care of; 

 but the lower hive-body contains no 

 open brood; in the upper two the 

 open brood is constantly decreasing 

 and soon all is sealed. What would 

 you expect this vast number of young 

 bees — full-fledged bees — would busy 

 themselves about under these condi- 

 tions when there is plenty to do out 

 of doors? Let me tell you. They 

 have horse sense enough to take hold 

 and do any kind of work that needs 

 doing. It is an undisputed fact that 

 old bees under the stress of circum- 

 stances will attend to the kitchen 

 woi-k, nurse the young, etc., and these 

 young bees, now 5 days old, will go 

 out and gather honey and pollen in 

 the fields in common with' the older 

 sisters. How do I know this to be 

 so? If you will try the experiment 

 outlined, you will find that these colo- 

 nies with this disproportioned large 

 number of young bees will beat any 

 of the other colonies in the game of 

 storing comb honey in the yard. But 

 I have other proof. Some years ago 

 my experiment was published of how 

 I built up a colony of young bees 

 only, bees just emerging from their 

 cells. By carefully watching this 

 colony I found that bees became field 

 workers under these abnormal condi- 

 tions when 5 days old. The proof 

 was convincing, and I believe, consid- 

 ering the other evidence, that the 

 same happens in the colonies under 

 the described treatment. But now to 

 return to these colonies. On the 12th 

 day, after the extra hive-bodies of 

 brood were given them, they were 

 removed with the bees therein and 

 given new locations for the purpose 

 of forming increase. It pays to give 

 these new colonies queens. Thus 

 favored, they will build up and give 

 an account of themselves during the 

 buckwheat honeyflow. If no queens 

 are at hand, queen cells would be 

 given. It is a simple way of forming 

 new colonies. Remember, now, that 

 all the bees 5 days old that had 

 formed or marked their location, will 

 return to the hives they were moved 

 from. Provision must be made that 

 they will find a suitable place to ex- 

 pend their energy, and section cases, 

 all sections filled with full sheets of 

 comb foundation, are at once given, 

 for the white clover flow has by this 

 time begun. Attend to it, that these 

 colonies with this host of young bees 

 will not lack store room, and remove 

 all honey as fast as finished. I ob- 

 sei-ved recently in an illustration, a 

 colony of bees having 15 or 16 sec- 

 tion cases on, piled up so high that 

 a step ladder was needed, also shown 

 in the illustration, to reacl> to upper 

 supers. Do not make such a mistake 



as piling up supers 15 high, even if 

 you are fortunate enough to have 

 such a yield. I have taken that many 

 full section cases from single colo- 

 nies, but never had more than four on 

 the hive at any one time. From such 

 colonies as I have described in the 

 foregoing it will not be impossible to 

 reap such a yield. 

 New York. 



COLLEGE GIRLS BOOST HONEY 



By F. B. Paddock 



On Saturday, February 12, Home 

 Economics Day was celebrated at 

 Iowa State College. This annual 

 event is prepared for by more than 

 a thousand girls and looked forward 

 to by twenty-five hundred boys. The 

 Home Economics building is filled 

 with exhibits to display the work of 

 the girls in the college course. One 

 has an opportunity to view the styles 

 of today, labor-saving devices in the 

 home, a good and a poor dinner, and 

 to taste the excellent cooking of the 

 future home-makers. 



Among the courses required of 

 some of the girls is a general elemen- 

 tary course in beekeeping. Although 

 some girls shudder at the thought of 

 a bee and its sting, yet it is remark- 

 able how many of these college girls 

 have had somewhat of an acquaint- 

 ance with bees. In the work of the 

 beekeeping course the girls have 

 proved to be very apt students and in 

 time overcome a large part of their 

 fear of stings. There is a phase of 

 the work which especially appeals to 

 the girls — that of honey and its utili- 

 zation. These girls are taught nutri- 

 tion and food values and they are 

 ever keen to learn all about all foods. 



Of the students to recently com- 

 plete the course. Miss Imogene Dean 

 became exceedingly interested in the 

 uses of honey in the home. The 

 class room work was supplemented 

 greatly by baking cakes and cookies 

 and making candies at home. One of 

 the exhibits found in the Home Eco- 

 nomics building on February 12, was 

 bees and honey. This was on a large 

 table, and attracted the attention of 

 everyone who visited the building. 

 There were those girls who expressed 

 the desire to see a real queen with 

 her circle of attendants and those 

 loitered around the observation hive 

 for a farewell glimpse of the royalty. 

 Some of the boys were interested in 

 the samples of honey collected from 

 California, Utah, Louisiana, Florida 

 and many other States. Often those 

 of artistic turn of mind admired the 

 oil painting made by Dr. A. F. Bon- 

 ney. There were housewives who 

 were very much interested in the 

 grades of extracted and comb honey, 

 as well as the commercial packages 

 of honey. All of these phases of the 

 exhibit had a special class of inter- 

 ested spectators but there was not 

 a single visitor who was not inter- 

 ested in the wonderful display of 

 cake, cookies and candies made with 

 honey. The girls viewed with envy, 

 the boys viewed with a lingering 



