116 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Fkh. 1.>. 



( "ri.ADSTONK says: " 1 have always taken great 

 delight in my garden, and do not think I shall 

 ever be old enoiigii to lose my interest in seeing 

 things grow. If the season is propitious I fre- 

 quently spend the half-hour before breakfast 

 among my flowers." T wonder if that has some- 

 thing to do with his vigorous mental powers in 

 his 83d year. 



QuEKN-EXCi.uDEKS Under surplus-chambers, 

 a correspondent of the B. B. J. thinks, are not 

 needed over the whole surface of the hive, but 

 only at the front and back end, and a thin 

 board over the rest. He says the bees don't 

 go up through the middle of the brood -nest, 

 and the full-sized excluder gives much more 

 room than is needed for bees to go up. Some- 

 how I'm afraid the bees will not work quite so 

 well over the board: but actual experiment only 

 would settle it. 



KETURNING SWARMS TO THE PARENT HIVE. 



DADAMT EXPLAINS HOW TO DO IT AND NOT 

 HAVE THEM SWARM OUT AGAIN. 



Fnend Root: — The inclosed letter from . I. S. 

 Willard explains itself. Mr. W. desires that 

 we should give in Gleanings the particulars 

 of ovir plan of returning the swarms to the par- 

 ent colonies to keep down increase. You will 

 remember that this was mentioned in Glean- 

 ings for 1891, page .541. and called forth a num- 

 ber of inquiries from bee-keepers in different 

 localities. 



Messrs. Dadant & Sun;— In describing- your plan of 

 keeping- down increase l)y reluming- tlie swarm in 

 48 hours, you do not say where to hive the swarm in 

 order to save tlie bees that have tlieir new home 

 located; and, also, would you hive them in an emp- 

 ty hive on starters ? A friend of mine wanted 

 me to write you for particulars about tliat plan of 

 returning: tlie swarms; and, in fact, I tlioug-lit I 

 should Ulje it myself too, and very likely several of 

 the readers of Gleanings would like to have you de- 

 scribe the plan more minutely; and if y >}i tliink so, 

 you can write a letter to Gleanings at your leisure. 



Bedford, Iowa, Feb.. 1S93. .7. S. Willard. 



We wish to say, first, that this plan is not of 

 our originating. We saw it lirst in the Cours 

 (V Apiculture, of Hamet, published in Paris 

 years ago. Hamet advised this plan more par- 

 ticularly for the secondary swarms. In those 

 days of box-hive bee-keeping there was but 

 little need of returning primai'y swarms to their 

 colony. But we tried this method on primary 

 swarms, and with good success. We notice, 

 also, that a number of apiarists have tried it 

 the past summer with fair results. Hamet 

 says: "'The swarm which is to be i-eturned to 

 the parent colony should be hived like any oth- 

 er swarm, and placed as close to the old colony 

 as practicable. The next day, or the day follow- 

 ing, the swarm should be shaken in front of the 

 parent hive, just as is done in uniting several 

 swarms together. They should mwer be re- 

 turned the same day, as they would surely 

 start out again in 24 hours. When they are 

 returned after a lapse of time there is a fight 

 between the queens, if the young ones are 

 hatched, or the returning queen destroys the 

 others in the cells." 



Collin, in his book. " ic Guide du proprie- 

 taire d^Ahellles" advises the apiarist to place 

 the swarm on the old stand and revnove the old 

 colony to a ncnv location, wailing till the queens 

 ai-e all hatched before bringing it back. But this 

 method has one objection — the swai-m remains 

 too long in the new hive, and raises brood in it, 

 and this bi'ood is practically lost. 



The plan that we followed, and which we 

 recommend, is to hive the swarm into an empty 

 hive with frames and guides of foundation, ex- 



actly as if it were intended to be kept, and to 

 place it near the old colony. In 24 to 48 hours, 

 shake all the bees in front of the old colony. 

 The combs that have been built in the nu-an- 

 while will never come amiss, and the few eggs 

 laid will hurt nothing. It would be still better 

 to remove the old colony from its stand, and 

 return it when removing the swarm, and also 

 to destroy the queen that has the least value — 

 the queen of the swarm if very old, or the 

 young queen if the old one is valuable. In fact, 

 it is better that the old queen should remain, as 

 bees are more likely to swarm with an unini- 

 pregnated queen than with a laying one. 



We believe that this method prevents further 

 swarming, only when the hive is in such con- 

 dition that it would not have sent forth a sec- 

 ond swarm. The issue of the first swarm puts 

 an end to the swarming fever, the supplemen- 

 tary queen-cells are destroyed by the young 

 queen, and one of the two queens vanishes in a 

 duel when the swarm is returned. Unless the 

 season is very favorable, the time for swarming 

 passes away before the bees find out that they 

 have been fooled by the apiarist, especially if 

 he has provided ample room for their surplus 

 honey. 



As mostof our bee-keeping friendswell know, 

 we are no longer comb-honey producers. For a 

 number of years we have raised nothing but ex- 

 tracted honey, and ther(>fore have no need of 

 this method of prev(Miting increase, for (Dr. 

 Miller to the contrai-y notwithstanding) in an 

 apiary pi-operly run for extracted honey, there 

 is no swarming to speak of. Every time that 

 we have had swarming to any extent it was 

 when we had infringed upon the I'ules that re- 

 quire that a colony of bees be supplied with a 

 sufificient amountof empty combs ahead of need, 

 during the entire honey season. It may be of 

 interest to oui' readers to know how we found 

 out the value of Hamet's advice on the I'eturn 

 of the first swarm to the parent colony. It was 

 in 1870. We had a number of colonies of bees in 

 the apiary of our friend A. Daugherty, residing 

 in Rocky-Run township, some 14 miles from us, 

 in a very good honey- producing district. The 

 season was a rushing one. and we were behind. 

 The bees were swarming wherevei- they had 

 not been provided with a large stock of empty 

 combs. Friend Daugherty, who had some 80 

 hives of bees, including ouis. found himself 

 short of empty hives, and began harvesting the 

 swarms in any kind of l)ox. in nail-kegs, in 

 fiour-bari-els. When oui' junior reached his 

 apiary with a wagonload of empty hives, there 

 were .some 12 hives full of bees, that were not 

 hives at all. So we began transferring the bees 

 out of these boxes into the movable - frame 

 hives, by shaking them out in front. The bees 

 had been hived from one to three days previous- 

 ly, and had but very little comb biiilt in their 

 odd-shaped homes. Strange to say, they were 

 so ill satisfied with the unceremonious transfer 

 that every swarm left the new hives provided 

 for them, and went back home to their parent 

 hive. None of these hives swarmed •subse- 

 quently; and as the latter part of the season 

 was unfavorable they were the hives that made 

 the best crop. 



We hope the above is a sufficient explanation, 

 and that Mr. Willard and others will find in it 

 enough to pay them for the trouble of pciusing 

 it. Dadant i^ Son. 



Hamilton, III.. Feb.. 1802. 



[If we understand the matter the whole se- 

 cret is this: The hiving of the swarm in a sep- 

 arate hive beside the old one and allowing them 

 to nmiain there for a day oi' two gives sufficient 

 time for the bees of both colonies to feed them- 

 selves as belonging to separate households. 



