1892 



GLEANINCS IN TJEE CULTURE. 



459 



SELF-HIVERS. 



SOMK KKCKNT IMri{0\ KM K.N IS AMI K\ \ KNIION.S. 



I liavo bocn anxiously wiitt'liiiisi (lie various 

 bi'i'-papt'rs for any furliicr siiiifirslions or iin- 

 prov(Mi\onts ill sclf-hivcrs. to luaivc tln'iii more 

 noarly pt>rft'L-t. We arc (.•crtainly iiialsiiifj rapid 

 prottrcss on tliis lino: but. so lar. tlw pcrfi-i-t 

 swarm-iiivcr is still in tbo future. Mr. Pratt lias 

 inaiit' soiuc cxccik'nt suiif^cstioiis in liis last 

 plan— that of putting the hive expected to 

 swarm on top of the hive or section -cas(>s. to 

 receive the swarm. The bees are to pass 

 tlirough perforated zinc, under an (>scape-board, 

 witli a |)lace for the queen to escape into tlie 

 empty hive, at tlu> apex of the V-shiipcd escape. 

 Tlie small perforated zinc iiuard in his original 

 swarmer is replaced by a sheet covering the 

 entire end of an open-end section-case. The 

 bees have not so far to travel as in his other 

 one. and he has lessened the trouble from drones 

 a little, but not much. Xo matter how care- 

 fully the combs may be selected, some drones 

 will" be produced: and there is no chance for a 

 single one to get outside the hives. It is true, 

 the drones will escape into the empty hive, and 

 will speedily die there. These dead drones are 

 very objectionable to the workers, and they 

 will try to pull them through the perforations 

 in great numbers. It will be rather difficult to 

 clean the receiving hives of them, as the 

 swarming hives are all on top, and it would 

 certainly involve lots of heavy lifting, and dis- 

 turbing" the bees. Then suppose the bees 

 swai-m. and hive themselves, just as Mr. Pratt 

 says they will; would not such swarm work 

 back through the perforated escape to the 

 brood-combs above, leaving only the queen and 

 a handful of drones? As hivers will likely 

 prove of the greatest value in running out- 

 apiaries, one can never tell what hives have 

 swarmed, without examining each empty hive. 

 Possibfy one could see tlirough the perforations 

 in the e'^nd of the super. There are many cases 

 of superseding queens during a season, that are 

 liable to cause fouble if one is not constantly 

 on the watch for dead queens when cleaning out 

 the drones. 



Mr. Alley has made some progn^ss with his 

 swarmer lately. Now, if the bees will only do 

 as he says they will, it is proliable that he has 

 taken a step in the right direction. By the 

 way, Mr. A. has switched around a good deal 

 on this self-hiver question. If his self-hiving 

 arrangement would secure 99 per cent of all 

 swarms, what was the use of all this? Again, 

 if he secured two nice swarms by my device, 

 why does he claim that I can not secure any? 

 He'says that my plan is a failure; yet I ran two 

 apiaries, which can botli be considered out- 

 apiaries, as I could be at only one place at a 

 time, hiving some 50 swarms by means of my 

 hiver. and, "after manipulation, I had over 200 

 hives, and I do not think I lost a single swann. 

 Has Mr. Alley or any one else tried his swarmer 

 on a lil<e scale, with equal results? Mr. A. now 

 uses a " decoy " hive in front of the one expect- 

 ed to swarm. V( In Pratt. For a swarmer he has 

 fallen back on his drone-irap. provided with a 

 piece of di'one-excluding. (lueen-escai)iiig zinc, 

 .that is to allow the queen, after being trapped 

 with the drones, to escape into the decoy hive: 

 but what is to prevent her from running back 

 into the original hive? Then, too, when we 

 remember that queens differ greatly as to size 

 at swarming time, is not the queen-passing, 

 droHe-excluding zinc a doubtful point? Queens, 

 too, have a way of trying to go through the 

 perforations toward the sunlight, when trapped, 

 and not into strange dark places. The empty 

 comb in the decoy will help some; but if left 



too long, would it not become infested with 

 moth ? To pro\id(' several hundred decoy liiv(?s 

 of an old pattern is certainly quite an objection, 



I do not write this in a faiilt-linding, criticis- 

 ing s|)irit, but only to point out some of the 

 diOiculties that have suggested themselves in 

 my own experience. Holh Mr. Alley and Mr. 

 Pratt deserve great credit for their ell'orts in 

 this direction, even if they do think they must 

 have a patent on it. 



Well, after considering all the various plans 

 of self-hivers so far published, I have about 

 concluded to stick to my own plan. I will modify 

 it somewhat, using wire cloth on the lower 

 swarmer, exce|)t two rows of perforations. The 

 lower frami! will also be made large enough to 

 include! the s(H'tion-case. There will be three 

 large cones foi' <|ue(>n and drones, with two 

 rows of workc^r perf(jrations between. The up- 

 per frame will be all perforated zinc, giving 

 free access to the; bees returning from swarm- 

 ing, while the lower will become temporarily 

 clogged. A comb or two will be tried in the 

 empty hives, as an additional attraction. Judg- 

 ing from my past year's experience, / know 

 that this will give me swarms tliat can be seen 

 at a glance, and then fixed up to suit me, I 

 prefer to make the innv colony quite strong, so 

 that there will be no cessation of work in thi^ 

 supers. This can l)e done only by brushing ofT 

 enough bees from the combs of the swarming 

 hive, or using my bee-escape plan. 



That bee-escape of Larrabee's is a good one, 

 as I had a very similar arrangement two years ' 

 ago. It would work a little better without that 

 extra curve at the apex of the V. Bees are shy 

 of long narrow passages. It would also be 

 more rapid if two openings were left for the 

 bees to get in, toward the ends of the board, 

 with one space to get out, at the center. But 

 the fact that it is not removable from the board 

 is an objection. I have lately seen one of the 

 Hastings escapes, and think it an improvement 

 on the Porter. This one, however, was faulty 

 in construction, as the exits were hardly large 

 enough to let a worker pass. What would be- 

 come of the drones when trying to get out? 



Milan, 111., May 11. C. H. Dibbern. 



THE PRATT AUTOMATIC SWARMER. 



A CIUTICISM ON TlIK DEVICE SHOWN ON PAGE 

 318, MAY 1. 



Last year I used thirty of the Pratt swarmers 

 on almost the same plan, putting the old swarm 

 above the new hive, with the queen-excluding 

 bee-escape between them, and excluding zinc at 

 the lower hive-entrance. The reason that this 

 does not work is, that a bee-escape under the 

 brood- nest works very diflferently from one over 

 it, especially wlien it is used for the entrance to 

 the hive. In my experiment I used three 

 escapes between each pair of hives, and yet they 

 would clog almost every lime. The escape 

 would have to be watched and cleaned nearly 

 every day, to insur(> success. This would be a 

 large task wltli fifty or a hundred hivers. This 

 is no theory — I know from experiment. 



If there is passage sufficient for the swarm to 

 issue from the up|)ei- hive into the lower, there 

 will certainly be passage enough for them to 

 get back again after they have been hived, and 

 it seems to me that tliis would be the most nat- 

 ural thing for them to do, carrying the supplies 

 above the cluster, tempted by the bees and 

 brood above. One would have to be on hand to 

 remove them very soon after they had swarm- 

 ed. 



The hiver that I sent you meets all the points 

 claimed by Mr. Pratt, and avoids all the objec- 



