6r2 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 15. 



fail to secure a crop of honey. Il is these bad 

 years that try a man's ability to handle large 

 lots of bees. One has to look sharp if he holds 

 his own and keeps his stock up. It will take 

 about 18,000 lbs. of honey to winter our bees. I 

 am in hopes they will gatlipr it: if not, they 

 will have to be fed sugar to make it up. I 

 should guess they have about half enough now 

 to winter them. I am glad of so much; and if 

 they winter themselves without the expense of 

 sugar we shall be very glad. There is one thing 

 to make us glad. We have all the supplies that 

 will be wanted until we do get a crop of honey. 

 There will be but little expense next year — only 

 to harvest the crop, if we have it. 



As for the experiments that I was thinking of 

 for this year, I am not doing any thing about it. 

 So far I have had no swarms to work with. It 

 is a bad year to make experiments; every thing 

 Is out of its natural course, and I could not 

 prove any thing if I tried to. 



It is now July 30. The clover and basswood 

 are both done, and the bees have about half 

 enough to winter them— poor prospects for them 

 to get any more. Some two or three yards, 

 however, have some buckwheat near them. 

 There are bushels of bees lying out this hot 

 weather. The honey came in so slowly that 

 brood-rearing used the most of it up as it was 

 gathered, and there are yet large quantities of 

 brood in the combs. We can not do any thing 

 with them. If we open a hive, the robbers are 

 on hand in a moment. In fact, take a smoker 

 and blow the smoke over the grass and there 

 will be a large number of bees hovering over 

 the grass and crawling over it for an hour aft- 

 erward; and just blow a few whitTs of smoke 

 in at the entrance of a hive, and the robbers 

 will be crowding in in a minute: in fact, I nev- 

 er saw the robbers so bad before. But so far 

 there is no trouble if we let the bees alone. 

 They are not cross, and we can go all about the 

 yards, stand around, sit down on a hive, and 

 they don't object. 



So much for the bees and honey crop. How 

 they come out at the end of the season I will 

 report latt'r. E.France. 



Platteville, Wis. 



CAUSE OF SWARMING. 



DK. MILLEK AGAIN HAS TO SAY, " I DON't KNOW." 



Of all the will-o'-the-wisps I know about, 

 the prevention of swarming is one of the worst. 

 Some plausible theory entices you, the thing 

 seems just within reach; but, alas! when the 

 theory is put to the test you find the object of 

 your search just as far off as ever. I think a 

 great majority of bee-keepers would esteem it 

 a great gain if a non-swarming race of bees 

 should be found, or if some one should discover 

 a plan not diflficult of application, by which we 

 could make sure of a strong colony of bees going 

 through the entire season storing comb honey 

 without ever attempting to swarm. 



It is true, that some say it is best to let each 

 colony swarm once; but those same persons 

 think it would be a gain if the bees should not 

 (lestre to swarm that once. But believing that 

 there is no way yet known to thwart that de- 

 sire, they thiiik it best to yield to the inevita- 

 ble. 



As a general rule, the first thing in attempt- 

 ing to remedy or prevent a disease is to find out 

 the cause. So it is a matter of prime interest 

 to discover what it is that causes swarming. 

 And so important is this that it may be worth 

 while to indulge in a great deal of speculating, 

 a great deal of experimenting, in the hope that 



some one may be fortunate enough to make the 

 happy discovery. 



I think it was a few years ago that Hasty, in 

 reply to a question, said he thought the bees 

 wanted to swarm because the glands which se- 

 creted the food for the larvie became surcharg- 

 ed. At the time it did not seem very clear to 

 me how there could be any close connection 

 between the two; but of late a writer in one of 

 the German bee-journals has somewhat care- 

 fully elaborated the idea, making it seem quite 

 plausible. Whether he had got the idea from 

 Hasty, or started out on a fresh track for him- 

 self, i do not know. 



His reasoning was something like this: 

 Starting out in the spring, the queen is capable 

 of laying more eggs than the workers can care 

 for. An increase of bees is followed by an 

 increase of laying, and for some time the 

 increase of each goes hand in hand. Finally 

 the queen I'eaches her limit in laying at a time 

 when there are thousands of young bees con- 

 stantly coming on, and thus they are thrown 

 out of balance. The queen becomes stationaiw 

 in her work, if, indeed, she does not fall off, 

 while the increase of nurse-bees is greatei' than 

 ever. The food pi-epared by the vast throng 

 can not all be utilized. The congested organs 

 of the nurses cause a feverish condition, and 

 swarming seems the only relief. Incidentally, 

 it occurs that some relief comes from building 

 comb, from feeding a larger number of drones, 

 but especially from depositing large quantities 

 of the elaborated food in the form of royal jelly 

 in a numoer of queen-cells. But with all this 

 there is still a large surplus of food elaborated 

 with no young bees to consume it, and then 

 comes swarming. 



I was curious to know if that genius. Hasty, 

 had any additional light on the subject, and 

 wrote asking him about it, as to whether he 

 made up the theory all out of his own head, or 

 where he got it. He replied that, so far as he 

 remembered, he had not met with the theory 

 elsewhere, and then saved me the trouble of 

 putting the theory to the test by saying: •" The 

 next season I tried to utilize the theory to pre- 

 v(Mit second swarms by keeping the colony sup- 

 plied with young brood. Probably a supply of 

 young brood does tend thnt way a little, but it 

 does not tend that way hard enough to stop the 

 fever when once begun. The fatal defect is, 

 that in furnishing young brood you also have to 

 furnish them with the means of keeping up 

 the row indefinitely, and they'll do it.'' 



A writer in a late number of the ^4. B. J. de- 

 clares in a very positive manner that the one 

 sole cause of swarming is the playing-out of 

 the queen, and that in all cases tlie queen is 

 soon superseded after swarming. I think very 

 few bee-keepers of experience would accept 

 this theory after studying over it a very little. 

 For one thing, I think facts will hardly carry 

 otit the assertion that a queen that has gone 

 out with a swarm is promptly superseded. 

 Does not a laying queen that heads a swarm 

 often lead out a swarm the next season? An- 

 other proof against it I find in looking over my 

 record-book of last year. In that I find plenty 

 of instances in which queen-cells with eggs in 

 them were destroyed and the bees gave up, 

 either for a time or entirely, the idea of swarm- 

 ing. To a less extent the same was true when 

 grubs in cells or sealed cells were destroyed. 

 Now. if the queen was too old, she kept getting 

 older, making the bees still more anxious to 

 swarm, if the theory be true. 



But the Hasty theory is not so readily refut- 

 ed. Hasty's test was not a conclusive one. if he 

 is right that, with the cure, he furnished also 

 an aggravation of the disease. Still, I haven't 

 as much faith in it as I had. If the supply of 



