740 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 15. 



SWARMING A SWARM OF BEES. 



I do not know any other word to express 

 better what I mean than the one I use. I had 

 a colony of bees that persisted in swarming, 

 and I did not want them to ; so, about every 

 eight or ten days I would cut out all the 

 queen-cells, but still they sulked and hung 

 out in front of the hive, and V)uilt queen-cells. 



They had plenty of room and ventilation 

 inside, bvit still they seemed bound to swarm. 



After cutting out the queen-cells four times 

 I was looking at a great bunch of bees hang- 

 ing out in front of the hive. I thought I 

 would swarm them. I got a small branch of 

 a tree and fastened it firmly in the ground, 

 opened the hive, caught the queen, and placed 

 her in a mailing-cage with a few attendants, 

 and fastened the cage to a twig of the branch. 

 I closed the entrance of the hive, removed the 

 frames, placing a piece of canvas near the 

 branch. 



I brushed the bees all off the frames, put- 

 ting them in an upper story ; I also cleaned 

 the hive all out. The bees clustered around 

 the cage containing the queen, just like a 

 natural swarm. I placed the frames back into 

 the hive and prepared it as it was before I 

 began my experiment. I let the bees stay 

 clustered for one hour, then I opened the 

 entrance of the hive, shook the bees in front, 

 let a little honey daub the queen so she could 

 not fly, and she ran in with the rest of the 

 bees. Now for the results of the experiment. 



The bees went to work at once, and have 

 worked ever sinc>^, and have not hung out one 

 particle. I would say, however, I changed 

 the location of the hive, otherwise it was just 

 the same. 



Now, the question arises in my mind, "Is 

 the clustering out of the hive for an hour 

 what satisfied the natural propensity to swarm, 

 or was it the fact that I moved the bees to 

 another location ? ' ' 



I do not remember of either reading or 

 hearing of any one doing this way before to 

 stop swarming. I have tried it twice this sea- 

 son, with good results. GEO. L. Vinai<. 



Charlton City, Mass. 



FOR LARGE hives; DEEP ENTRANCES. 

 There was a good deal said last year by 

 writers in Gi^Eanings and the .-/. B.J. about 

 large hives; and those eminent bee-masters, 

 the Dadants, claimed that the large hives were 

 just the thing for us bee-keepers to use. I 

 had been using a ten-frame hive whose frame 

 measured 8 7^x1 4 '4^, inside measure. M3' bees 

 that I purchased of G. M. Doolittle gave me 

 84 lbs. of comb honey last year in the afore- 

 said ten-frame hive. Thinking to try the 

 large hive I made a hive whose frame mea- 

 sures l()^xl9jS4, and transferred a swarm of 

 the Doolittle bees, with their 9 combs taken 

 out of Gallup frames, into the large frames I 

 have mentioned. The bees filled out the 

 large frames and loaded them with honey, 

 and gave me 84 lbs. of surplus hone}- besides. 

 My bees are all of the Doolittle stock; and 

 while I have colonies in the smaller hive that 

 gave the same amount of surplus, they did not 



have to build so much brood comb. I be- 

 lieve the Dadants are perfectly right in their 

 claim that the more work you set for the 

 queen to do, the more she will do. 



It was a real pleasure to see the bees come 

 out of the large hive when honey v,-as plenti- 

 ful in the fields. The flow of honey came 

 late, and did not last very long this year; and 

 I tell you those large colonies did hustle to 

 get the honey crop secured, and they got it 

 too. I am very well pleased with the work 

 done by the honest little workers. I was 

 afraid at one time that I should not get any 

 surplus this year ; but I am happily disap- 

 pointed. 



On page 661, Sept. 15, you say, in your re- 

 marks on Mr. Gill's letter, "We expect to 

 make our hives next year so that the entrances 

 will be an inch deep and the full width of the 

 hive," etc. The entrances to m}' hives are 

 Y^gxl4j^,or full width of the hive. Now, 

 what I want to call your attention to is that 

 your customers, in using your hives, -will often 

 want to almost close the entrance; and the 

 best wa}' to do so is to saw out sticks that will 

 just fill the aperture. Most of the lumber to 

 be had throughout the country is % instead 

 of %, and you should make the entrance ||, 

 W, or /,., so that, by a little planing, %, %, 

 or V2 inch lumber will fill the entrance. Such 

 blocks or sticks are far better than loose ones. 

 I use two sticks, leaving the opening in the 

 center of three or four inches in cool weather, 

 and no blocks in summer time. 



Cuba, Kan. Wm. H. EagerTy. 



THE importance OF SHADE FOR BEES. 



In looking at pictures in the ABC book 

 and Gleanings and other journals, my at- 

 tention has often been drawn to the fact that 

 so many apiaries seem to be exposed to the 

 direct rays of the sun ; and in arranging oi:r 

 little apiar}', shade was a matter of secondary 

 consideration with me ; but as the care and 

 work with them began to increase we found 

 shade a great benefactor. Yesterday, as I 

 took a little stroll through our apiary, one 

 colony exposed to the sun, without anj^ shade 

 whatever, attracted my attention by so many 

 bees swarming in front of it and settling on 

 all sides of it; but as I approached a little 

 closer I fovmd the bees considerably out of 

 humor about something; and, having no veil 

 on, they, gave me to understand that I was on 

 forbidden ground, and made me quicken my 

 steps out of there. When my wife (who is 

 the real bee-keeper) can:e home from the fair 

 I related the strange behavior of that one col- 

 ony, and she at once put on a veil and pro- 

 ceeded to investigate the matter, and found 

 honey leaking out in front of the hive. Upon 

 further investigation we found that not only 

 had the three cases containing eighteen sec- 

 tions (nearly filled and capped) melted down, 

 but every one of the ten frames in the lower 

 part of the hive, filled with brood and honey, 

 melted down into one mass, and every bee 

 was drowned in its own sweet. 



P. A. Peterson. 



Boswell, Ind., Sept. 9, 1897. 



