16 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 1. 



feet they contain, in foundation. What is 

 there to hinder hiving swarms the next year 

 on those combs from which the bees were kill- 

 ed, and thus save the cost of honey used in 

 producing the material from which they were 

 built, and all the labor of the bees besides? 

 No, no ! don't melt up good combs for the fun 

 of it, or for the sake of making the bees build 

 more. But why allow those colonies which 

 are to produce the swarms to be hived in those 

 shallow supers, and then killed, to swarm at 

 all ? Don't know how to work for comb hon- 

 ey and not have swarms? Well, then I will 

 tell you how I worked my out-apiary last year 

 without swarms, and had good results as to 

 comb honey. 



First, I made as many cages for queens as I 

 wished, by wrapping wire cloth around a stick 

 that was j^ by 's square. The pieces of wire 

 cloth were cut four inches long. Having the 

 wire cloth formed into cages 4x%x)^, inside 

 measure, I sawed oft as many pieces, Yi inch 

 long, from the stick I wrapped the wire cloth 

 around, as I had cages, when each piece was 

 slipped into one end of each cage and tacked 

 fast. Then other pieces were sawed off, for 

 removable stoppers, to be used in the other 

 end of the cages, when caging the queens. 

 Then as many more pieces were sawed off, 

 which were two inches long. These last had 

 a 3/^ hole bored through them lengthwise, which 

 hole is to be filled with " queen-candy," when 

 -wanted for use. 



We will now suppose the swarming season 

 has arrived, which is generally from a week 

 to ten days before our honey harvest comes. 

 I now go to each hive which is strong enough 

 in bees to swarm or to work in supers ; catch 

 the queen, put her in one of the cages, using 

 the short stopper to fasten her in. I now look 

 over the combs till I find one which has a va- 

 cant space above the bottom-bar to the frame, 

 sufficiently large to admit the cage so it can 

 lie on top of the bottom-bar to the frame. 

 This vacant place should be about one-fourth 

 way back from the end of the frame nearest 

 the entrance of the hive. This, supposing that 

 your frames run endwise to the entrance. If 

 I find no such vacant place I make the same 

 by cutting away the comb. Having the queens 

 thus caged I wait U, 10, or 11 cays, according 

 to the weather, when I proceed to cut off all 

 queen-cells which may have been started, 

 shaking the bees off each comb in front of the 

 entrance, so that I may be sure not to miss 

 any. In replacing the combs in the hive I re- 

 move the stopper from the cage and replace it 

 with the long one which was filled with candy 

 that morning, so the candy will be fresh. It 

 will take the bees from two to three days to 

 eat the candy out of these long stoppers, 

 which, when done, liberates the queen. While 

 the bees have not been queenless at all, they 

 have been without a laying queen from 12 to 

 14 days, which I find is sufficient time to stop 

 all inclination to swarm, unless the honey flow 

 holds out more than four weeks, which is an 

 unusual thing. During the time the queen 

 has been caged, the most of the honey coming 

 in has been stored in the brood-combs, unless 

 the bees had commenced in the sections earlier. 



in which case they keep right along the same 

 as though nothing had happened. In any 

 event, thus caging the queen seems to change 

 all desire for swarming to that of storing, as 

 soon as the queen commences to lay again, 

 when the honey will go into the sections as if 

 by magic. Why I said 9, 10, or 1 1 days, ac- 

 cording to weather, was that it is all right to 

 cut the cells on either of these days, so we 

 need not go out on severe stormy days, unless 

 it storms on all three. I generally cut the 

 cells on the 10th day, where I can have my 

 choice of days. Then why place the cage just 

 where I have said ? I formerly placed it any- 

 where in the hive where the bees could have 

 access to it, so as to care for the queen ; but 

 last season I happened to place the cage on 

 the bottom-bars of the frames in several hives, 

 as given above, and I found that these colonies 

 not only worked better in the sections, but did 

 not seem to consider themselves queenless to 

 an extent sufficient so that any of them start- 

 ed a single queen-cell. 



Of course, this matter will need more time 

 than one season to establish the fact that bees 

 will not start queen -cells when queens are thus 

 caged; but I thought it would do no harm to 

 tell just how it worked last season ; then if it 

 should so continue each season and in all locali- 

 ties, we could secure better results, with no 

 shaking off the bees to find and cut cells. 

 But in any event I much prefer this plan to 

 taking away the queen entirely, as practiced 

 by Mr. El wood and others. 



And now, Mr. Querist, perhaps you had bet- 

 ter tr}' your plan on a few colonies, and the 

 one I have outlined here with a few more, and 

 run the rest of the apiary, for next year, the 

 same as you have done in the past, when you 

 will be able to tell which is best suited to your 

 wants ; and after deciding, then work the 

 whole in that way until you find something 

 better. Don't, in any case, risk the iclwle api- 

 ary on some untried venture, unless you want 

 to feel like kicking yourself for losing a whole 

 season by something which may fail in your 

 hands. 



[Say ! look here, Mr. Doolittle. I am not 

 sure but you have struck upon something val- 

 uable in the way of preventing swarms just at 

 a time when we don't want them. It is true, 

 a part of the plan is old ; but possibly you 

 have improved it in such a way as to remove 

 some of the objections to the old plan. Some 

 have reported that colonies mth caged queens 

 didn't work as well as those with queens hav- 

 ing their liberty through the hive. In my ex- 

 perience, queenless colonies lacked the vim 

 and energy of queened stocks. I hope friend 

 D. will jog our memories about the time this 

 thing is in season, so we can all try his plan. 

 The possibilities to be obtained are too great 

 to be lost sight of for want of a trial. — Ed.] 



K. C. IV., Vt.—li you find your hive filled 

 with combs of honey we would not advise you 

 to take any of them out. They will do no 

 harm. Just leave them as they are, and it 

 will be all the better for them next spring. 



