1898 



GLEANINGS IN BKE CULTURE. 



467 



under the management of any given force of 

 employees. A great deal of study has been 

 given toward devising non-swarming methods 

 that would attain that uniformity of rtsult de- 

 sired. ]f the apiarist is behind with his affairs 

 at the commencement of the swarming season, 

 and there are indications that man}' swarms 

 are liable to issue before other means can be 

 adopted, the most favorable plan, if swarms 

 are not wanted, is to run rapidly over the api- 

 ary and reduce the strength of each colony 

 making preparations to swarm, until arrange- 

 ments can be perfected to make the control of 

 the situation complete. In nearh'all instances 

 where swarming occurs, the conditions are 

 comparatively the same. That is, where a 

 natural increase of colonies takes place during 

 the swarming season, swarms rarely issue un- 

 less the parent colony is in a normal condition 

 preparatory to the event. Any supervision 

 which decides the necessity of manipulation, to 

 disarrange their order of proceedings, can eas- 

 ily be the cause of a delay of their intentions. 



Previous to swarming preparations there 

 seems to be a comparison between the cubic 

 capacity of hive they occupy and the numer- 

 ical force of workers, as age and habit accus- 

 tom them to the different hive duties with 

 which the}- naturally choose to be emploj-ed. 

 Any plan of management which disrupts the 

 autonomous order of hive government may 

 temporarily or permanently moderate the 

 swarming propensity, in favor of foraging and 

 a surplus of stores. Confinement of the queen 

 reduces the labors of the nursing bees, and 

 makes available for comb-building and the 

 sealing of stores a force of workers that would 

 not undertake those duties nearly so soon 

 under normal conditions. This force relieves 

 those who are comb-builders, and allows them 

 to seek the fields and flowers much earlier 

 than bees of comb-building age generally for- 

 age ; and the result is, as is often perceived, 

 an immediate and consequential gain in the 

 amount of horey gathered by a colony under 

 these conditions. My plan enables me to 

 achieve this result, and not entail upon the 

 colony the disadvantage of an excessive re- 

 striction of brood-rearing, and consequently 

 forcing a colony to labor under conditions 

 that are not so profitable, ultimately, as the 

 condition under which they would upon the 

 plan I now describe : 



When the swarming season approaches, and 

 a colony is indicating its intention to swarm, 

 divide the brood-nest, to each of the two por- 

 tions giving a selected number of the combs of 

 brood. The combs to be selected, and the 

 proportions of brood in different stages of 

 development to be given the division which 

 retains the queen, must be determined accord- 

 ing to the future conduct of operations ; also, 

 whether the queen is to occupy the compart- 

 ment with the entrance, or be relegated to 

 confinement in the rear of the hive, provided 

 against exit to the swarm, should a swarm 

 possibly come forth. When division is made, 

 a perforated zinc division-board is placed in 

 the center of the hive, and perforated zinc 

 strips on top of the frames given the queen. 

 By thus reducing the brood produced by a col- 



ony to just a few points below the requisite 

 numbers that would augment the swarming 

 propensity, and, after the plan was practically 

 understood, extending the method of manage- 

 ment to all the colonies of an apiary, or a sys- 

 tem of apiaries, the value of the same will to 

 bee-keepers, I think, be readily perceived. 



In working for exti acted honey I judge it 

 preferable to give the queen to the compart- 

 ment with entrance ; then the combs in the 

 rear of the hive would be filled with honey, 

 and cotild be extracted. In working for box 

 honey, more stores would be carried to the 

 supers if the queen occupied the rear of the 

 hive. The principles of this will be apparent 

 to the expert, and I hope some of my bee- 

 keeping friends will experiment successfully 

 along this line, and put the matter in a form 

 that will be comprehensible to the novice. 



I fear my explanations are not sufficiently 

 explicit to render the practical adoption of the 

 plan available to those lacking experience, 

 though my first experiments, when testing the 

 plan, were about as successful as those of the 

 season of 1897. But I had thought out the 

 principles involved as a result of many years' 

 observation among the bees. 



Howardsville, Va. 



[The plan indicated in your next to the last 

 paragraph is just the same as that recommend- 

 ed some years ago by a bee-keeper whose 

 name I have now forgotten, Although it was 

 talked about a good deal at the time, I do not 

 remember that it really accomplished the 

 object desired. My experience rather leads 

 me to believe that, if the queen has been given 

 unlimited room to breed, there is a lessening 

 of the desire to swarm ; but if that breeding 

 room is at all curtailed, the swarming pro- 

 pensity is aggravated. — Ed.] 



BEE-KEEPING IN " MERRIE ENGLAND." 

 A Peep at One of the British Apiaries. 



[Of late there have been running, in the 

 British Bee Journal^ views showing British 

 bee-keeping as it is conducted in the mother 

 country. While there are some things in 

 common, both as to methods and hives, yet 

 there are quite a number of things in which 

 there are differences. The hive architecture 

 — that is, the outside of it — is a little more 

 elaborate than that of Ameiican hives. In 

 the generality of cases the hives are mounted 

 on legs standing up a foot or two from the 

 ground, and within working distance of the 

 apiarist. Then there are porticos, porches, 

 and such like things that the American bee- 

 keeper, who numbers his hives by the hun- 

 dred, can not afford and perhaps would not 

 tolerate. 



It should be remembered that bee-keeping 

 in Great Britain is not, as a general rule, con- 

 ducted on as elaborate a scale as it is in this 

 country. The cottager may have from one to 

 a dozen colonies in his yard. While the api- 

 aries are small, there are more of them — many 

 more of them, perhaps — to the square mile, 

 than in the United States. 



