1899 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



763 



It should be pressed over hatching brood hav- 

 ing a few cells of honey here and there, so as 

 to give the queen a supply of food as well as 

 an accompaniment of young bees. — Ed.] 



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DO BEES SELECT A HOME BEFORE SWARMIKG? 

 Question. — Do you think that bees select a 

 place to go to before the swarm leaves the 

 parent hive? The past summer I had a 

 swarm come out and go direct to a tree in the 

 woods, without even stopping to cluster. I 

 think that they had their home selected before 

 they left the old hive ; but my neighbor says 

 that bees do not know where they are going 

 when they come out in swarming time ; for if 

 they did, swarms would not cluster at all. 



Answer. — In regard to bees selecting a 

 home before they swarm, there seems to be a 

 difference of opinion, some claiming that they 

 do select it, while others are equally sure 

 that they swarm without any knowledge of 

 where they are going. In most cases, prob- 

 ably, the latter view is correct ; for swarms 

 have been known to come out, cluster, hang 

 all day and over night, travel a few miles, 

 then cluster again, and so on for a week or 

 more before they found a home anywhere ; 

 yet I am positive that some swarms do select 

 their future abode some days before they 

 swarm. When but a boy I many times saw 

 bees searching the body of large trees, about 

 every knot-hole or crack, which stood on the 

 edge of the woods near where I was at work, 

 as if looking for some place to enter ; and at 

 that time I remember wondering what they 

 were doing. Later on the same thing was 

 witnessed, only at this time the bees were 

 actually going in and out of a hole in a very 

 large tree, as well as looking over the trunk 

 of the same. In this latter case the bees were 

 seen for several days at work during the mid- 

 dle of the day, the bees going and coming 

 from the hole about as bees would work from 

 a weakly nucleus ; while in the morning, and 

 after five in the afternoon, no bees would be 

 seen about this or any of the trees. A few 

 days after that, a swarm came out from one 

 of the few hives which father kept at that 

 time, and went straight to this tree without 

 clustering at all. From this I felt sure that 

 in some instances bees did select a tree to go 

 to before they left the parent hive ; but after 

 having bees of my own, and seeing them 

 cluster soon after they had come out, for 

 hours, and in one instance stay till they had 

 built considerable comb, I did not know what 

 to think in the matter. At about this time 

 a party living about four miles from me pur- 

 chased the Italian bee, and with him I went 

 into partnership in queen-rearing, in my early 

 bee-keeping life, so was with him considerable 

 of the time. He told me, one day, that at an 

 out-apiary which he was working, which con- 



tained only black bees, he had noticed in the 

 forenoon Italian bees at work cleaning out an 

 empty hive which stood near one side of the 

 yard. This was something new to him, he 

 being considerably excited about it. He said 

 he should keep watch of the matter and see 

 what became of it. I was also much interest- 

 ed, and told him what I had seen, as related 

 above. 



The next time I went there he told me that 

 the bees which he saw cleaning the hive were 

 his own, as he had surmised after I told him 

 what - 1 knew in the matter a few days before ; 

 for at that time his bees were the only Italians 

 within four or five miles of his residence. He 

 said that a swarm came out from one of his 

 hives, and, after circling around a few times, 

 started off in the direction of this out-apiary. 

 Having a fleet horse near at hand, and being a 

 fearless rider, he jumped upon it, and in a mo- 

 ment was going at railroad speed for this out- 

 apiary, arriving there in time to see his swarm 

 of Italian bees rushing pellmell into the hive 

 that the bees had been cleaning out. As he 

 kept the wings of all his queens clipped, he 

 knew that he could soon tell for a certainty 

 whether these were his bees or not, although 

 he had no reason to doubt the matter now ; 

 for if they were he had their queen at home in 

 a cage, and sooner or later they must return to 

 her unless they had come across some queen 

 in their flight. In about half an hour they 

 became uneasy and began to leave the hive, 

 seeing which he returned home only to find 

 them coming back and running into the hive 

 from which they went, and clustering about 

 the cage containing the queen which he had 

 left at the entrance of the old hive. He now 

 liberated their queen, and the next day they 

 swarmed again, and again went to this hive at 

 the out-apiary as before. 



This was kept up for four or five days, when 

 he became tired of it, and then he divided the 

 colony, thus putting a stop to their swarming. 

 The above instance can not be accounted for 

 in any other way than that the bees had se- 

 lected their future home before leaving the 

 parent hive ; but that they always do thus is 

 by no means proved by these incidents. 



My opinion is, that where one swarm thus 

 selects its future home before leaving the pa- 

 rent hive, ten do not thus select, but go out 

 without any idea of where they are going, and, 

 after clustering, send out scouts in search of 

 some suitable place for a home. If the scouts 

 fail in finding such a place, the swarm unclus- 

 ters and moves off from three to ten miles, 

 when they cluster again, and again send out 

 scouts, thus clustering and sending out scouts 

 until a suitable place is found. If a rainy day 

 or two come on while they are clustered out on 

 a limb, they build some comb ; and if the 

 weather is warm, and plenty of honey is to be 

 found near, when the weather clears up again 

 they may cease to look further for a home, 

 and may make a home of the limb, rearing 

 brood and storing honey the same as if in a 

 hollow tree, a cleft in the rocks, or a hive ; 

 for the cases are by no means isolated where 

 colonies have been found with plenty of combs, 

 brood, and honey, for wintering, with nothing 



