270 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



May 1 



not much faith in this measurement as an 

 index of the bee's powers. The tongue of 

 the bee is a complex piece of mechanism; 

 and to increase the length of one part with- 

 out troubling about the other parts might 

 lead to a lessening of its usefulness in some 

 directions. 



Although the honey-bee is not adapted to 

 red clover, observations in Europe show that 

 it visits twice as many species of flowers as 

 the bumble-bees that are adapted to it. This 

 leads me to suspect that the present tongue- 

 length is the most useful for general pur- 

 poses, and enables its owner to compete with 

 both short-tongued and long-tongued bees 

 in the gathering of nectar. To adapt the 

 clover to the bee by raising a variety with 

 shortened florets would be far better. We 

 should know that we were adding to the 

 sources of nectar, while the adaptation of 

 the bee to other flowers would remain un- 

 changed. 



In attempting to raise improved strains 

 of bees, the inability to control male parent- 

 age is certainly a difficulty; but that it is 

 not an insuperable obstacle is shown by the 

 success of breeders for color. The truth is, 

 if the mating is limited to a certain district, 

 a "sport" will often impress its charac- 

 teristics on the whole of that district. 

 The Manx cats, mentioned by W. E. Flower, 

 p. 787, Dec. 15, 1910, are an illustration of 

 this. They are a variety formerly confined 

 to the Isle of Man, and probably originated 

 in a " sport." The breed is said to have dis- 

 appeared in recent times, owing to the in- 

 troduction of tailed cats. 



Another well-known instance is that of a 

 village in France where intermarriage was 

 the rule, and where all the inhabitants pos- 

 sessed twenty-four fingers and toes. There 

 can be little doubt that this was originally 

 the peculiarity of one individual. With 

 such examples in mind, I feel that I must 

 follow Dr. Miller and subscribe to the view 

 that one never can tell what the future has 

 in store. 



Albury, Herts, England. 



TWO METHODS OF SWARM PREVENTION. 



A Modified Shake - Swarm and Heddon Plan 

 Compared. 



BY DR. C. C. MILIiEK. 



A correspondent from the good old Key- 

 stone State writes: 



" A farmer wnthin a mile of me works his 

 bees in this way: While the swarm is in the 

 air he replaces four frames of brood with 

 four frames of foundation; cuts out all 

 queen-cells left in the hive and returns the 

 swarm, using the removed frames of brood 

 to strengthen other colonies. He uses eight- 

 frame hives. He seldom has another swarm 

 from that colony. Last year he got twice 

 as much surplus as I did, but I had fifteen 

 increase and he had only four. 



"The plan I have used is to hive the 

 swarm on empty comb or foundation, set it 



on the old stand, and give it the supers 

 from the parent colony. I set the old hive 

 beside the new, with entrance to the rear, 

 and gradually bring it around till, on the 6th 

 day, the entrances face the same way, and 

 then in the middle of the day I remove the 

 old colony to a new location. 



"Will I do well to change to the plan of 

 my neighbor? Are there objections to it? 

 and if not, why not remove the brood before 

 the bees swarm, and thus save trouble? Or 

 is there a still better way? " 



Your neighbor practices a variation of 

 shake-swarming, and yours is a variation of 

 the Heddon plan. Your plan may be 

 improved considerably. So may his. 



First, as to his plan. Although he says 

 he very seldom has another swarm from a 

 colony thus treated, I'm afraid that, in a 

 bad year for swarming, you would find that 

 too often the colony would swarm again in 

 a few days, because left still too strong — at 

 least too strong in brood. Sometimes tak- 

 ing away two frames of brood will make a 

 colony give up the notion of swarming, but 

 oftener it will have no effect. The usual 

 way is to take away all brood just before 

 danger of swarming, as you suggest. Some- 

 times, however, when left thus bare the bees 

 swarm out, and so it is well to leave one 

 frame containing the least amount of brood. 

 Thus treated, there ought to be no more 

 danger of swarming than if the bees had 

 swarmed naturally. 



Second, as to your plan. Instead of re- 

 versing the old hive and then moving it 

 partly around each day, set it beside the 

 swarm, facing the same way, and let it 

 stand there for seven or eight days, and 

 then move it to a new location. That, you 

 will see, is a good bit less work. Leaving 

 the hive a day or two longer will throw a 

 bigger lot of bees into the swarm when the 

 old hive is moved to a new stand, for all the 

 bees that have become field bees up to the 

 time of removal will join the swarm, and 

 that includes all that would join the swarm 

 by your plan, and, in addition, the output 

 of the one or two days additional. 



You will like either plan better, probably, 

 if you will make the changes suggested, and 

 it is not certain which you will like better. 

 The amount of honey harvested should not 

 differ much. You might try some each w^ay. 



Perhaps there is no plan to suit you bet- 

 ter, unless you are working for extracted 

 honey, in which case you might prefer the 

 Demaree plan. .Just before there is danger 

 of swarming, raise into the second story all 

 the brood except one frame, leaving in the 

 lower story that one frame containing the 

 least brood, and fill up each story with emp- 

 ty combs or frames filled with foundation, 

 having a queen-excluder between the two 

 stories, making sure to leave the queen in 

 the lower story. A week later it may be 

 necessary to destroy cells in the upper story. 

 As the brood hatches out in that story, the 

 combs, of course, will be filled with honey, 

 making them extracting-combs. 



Marengo, 111. 



