MARCH 15, 1916 



J. Knox's experimental apiary at Orono, where the swarming took place. 



foreground. 



Double-walled hives in the 



The four surfaces exposed to the air seem 

 to keep down the heat. 



In the four-colony case, even with planer- 

 shavings as packing, the sun's rays on the 

 outside, combined with the heat of four col- 

 onies within, raise the temperature to such 

 a degree that the bees spread out over the 

 frames too far in advance of the season. It 

 is at this stage, when clear entrances, little 

 snow, and not too much packing around the 

 sides, combine to keep the temperature in- 

 side below the danger-point. It might sur- 

 prise those who have not tried it, to feel the 

 waiTnth in the packing of a case that is 

 painted dark or red, and exposed to the sun, 

 even when the weather is quite cold. The 

 packing seems to absorb considerable heat, 

 and retain it after the sun has disappeared. 

 It may be that the danger of overheating, 

 and its consequent influence on swarming, 

 lies in the above condition. 



When fall clusters are small, and spring- 

 protection is needed for the rapid breeding- 

 up of weak colonies, I have been in the hab- 

 it, in some instances, of leaving the unpack- 

 ing of these cases as late as June 7. Usu- 

 ally the plan has worked well, but on one 

 occasion it spelled disaster so far as profits 

 went. 



At Orono I have an experimentnl outfit 

 as follows: 25 ten-frame Langstroth two- 

 story double-walled hives, with from two to 

 six inches of sawdust packing. In winter 

 these all have sawdust cushions about four 

 inches deep. In this yai'd there are also 

 about 15 four-colony Bartlet or Holter- 



mann cases, with from four to six inches of 

 packing on the sides, three on the fronts, 

 and ten over top. All are ten-frame Lang- 

 stroth except twenty colonies, which are the 

 twelve-frame size. So far I have not been 

 able to detect any difference in the winter 

 mortality, all averaging up about the same. 



Last summer I had a most peculiar expe- 

 rience with swarming. In the fall before 

 (1914), clusters were very small, owing to 

 the honey failure, and the colonies went in- 

 to winter quarters weak in bees. The Orono 

 yard has been requeened with young queens, 

 mostly Italian; and altho they did not build 

 up (owing to the failure of both flows) they 

 should have been in better condition to win- 

 ter than the rest. In the other yard there 

 had been no swarming, and no requeening. 

 The bees were all left in the cases until 

 June 1. 



On May 26 the Orono outfit started to 

 swarm, and kept it up without intermission 

 until Sept. 24, the bees in the cases giving 

 nearly thirty swarms while the twenty-five 

 single hives cast four or five. The strange 

 thing was that the bees were not strong 

 enough to swarm ; and from first to last the 

 swarms were small and mostly useless. There 

 was no clustering out at the entrance, no 

 crowding in the hives, scarcely any honey- 

 flow, and practically no swarming at the 

 other yards with the old queens. 



What was the cause? So far a.j I can see 

 it was simply an overdose of heat in the 

 four-colony cases, due to the combined ef- 

 fects of sunshine on the outside and the 



