452 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



July, 1922 



c 



Beekeeping as a Side Line 



Uf 



WHAT tem- 

 p e r amen- 

 tal things 

 swarms are! And 

 in a season like 

 this, when 

 swarms were so 

 frequent — I 

 speak for my- 

 self, John — these 



individual characteristics are particularly, 

 often painfully, noticeable. 



One Saturday afternoon in spring, we 

 were pleased to have Porter Ward of Al- 

 lensville, Ky., visit us. It was a cool damp 

 day, and after hanging around the bee- 

 yard till we got chilly, we went back home 

 and settled down to a blazing Avood fire. The 

 telephone rang; a big swarm on a hack- 

 berry tree, was the message. Over we 

 went, the three of us. Mr. Allen manipu- 

 lated the swarm-catcher, the swarm hanging 

 high. But it was late and cold. The bees 

 that did not get into the basket stayed 

 where they fell, chiefly on shoulders and 

 ground. While looking for the queen among 

 those on the ground, I pushed them about a 

 bit with my fingers. Up went little bodies, 

 wings waved wildly, and up my sleeves 

 they started. I thought that was funny 

 and let them go on. But the end of that 

 swarm was fiasco. Those dumped in front 

 of a hive went in most indifferently or not 

 at all; those on the ground — and that was 

 a large proportion — stayed where they 

 were. There were bees on Mr. Allen 's coat 

 and in it; on his vest and in it; on my coat 

 and in it — up the sleeves above the elbow 

 so that I dared not bend my arms till the 

 coat had been gingerly removed. They were 

 not particularly sting-y, just crawly and un- 

 manageable. So we gave up, most cha- 

 grined that Mr. Ward — with his unswarm- 

 ing hives! — should have seen so fizzly a job. 

 The next morning we went over to com- 

 plete it. It was scarcely finished, when out 

 came another swarm. A clipped queen this 

 time, and there she was, right where she 

 was supposed to be. We slipped her into a 

 cage, and changed the hives in approved 

 orthodox stj'^le; back came the swarm, we 

 ran the queen in and O. K.'d the job. Now 

 if Porter Ward could have seen that, Mr. 

 Allen was saying, when -^"liere comes an- 

 other," I cried. Another clipped queen, 

 easily caught, caged, hive changed, swarm 

 returned, queen run in — everything work- 

 ing as though recently oiled. Again we 

 sighed for a spectator, especially Mr. Ward. 

 Avlio had been the sympathetic witness of 

 our discomfiture. And again, a third time, 

 caine a swarm and we worked the clipped- 

 cnieen-and-changed-hive system. And thought 

 of the crawly swarm of Saturday. 



As not all our queens are clipped, we 

 don 't know, when we find a swarm already 

 out from who knows what hive, whether 

 the queen is with them or not. So we as- 

 sume she is, and catch the swarm. Or try 

 to. Yet at that, how successfully, even by 



Grace Allen 



1 



LJ 



myself, I secured 

 two or three 

 such a few days 

 after Mr. Ward's 

 visit. Several 

 times I used the 

 thrilling process 

 of a bushel bas- 

 ket on top of a 

 stepladder. And 

 then climbed as gracefully as the basket of 

 bees allowed back over the fence, from the 

 orchard to the beeyard. 



The facts about our excessive swarming 

 were these: the bees had honey left over 

 from the fall before; spring came early; I 

 came late. And even after I finally started 

 the apiary work, the world was so full of a 

 number of things that the bees got crowded 

 pretty well off the program. Probably I 

 have never given them so little attention, 

 hive after hive. So here are the morals for 

 newer sideliners. 



First, start your spring work early. It 

 is very important. 



Taking: his ease among his bees. 



Second, do not increase the number of 

 your hives beyond the limit that you can 

 care for successfully and satisfactorily. If 

 you have some half dozen other pressing 

 and delightful interests, as some of us do 

 liave. hold your yard to a size that you can 

 handle, and be satisfied with your own 

 work. Apologizing for one's work is not 

 stimulating. 



Third, it pays to clip your queens. That 

 is, unless you have hives or systems of man- 

 agement that convince you that your bees 

 will not swarm. It is true tliat, if the bee- 

 keeper is not present when the clipped- 

 queen-swarm issues, lie cannot turn tlie 

 pretty trick of changing hives while the 

 bees are out. But he will know that no 

 swarm will go away. If, liaving tried it 

 two or tliree times, in his absence, they final- 

 ly destroy their queen, he will have lost 

 only her, instead of both her and the bees. 

 And tlie few days' delay before a new 

 queen is ready to go out may enable him 

 to discover their condition and do some 

 thing about it. 



By what different ways do we approacli 

 our beekeeping careers! One has a hive 

 given him, one — O favored one! — is born 

 into a beekeeping family, many inherit api- 



