isys. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



hatches within a day or so after the Brstswarm has left, which 

 drills the young bees till they are inclined to go out with her 

 in an after-swarm. I claim that bees of all ages go with the 

 old queen in the prime swarm, and that the young queen, or 

 queens, which go with the after-swarms do not hatch out in 

 several days after the first swarm went out. Which is right ? 

 Or is swarming conducted differently from what either of us 

 think?" 



Answer. — Natural swarming has always had a charm or 

 fascination to me, and among my earliest recollections is the 

 vivid picture of thousands of bees pouring out of their hives 

 and whirlingin midair, describing circles and passing each 

 other in such rapid movements that I stood and wondered how 

 they could possibly do It without hitting each other, while the 

 settling on a limb and their march into the hive, when father 

 put them down in front, astonisht me as much as any of the 

 rest of the performance. 



From these first impressions, I presume, more than from 

 anything else, has come my preference for natural swarming 

 as a means of increase. Being thus interested I have experi- 

 mented largely to know under what conditions swarms issued 

 as a rule, and have found, as regards the age of bees, that 

 bees of all ages in about equal proportions leave the parent 

 hive with all swarms, from the old forager to the bee that 

 has not been out of the cell more than from 6 to 12 hours. 

 Many times have I seen the ground in front of the hive nearly 

 covered with bees so young as to be unable to fly ; and as often 

 have I seen the old field-workers with their worn and jagged 

 wings hanging with the swarm, and those having their pollen- 

 baskets filled with pollen, side by side with the young, downy 

 bees which had been barely able to fly to the cluster. Thus 

 we have the field-bees, the wax-workers, and the nurse-bees 

 in about equal proportions, so as to make a prosperous colony 

 at once upon their entering their new home, this showing that 

 the All-Wise Creator knew how things should be when he 

 pronounced all that he had made (jood. 



If it were not for young bees going with the swarm, the 

 hive would be nearly depopulated by the bees dying of old age 

 before the brood could batch out to take their places, as it 

 must be nearly two days before sufficient comb would be built 

 so the queen could deposit eggs in the cells, and then it would 

 take 21 days from that time before any bees would hatch. 



Again, if all were old or field bees the hive could not be 

 filled as profitably with comb; for when in a normal condition 

 the bees between the age of 8 and 24 days old are the ones 

 which do this work. That this division of bees in a swarm is 

 just as it should be is another reason why I prefer natural 

 swarming as a means of increase, altho I have made swarms 

 artificially which have given as good results as have any nat- 

 ural swarms. 



But let us look inside of the hive when preparations for 

 swarming are being made, and see if we cannot arrive at the 

 truth in the matter as regards the condition under which a 

 swarm Issues when the first queen hatches, etc. 



The first indication of swarming is the laying of eggs in 

 the drone-comb. While eggs in the drone-cells is not a sure 

 sign that a swarm will Issue, yet as far as I have observed 

 swarms never do issue without eggs being laid therein. If 

 the weather is propitious the next step is the building of 

 queen-cells, soon after which the queen deposits eggs in them. 

 In three days these eggs hatch into larvre, and these larvic 

 are fed an abundance of food by the nurse-bees for six days, 

 when the ceils containing the embryo queens are sealed over. 

 If no bad weather has intervened the swarm Issues the next 

 day, the old queen going with the swarm. Bear in mind that 

 this is the rule with the black or German bees, and generally 

 with other races ; still, the Italians often swarm when the 

 eggs are first laid in the queen-cells, and some without the 

 least preparation at all except drones in a time when swarm- 

 ing runs high in an apiary. 



All good authorities admit that the queen-larva remains 

 seven days In the cell after it is sealed over, as my experience 

 also proves, and any claim that a young queen would hatch 

 within a day or two after the swarm issues would be fallacious, 

 unless bad weather should occur at about the time the first 

 queen-cell was sealed. When such bad weather does occur 

 the thing is barely possible for the swarm to be kept back for 

 four or five days after they would naturally Issue, in which 

 case the first queen might hatch in one or two days after the 

 swarm went out. But this is something which I have had 

 occur but very few times since I have kept bees, covering a 

 period of nearly 30 years, and in nearly all such cases the 

 bees destroy the queen-cells and postpone swarming for an 

 indefinite period. 



So I find, as a rule, that the first queen emerges from her 

 cell from six to seven days after the swarm issues. If more 

 swarms are allowed, they come forth two days after, or from 



the eighth to the ninth day after the first, and never later 

 than the sixteenth day. As soon as it is decided that no more 

 swarms shall Issue, all queens in the cells are destroyed, when 

 in from five to nine days the young queen goes out to be fer- 

 tilized, two days after which she commences to lay. If the 

 apiarists stops all after-swarming by the cutting of the queen- 

 cells, or by other means that keeps all of the bees in the old 

 hive together after the first issue, I find that the young queen 

 is much slower in going out on her wedding trip, and often 

 does not commence to lay till from the twelfth to the sixteenth 

 day. 



Where one wishes to make artificial Increase It is well to 

 understand just how natural swarming is conducted, for with 

 such knowledge one is more apt to succeed in having the right 

 proportion of both old and young bees in the two parts after 

 dividing. Onondaga Co., N. Y. 



The Bee-Moth — Its Ravages and Destruction^ 



BY C. P. DADANT. 



A few days ago while removing the dry supers from which 

 the honey was extracted in September, and which had been 

 returned to the bees so that they might clean them up, our 

 boys discovered a colony in which both the super and the 

 brood-frames were invaded by the bee-moth in such a way as 

 to give no hopes of redeeming any of the combs. The bees 

 had dwindled to nothing. I suggested that this was a piece 

 of carelessness on their part, that it was a mistake to return 

 a super to a hive that must have been suffering of the moth at 

 the time when the honey was removed. It was with diliiculty, 

 however, that I convinced them that they were at fault, and 

 that it was at all possible to detect the presence of the 

 moth two months ago in a hive which is well-nigh destroyed 

 at this date by them. 



There Is too much neglect of this kind among many api- 

 aries. We do not sufficiently recollect that the moth 

 becomes more numerous as the season advances. In the 

 spring combs may be left for two or three months without 

 protection and without showing much of the ravages of the 

 moth, because they are then very scarce, having been reduced 

 in numbers by the winter ; for it is now very certain that 

 ordinary winters in this latitude kill all but those of the moth 

 which happen to be sheltered in colonies of live bees. The 

 only hives in which they thrive in any perceptible way are 

 those whose bees have died at the close of winter. They have 

 kept a few moths alive, and when they dwindle away no living 

 Insect is left in the box but the straggling and rustic moth- 

 worm. The few moths that hatch In spring make a second 

 breed that appears in full force about the beginning of Au- 

 gust. If these find suitable lodgings, the third breed will be- 

 come formidable, for the moths are sufficiently plentiful at 

 that late date to take by storm any hive that may prove desti- 

 tute of queen or hatching bees. The eggs laid in the early 

 part uf September may not all hatch. If the season Is cool; 

 but if a warm fall gives them the opportunity they thrive in 

 an astonishing manner. 



It is not to be wondered that our forefathers were afraid of 

 the moths for their bees. Until the Invention of the movable- 

 frame hive it was next to impossible to ascertain the extent of 

 the danger to the bee-industry on the moth's account, and 

 altho Mr. Langstroth himself was of the opinion, when he 

 first wrote his book, that the moth was but little injurious to 

 a healthy colony of bees, he was compelled, owing lo the gen- 

 eral opinion then prevailing, to treat of them as "a powerful 

 enemy " of the bee. But he had already divined the true 

 cause of the decadence of colonies in the fall^nd of the triumph 

 of the moth. He wrote : 



" Every year large numbers of hives are bereft of their 

 queens, most of which are either robbed by other bees or sackt 

 by the bee-moth, or first robbed and afterward sackt, while 

 their owner Imputes all the mischief to something else than 

 the real cause. He might just as well imagine that the carrion 

 birds, or worms, which are devouring a dead horse were the 

 primary cause of its untimely end." 



This argument struck the right chord, and a few years 

 afterward our friend, Elisha Gallup, if I am not mistaken, 

 came out boldly in the American Bee Journal with the asser- 

 tion that there was no n)ore danger from the moth, for a col 

 ony of healthy bees, than there is danger for a healthy cow 

 being destroyed by the grubs, or larv;c, or the carrion fly, 

 which is sure to infest every decaying carcass of dead animals 

 during warm weather. This assertion, which may seem too 

 far stretcht to the novice in bee-culture, is within the limits 

 of facts. It must have seemed a bold statement in the days 

 of patent moth-traps, but it proves more correct every day. 

 So we need not fear the moth if we keep our colonies healthy 



