THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



805 



tablisliraent would become degenerate 

 and woi tliless from close Ijreediiif; ; 

 and to introduce fresh blood without 

 losiiin all the 1 ittle that had been gained 

 would be a very ditlicult problem. 



Because a single colony omits to 

 swarm when the others around it are 

 swarming, it by no means follows that 

 it is developing the non-swarming 

 tendencies. 



I think that most such cases are 

 caused t)y a lailint; queen. If the 

 queen begins to fail early in the season, 

 and the bees do not supersede her, it 

 may be expected that the colony will 

 dwindle down and neither swarm nor 

 store much honey. If, however, the 

 queen lays pretty well in March and 

 April, and begins to decline in fertility 

 in May, the colony may, if I mistake 

 not, make a One record in honey stor- 

 ing. In such a case the keeper vjould 

 be liable to think that he had aiion- 

 s warming colouy when he haduotliing 

 of the kind. 



Again, we will suppose that a lot of 

 bees become generally and utterly 

 lifeless and worthless, "like a flock of 

 sheep that have " all run out ;" what- 

 ever non-swarming tendencies they 

 might show would not prove of any 

 account to the breeder, I think. I 

 have had a case this season where what 

 seems to be a sort of constitutional 

 diseiise has prevented swarming. The 

 ground in front of the hive lias been 

 almost constantly sprinkled with dead 

 bees, and the sentinels have been kept 

 very busy trying to expel the invalids 

 and cripples. 1 presume that the best 

 of the bees of this colony do not live as 

 many days as they ought. The net 

 result is, that the colony has never 

 been crowded enough to "be driven to 

 swarming, although a large amount of 

 brood has been raised. It would be a 

 sad mistake to begin with such a 

 colony as this one to breed nou- 

 swarmers. 



Swarming has raged greatly with me 

 this summer, and only one other out 

 of 68 colonies has omitted to swarm. In 

 the last case I think there was some 

 reluctance to swarm, but also very 

 moderate fertility on the part of their 

 queen. 



As to the size of the brood chamber 

 affecting swarming, my opinion is like 

 this. Contracting stimulates swarm- 

 ing up to a certain moderate limit; 

 but excessively small room for brood, 

 especially if the pinch is caused by the 

 combs being blocked up with honey, 

 hinders or prevents swarming. Here, 

 then, we have about four sorts of non- 

 swarming, that may occur without the 

 bees having any real non-swarming 

 tendencies that could be transmitted 

 to progeny. There is such a tiling, 

 however, as a tendency to non-swarm- 

 ing, and it may be, after all, that we 

 want it ; and it may be, that some 

 time in the future we shall have non- 

 swarming breeds of bees, as we now 

 have non-sitting breeds of fowls. 



It is a somewhat surer indication of 

 genuine non-swurming when aconsid- 

 erable apiary refrains, but even then 

 I suspect that some discounts must lie 

 made. It is no very uncommon thing 

 for an apiarist to report only 10 or l;i, 

 or 20 swarms from a large apiary. Is 

 there not in most of these case's, not 



degeneracy exactly, but just a little 

 of what might be termed stagnation 

 of the blood y If a good queen from 

 somebody else's apiary was made the 

 mother of the drones, would not the 

 number of natural swarms increase 

 three or fourfold ? It also looks as if 

 swarming was very largely a matter 

 of locality. I have a locality where 

 the early supply of pollen is very pro- 

 fuse, hosts of alders shedding pollen 

 even before bees can get out to gather 

 it. Acres upon acres of poplars and 

 willows follow. The willows are of 

 many species, some very early and 

 some very late. Fruit bloom is about 

 medium. White clover is abundant, 

 but seldom yields much honey, owing, 

 I suppose, to the sandy nature of the 

 soil. Basswood is found scarcely any- 

 where except a little fringe of it along 

 a creek that runs by. August, instead 

 of being a gap in the honey, is not un- 

 frequeiitly better than July, and about 

 as good as June. A splendid spread 

 of late fall flowers closes the season. 

 Failure to get honey enough to winter 

 on is almost uiiknown — atleast during 

 the thirty years we have kept bees 

 here. But, on the other hand, it is 

 quite rare for a day's run of honey to 

 reach even three pounds. Another 

 man's locality has so little early pollen 

 that he feeds flour to get his bees 

 started ; a rush of honey in June, 

 coming in at the rate of ten pounds a 

 day ; and almost nothing at all after- 

 wards. It is pretty plain that the 

 steady, long continued supply of my 

 locality will provoke the maximum of 

 swarming (31 swarms in August this 

 year, and a total of 167) ; while the 

 year's honey all in aheap, of the other 

 man's locality,will favor the minimum. 

 I take it that a great rush of honey 

 tempts all the bees, except the very 

 yonng ones, to go out and gather, and 

 soon the cells are so blocked up with 

 honey that the queen has little room 

 to lay. 



In those cases sometimes reported 

 where a colony of bees has continued 

 without swarming for many years, 

 there is one condition that is ahnost 

 always present, if my memory is not 

 at fault. Such bees are in diverse sit- 

 uations, often in a bee-house, some- 

 times on a bench out of doors, or, most 

 frequently of all, in a quiet garret; 

 but they agree in this one thing, comb 

 built abundantly outsidi^ the hive. 

 iMeditating on "this 'circumstance a 

 theory arose in my mind that may pos- 

 sibly prove valuable. The overflow of 

 bees from such a hive, spread out 

 among the outside combs and make 

 them.selves comfortable, while the 

 overflow from an ordinary hive cling 

 together in a hot and torpid mass, un- 

 til they resolve that "anywhere, any- 

 thing is better than this." The dis- 

 comfort of hanging out, we may well 

 believe, impels many that have noth- 

 ing to do to remain inside, sadly in 

 the way of those actually at work, 

 until tliey. too, are discontented, ami 

 inclined to " fly toother ills they know 

 not of." It may transpire that surplus 

 of bees does not necessarily compel 

 swarming, as long as we can keep 

 them comfortable and out of the way 

 of where work is going on. 



Richards, O. 



Honey and Money. 



I love you, love, for good or ill. 



As Kood bees love sweet honey— 

 I love you. love, soul, heart and will. 



For sober skies or sunny. 

 And yet I pause, I falter still, 



For O! one doubt, one fear doth thrill. 

 My darliug, have you money 

 To buy some clover honey? 



I love you, love, I love you, love, 

 Hut, O. you must have money — 



A red rose is a rose, my love. 

 But if it hold not honey, 



The busy bee he will not stay. 

 Hut. hummins airs, he hies away, 



My (larlins. have you money 



To buy the clover honey't— Selected. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Another Instance of "Old Fogyisui." 



C. THEILMANN. 



While reading J. E. Pond's article, 

 on page 030 of the Weekly Bee Jour- 

 nal, I remembered a conversation I 

 had this fall with an old acquaintance, 

 and an early settler of this part of the 

 country, to whom I paid a visit while 

 on a business trip through the country. 



Arriving at his place I found him 

 just at the brimstone business, de- 

 stroying his bees. Taking a look 

 around where he was at work, I saw a 

 lot of box hives torn apart, and honey, 

 with pollen and some brood in the 

 combs, ill pans, dishes, etc., while he 

 was killing another colony. I can 

 hardly describe the feelings which 

 came over me at the sight. I asked 

 him why he destroyed his bees in such 

 a manner, and obtained the honey in 

 such an impracticable way 'i* He an- 

 swered : "My father kept bees for 

 30 years, and I was raised among them, 

 and I guess this is as good a way to 

 obtain honey as any ; and this is the 

 way my father did it." (All h=s bees 

 were in box hives.) I then asked him 

 in what way he could control his bees 

 in his liive'r' " How do you control 

 yours':"' he replied. " Look up there." 

 he said, pointingtoaslim, tall tree, I 

 was in danger of my life this summer 

 in getting a swarm of bees down from 

 it.'' I then told him that my bees 

 were in I.angstroth movable-frame 

 hives, that I could control them, to a 

 great extent, in swarming, and that I 

 could look in and examine every comb 

 in tlie hive in a few miiintes, and if 

 the bees acted strangely, I could see 

 what was wrong; besides enumerating 

 many other advantages. 



I then asked him about the sale of 

 his honey. " Well," said he, " I could 

 only get 12}^c. per lb. for it, in I'lain- 

 view, tlie other day, by the side of 

 yours, and the storekeeper did not 

 much care to buy mine at all." He 

 also acknowledged that my honey, 

 which was in the one piece sections, 

 was very nice and neatly put up. I 

 sold it readily for 18c. jier pound. 



It is bard for some of these old fo- 

 gies to turn to practical apiculture; 

 they still hang to their father's ways 

 of bee-keeping, and not only realize 

 but little for their produce, but in 



