THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



21 



For the American Bee JournaL 



Prevention of Swarming. 



JAMES HEDDON. 



After 15 years' experience as a 

 specialist in bee-lveepin<?, I need not 

 tell you that I have tried very many 

 methods to prevent swarming ; among 

 them, various methods of artificial 

 increase. 



I have become satisfied that no 

 method of artificial increase, is pro- 

 ductive of as good result, as is natural 

 swarming, all things considered. 

 Bearing me out in this conclusion, is 

 the practice of ^lessrs. Oatman, 

 Hutchinson, Miller and numerous 

 other large and practical honey pro- 

 ducers. 



I may also cite you to the fact that 

 we have no practically successful 

 method for the prevention of swarm- 

 ing, as no such method is in use 

 among our leading producers. Nor 

 do I wish to prevent natiiTal swarming, 

 but I would like to control it, there 

 being one condition of our affairs, and 

 perhaps only this one, wherein the 

 benefits would more than counter- 

 balance the expense and trouble aris- 

 ing from the use of the necessary fix- 

 tures. The one referred to, is where 

 one has too few bees in a given locali- 

 ty, to afford to keep a hand to watch 

 them continually through the swarm- 

 ing period. 



Haying begun bee keeping in con- 

 nection with a careful perusal of 

 Father Langstroth's invaluable work, 

 (for which I am to-day very glad) my 

 attention was early called to the idea 

 of compelling bees to act differently 

 from their wont, by virtue of the dif- 

 ference in size of the three genders 

 inhabiting the hive. The book told 

 us of contracted passages, that would 

 exclude the queen and drones, while 

 the workers would pass through. My 

 experiments upon the principle, disap- 

 pointed me from the fact that any pass- 

 age-way contracted sufficiently to pre- 

 vent the egress of the queen, acted as 

 a hindrance to the ingress of heavily 

 laden workers. More especially was 

 this a fact with workers laden with 

 both honey and pollen, and often 

 loads of pollen would be detached 

 from the legs of the bees, in their 



Sassage through the contracted spaces. 

 Tow I have seen this pollen dislodg- 

 ment take place in spaces that did 

 pass some of the smaller specimens 

 of unfecundated queens, and I once 

 purchased of Mr. Oatman one of tlie 

 most valuable fertile queens I ever 

 owned in my life ; valuable because 

 she produced a goodly number of 

 most excellent working bees, of above 

 average size, though she herself was 

 black and so small that she passed 

 the spaces mentioned above. Anoth- 

 er objection to these spaces, or bee 

 guards, as they are sometimes called, 

 IS, that they seriously interfere with 

 the ventilation of the hive, and gen- 



eral satisfaction of the workers, keep- 

 ing up confusion among the thirsty 

 perishing drones, clogging up and 

 buzzing "at the entrance for escape. 



Since the advent of comb founda- 

 tion and consequent control of drone 

 production, this evil is almost entirely 

 removed, with all our colonies except 

 such as we use to rear the drones of 

 our choice. 



Such guards are often advocated for 

 their usefulness in prohibiting the 

 flight of drones, from box or other re- 

 cently purchased hives. I have what 

 I think a better method of disposing 

 of this difficulty. I transfer such 

 hives before time for the mating of 

 queens, shaking their bees (all except 

 the queens and a few workers) into a 

 box whose end is made of perforated 

 tin, with round holes large enough to 

 pass the workers freely, but keep oack 

 the drones. The workers quickly re- 

 turn to their queen, while the desert- 

 ed imprisoned drones are easily de- 

 stroyed. 



I will now endeavor to describe an 

 arrangement I invented some 10 or 12 

 years ago. and laid aside as imprac- 

 ticable. Why impracticable ? Mainly 

 because of the trouble with the drones 

 above mentioned, especially in hives 

 where they were more numerous. 



Another point ; as I had but one 

 apiary at the time, (making bee keep- 

 ing a specialty) and had not the 

 where-with to establish another, the 

 need of such an attachment was not 

 felt by me then. 



Heddon^s Non-Swarming Attachment. 



In viewing the above cut, imagine 

 yourself looking at a tin box, 14x6x4, 

 with both sides open. (In the cut, 

 one side is up, and the other down.) 

 You see an angling partition A passing 

 from one corner of the tin box to 

 within two inches of the other. This 

 closes the opening through the box, 

 except the space 2x4. This space is 

 closed by a piece of tin 2x3^, and the 

 remaining opening, 2x% has a flat 

 tube T of the same dimensions and 

 about 214 inches long, open at each 

 end. The partition A, and all of that 

 part of the box above the partition, 

 and on the side towards you, is per- 

 forated with round holes made with a 

 punch, with the bur projecting on the 

 outside. The holes are made just 

 large enough to freely pass a worker 

 bee when empty, and as there is no 

 necessity for laden bees to pass these 

 holes, they can be somewhat smaller 

 than the ordinary contracted passages, 

 and too small to admit of the passage 

 of one unfertile queen out of one 

 thousand. This attachment I made 

 when I used the 10-frame Standard 

 Langstroth hive with portico. To 

 adapt it to my present hive whose in- 



side dimensions across the frames is 

 11}^ inches, let us imagine it 12 inches 

 long, instead of 14 inches, and the 

 left end (as you face it) also perfo- 

 rated.* To adjust it to the hive we 

 lay the side V, on the alighting board, 

 shove it up tightly to the hive, push- 

 ing the tube T into the entrance and 

 under the bottom bar of the side 

 frame. 



The perforations are thickly loca- 

 ted ; in fact " the tin is most all holes." 

 Now let us describe the actions of the 

 bees, as we have watched them many 

 an hour. A worker starts out to the 

 field, he rushes to the entrance, looks 

 at the new obstacle, accepts the invi- 

 tation given him by the division A to 

 pass to the right, goes down near the 

 corner, slips easily through the hole, 

 takes a look at the new order of 

 things, sees that he is in the right 

 church, that the ijew is only newly or- 

 namented, and strikes out for the 

 field. Another, and another, and 

 another, follow in rapid succession, 

 all passing out near the corner, in- 

 duced by the position of the angling 

 partition A. The inner end of the 

 tube T, being within the hive and 

 quite dark comparatively, only about 

 one worker in one hmidred, passes out 

 through it; besides it is constantly 

 in use, by those passing in. 



By this time the "nectar-laden 

 bees" begin to return. Of course 

 they propose to enter at the point of 

 exit. They look at the holes. Some- 

 times stick their heads into one. The 

 " grain " of this hole, you remember 

 runs the wrong way, besides it is so 

 small as to be poorly adapted to tlie 

 tired and swollen bodied laden work- 

 er, even if passed the other way. t 



Once again the angling partition 

 invites the little visitor to the right, 

 which invitation he immediately ac- 

 cepts and passes through the tube 

 T. You will readily conceive that 

 this tube is large enough to admit of 

 the passage of the working force of 

 the strongest colony, because the cur- 

 rent flows all one way. (I think we 

 used a tapering tube, it being only 

 about lJ-3 or IM inches wide at the in- 

 ner end.) In two or three hours, the 

 bees seem to have perfectly learned 

 the attachment, and accept it cheer- 

 fully, almost the entire force pass- 

 ing out and in at the respective places 

 designed for egress and ingress. 



I had 40 pounds of surplus comb 

 honey stored through this attachment, 

 and could discover no retarding in- 

 fluence connected with it. It was 

 laid aside as mentioned above, because 

 of the drone difficulty, making it 

 necessary to remove the dead drones 

 every few days, before they might de- 

 compose. But it is my opinion that 

 with this difficulty mainly removed, 

 this attachment may become practi- 

 cal. I am quite certain that it stands 



* Of course there ia no necessity for that part of 

 the attachment, outside of the auKling partition, 

 A. It serves as a small portico, when the attach- 

 ment ia in use. 



t When the hees swarmed through the attach- 

 ment, there was a tut'Bing and squeezing of those 

 fullest of honey, and many of this class failed to 

 pass through— even their thorax seemed to be dis- 

 tended, when they were heavily loaded. The queen 

 Jumps and buzzes about in the attachment, tillahe 

 gets rilsgusted, and returns to the brood. If a 

 piece of tin be flipped between the attachmentand 

 hive, the former may then be removed with the 

 queen. 



