THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



061 



For the American Uee Journal. 



Controlling Increase. 



.TAMES HEDDON. P 



Before clisciissin<i; the above subject 

 I wish to m;ike just a word of reply 

 to Messrs. Tinker and Clarke in regard 

 to their last attacks upon— well no, 

 not my " pollen theory,'' but myself 

 as a controversialist. 1 presume that 

 many readers of the Bee Jouknal 

 are tired of controversy, for contro- 

 versy's sake. Just here, where I can- 

 not see that either of the attacks re- 

 ferred to bear the least weight toward 

 answering the propositions of my 

 theory, or substantiating any other 

 theory satisfactorily accounting for 

 our winter losses, is a good place .for 

 us to rest the discussion, to be finally 

 settled by experiment. 



To come to the question of preven- 

 tion of increase, I wish to say that for 

 years I have plead for a " readily- 

 movable hive "—a light hive with'a 

 fast bottom : separate from the stand, 

 but fast to the bottom board, or hav- 

 ing the bottom securely nailed to the 

 hive. With this movable-hive sys- 

 tem I intended doing much work 

 proposed by others to be done by 

 moving the contents of the hive— the 

 combs. 



My system of preventing after- 

 swarms by this movable-hive system, 

 is described on page 126 of the Bee 

 Jouknal for 18S8, and many other 

 pages both before and after that date. 

 I have also studied and written upon 

 its application to the prevention of 

 increase, via of prime swarms; but 

 to-day we prefer the system of ac- 

 cepting the prime swarm as so much 

 increase— except in cases where such 

 increase is unsalable, and has already 

 gone so far as to become a nuisance. 

 Further on I will give you my theory 

 and slight practice in regard to the 

 best methods (as viewed by me) for 

 this latitude, as Mr. Demaree has. 

 in his article on page 619, invited 

 friendly aid in working out the prob- 

 lem. His sharp sentence, in the last 

 paragraph, tending to ward off all 

 criticism from his article, is not kind, 

 nor is his statement that the theory 

 and system which he advocates as 

 " new," correct. 



This system of moving the old 

 colony, or the new one about, to dif- 

 ferent angles, disguising the hive 

 with a piece of cloth, then moving ic 

 to and fro by way of reducing the bees 

 of one part, and strengthening the 

 others by way of preventing increase, 

 is by no means " new." but is just 

 . what I have been writing about for 

 several years, and what several bee- 

 keepers have been reporting as a suc- 

 cessful practice, during the past sea- 

 son. 



It seems to me that Mr. D.'s sharp 

 criticism upon his anticipated critics, 

 exactly applies to himself, as he 

 simply gives some minor detail alter- 



ations of the old system, considering 

 them " iraproveuients." Let us " rea- 

 son from what we know "alwut them, 

 anil see if our fellow bee-keeper has 

 added one more ray of light to the 

 apicultural torch. 



All have known that colonies co!i- 

 taining brood in all stages would work 

 the same without any queen, but this 

 condition of a colony is not what is 

 meant by the term " queenless " in its 

 strict sense ; so says Father Lang- 

 stroth. Mr. D.'s statement in his 

 third paragraph is so peculiarly word- 

 ed that it will bear much twi.sting to 

 suit the developments of that future 

 alluded to. I cannot think that the 

 " near future " will so perfectly change 

 and revolutionize our system of api- 

 culture that the facts of to-day and 

 mechanical appliances so well adapted 

 to those facts, will all be laid aside 

 and so soon forgotten. I believe that 

 to-day we have many practical fix- 

 tures and methods which will live far 

 beyond any person reading this sen- 

 tence. Some 2-") years ago. Father 

 Langstroth said of his movable 

 frames, that he did not claim perfec- 

 tion, for that rested alone with Ilim 

 who made all things ; but that so long 

 as the honey-bee kept its present in- 

 stincts, all frame-makers must either 

 go over his road, or go around. He 

 thought that he had found the best 

 mechanical adaptations to positive 

 known facts regarding the instincts 

 of bees ; and if he was not mistaken, 

 such a statement was a true one. 

 Well, 25 years of radical growth in 

 the bee-business have left those words 

 just as true to-day as when uttered a 

 quarter of a century ago. 



" Let it go to record " that I predict 

 to-day, that our methods and appli- 

 ances will undergo some changes and 

 growth by way of keeping all which 

 is best, and superseding that which is 

 not best by that which is better ; that 

 the bee-ke"eping methods of the future 

 will be like those of the past, a slow 

 growth toward a higher standard of 

 excellence. I believe that we now 

 have some appliances which will never 

 be forgotten ; also some appliances 

 and methods that will be forgotten. 

 Among the latter, I think that I may 

 count some of the methods or details 

 cited in Mr. D.'s outline of manipula- 

 tions for " preventing increase." 



Mr. D.'s outline of operations is 

 not only more work than the hiving 

 of swarms, by those who have learned 

 the short-cuts and supplied themselves 

 with the proper implements for that 

 work, but it violates some of our 

 immortal laws relative to apiculture : 

 1. Bees work on comb honey in sec- 

 tions with the greatest vigor above 

 combs of brood containing a queen. 

 The more prolific that queen the bet- 

 ter. 2. Xotbing is worse to have be- 

 low the sui)ers than combs of sealed 

 honey. 3. The bees will tirst till these 

 combs, and then if left, seal them up. 

 If exchanged for more empty ones, as 

 often as changed, so often the bees 

 will refill them, and your comb-honey 

 system is changed to the extracting 

 system, and your comb-honey fixtures 

 are just in your way. 



The next noticable objection is the 

 positioning of the queen. Let it not 



be lost sight of that the major portion 

 of our permanent capital rests in the 

 combs. The instinct of bees and 

 their cousequeut acts, is fitted to this 

 fact. The queen, during the month 

 of May (in this latitude), finds her 

 laying capacity greater than usual, 

 and greater than the proper size of 

 hive. She fills all available room, 

 then leaves with a prime swarm 

 which builds her more combs to lay 

 in, and during the 15 days of queen- 

 lessness of the old colony, room is 

 made by the hatching of bees for the 

 use of ttie new queen, a room which 

 the new queen soon occupies. It 

 seems to me that Mr. D. has his queen 

 in tlie wrong place. He most cer- 

 tainly does if he has an August and 

 September surplus harvest, which he 

 is very liable to have. In this point, 

 I prefer the instinct of my bees to the 

 philosophy of his theory, for my 

 locality. 



So far in my experience, I have 

 never found it profitable to prevent 

 increase while running for comb 

 honey. I have further found it very 

 unprofitable to prevent swarming by 

 any method except such as caused the 

 bees to forget it in their enthusiasm 

 after surplus honey. But the preven- 

 tion of swarming, and the prevention 

 of increase are two different sul)jects. 

 I have little doubt but that very soon 

 we shall winter our bees with the 

 same certainty that we winter our 

 cows. If a practical solution of the 

 pollen theory does not lead to this re- 

 sult, I feel sure that some other one 

 will. The ball is now rolling fast ; 

 every close observer and inquisitive 

 Yankee is on the alert, and we are 

 sure to succeed, soon, under some 

 leader. At our late Michigan State 

 Fair, Prof. Cook said that indications, 

 so far, favor the pollen theory. Dr. 

 Mason, almost out of patience, said 

 that the matter was no longer 

 " theory " to him ; for the practical 

 tests of 4 or o winters had settled it 

 with him. 



I expect the time is near when most 

 of us will find it best to keep down 

 our increase, but not to prevent 

 swarming by forced methods, such as 

 dividing the bees that we do not wish 

 divided, nor the necessity of clipping 

 queen-cells. In its stead I would sug- 

 gest a policy of this kind. Use shal- 

 low hives, at the same time giving 

 plenty of surplus room, thus giving 

 the queen more room in the brood- 

 chamber by keeping the honey out of 

 it, Sliade and ventilate the hives 

 well. Use bees containing some Ger- 

 man blood. All this tends to prevent 

 any desire to swarm on the part of 

 the bees ; but it is no sure remedy. 

 In some locations, and some seasons, 

 colonies seem unaccountably seized 

 with a craze for swarming, and no 

 known methods of operation will stop 

 this desire, and no bee-master can 

 account for the impulse. 



Xow, as to my theory in regard to 

 the prevention of increase of colonies, 

 I will here say, as I have before writ- 

 ten, that my readily-movable hive 

 system can also be used to prevent 

 increase by prime swarming, as well 

 as after-swarming ; and this is how I 

 should expect to accomplish it, at the 



