■THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



715 



swarming ; that is, giving tlie parent 

 colony a niaturt' iineen-cell soon after 

 it lias cast a swarm, and in no instance 

 has a colony tluis treated swarmed 

 again, lie \y,\s a small tlate hanging 

 upon a nail driven into the back of 

 each hive, and when a swarm issues, 

 the date is marked npon the slate. 

 He has learned by experience that 

 more of the young queens hatch 

 sooner than the si.xtli day after a 

 swarm has issued, usually about the 

 seventh or eighth day ; and, when a 

 colony from which no after-swarms 

 are wanted, casts a swarm, it is an 

 easy mutter, by examining the dates 

 upon the slates", to find a colony which 

 has swarmed six or seven days pre- 

 vious, from which to obtain a queen- 

 cell nearly ready to hatch, to give to 

 the colony which has just swarmed. 



Another method of preventing 

 after-swarming, is to place the new 

 swarm upon tlie old stand, removing 

 the parent colony to a new location. 

 The (lying bees all return to the old 

 location, and join the new swarm, 

 which so reduces the strength of the 

 old colony that it often casts no sec- 

 ond swarm. The writer, however, 

 carries this method one step farther, 

 and makes of it a complete success ; 

 in fact, it is his favorite method of 

 preventing after-swarming, and is as 

 follows : 



The new swarm is hived in a new 

 hive and placed upon the old stand, 

 but, instead of carrying the old hive 

 to a distant new location, it is placed 

 beside the new swarm, the rear of the 

 hive being iu contact with the new 

 hive, but the front turned to one side 

 at an angle of 45-'. So far as the fly- 

 ing bees are concerned, the old hive 

 occupies a new location fully as much 

 as though it had been carried away 

 rods distant, for they all enter the 

 new hive on the old stand. Each day 

 the old hive is slightly turned toward 

 the new hive, until, at the sixth day, 

 it stands close beside and parallel 

 with it. The bees of each hive rec- 

 ognize and enter their respective 

 homes, but let either hive be removed, 

 and all the Hying bees will enter the 

 hive left upon the old location. On 

 the seventh day, the old hive is picked 

 up and carried to a distant stand, 

 when, of course, all the flying bees 

 join the new colony upon the old 

 stand, leavnig the old colony so re- 

 duced in numbers just at the time 

 when the young queens are hatching, 

 that all thoughts of swarming are 

 abandoned, the first queen that 

 hatches biting into and destroying 

 the remaining queen-cells, together 

 with their occupants. If several 

 queens hatch at about the same time, 

 there are royal combats which result 

 m the "survival of the fittest.'.' 



When this method is adopted, the 

 honey-boxes should be removed from 

 the old hive to the new one at the 

 time of hiving the swarm. The great 

 mass of workers will then be where 

 the honey-boxes are, which is as it 

 should be. In the writer's opinion it 

 is better always to put on boxes at 

 the time of hiving a swarm, and then 

 contract the brood-nest to such an 

 extent as to crowd some of the bees 

 into the boxes. (When this is done, 



unless a queen-excluding honey-board 

 is used, the queen will often make 

 mischief by invading the surplus de- 

 partment.) A delay of even 24 hours 

 in giving boxes to a newly-hived 

 swarm is often fatal to securing the 

 best results ; as, where bees com- 

 mence wiirk when hived, there they 

 will continue to work until they are 

 compelled for lack of room to work 

 somew'here else ; if given boxes at the 

 time of hiving, and crowded into 

 them, they will commence work in 

 both them and the brood-nests, and 

 all will go well. The only reason why 

 the writer did not practice the last- 

 described method exclusively the 

 present season is, that he had 25 cum- 

 bersome chaff-hives which were ex- 

 tremely difficult of removal ; hence, 

 when a swarm issued from a chaff- 

 hive, the colony was given a mature 

 queen-cell taken from one of the other 

 hives which had just been removed to 

 a new stand. 



Some bee-keepers manage after- 

 swarms by hiving each one upon 

 sheets of foundation, and placing the 

 hive containing it, by the side of the 

 parent colony. If another one issues 

 from the same colony, it is hived in 

 the same manner as the first, and 

 placed upon the opposite side of the 

 old colony. As soon as one of the 

 young queens is found laying, all the 

 bees are shaken down in front of the 

 old liive, and the drawn-out combs of 

 foundation put away for future use. 



The point to be considered, in many 

 localities, is tiiis : The main honey- 

 harvest is of short duration, not 

 usually more than six weeks, and to 

 secure the best results, there must be 

 an abundance of workers, during this 

 period, in the hive where the honey- 

 boxes are. If the body of workers is 

 divided up, by swarming and after- 

 swarming, into mere squads, the 

 harvest is ended ere any of them have 

 recruited their ranks sufficiently to 

 gather and store it in proper shape for 

 market. 



Rogersville, Mich. 



For the American Bee Journal 



Pollen and Hibernation Theories. 



JAMES HEDDON. P 



Many observations have puzzled me 

 to harmonize perfectly with the " pol- 

 len theory," and that is the reason 

 why I still call it a " theory.'" Let us 

 look fairly at Dr. Miller's puzzle on 

 page 083. 



Are we not all well aware that bees 

 have, for many years, wintered well 

 with pollen in their combs V That 

 they oft-times starve before they will 

 touch it? That in many cases, as 

 the honey gave out, they eat the pol- 

 len (bee-bread) and quickly die with 

 diarrhoea V Many thought, after wit- 

 nessing such a phenomenon, that 

 " starvation was the cause of laee- 

 diarrhoea." 



AVe know that starvation is no di- 

 rect cause, but we believe it to be the 

 consumption of bee-bread in confine- 

 ment. In the diarrhetic excreta we 

 find pollen, not starvation. 



Now, Doctor, none of us have 

 crawled into a hive and passed the 



winter with the bees. We have seen 

 but very little of their actions during 

 confinement, from without. We de- 

 pend much upon rational and logical 

 theorizing. We can easily imagine 

 many reasons why, in one case, the 

 bees would commence on the bee- 

 bread just where the honey left off, 

 and in another stop all consumption 

 when the supply of honey ceased. 

 What I am trying to find is a case 

 where the intestines of the bees be- 

 come loaded with fecal matter with- 

 out the presence of bee-bread, or 

 honey laden with lloating pollen. As 

 soon as I find such a case, I will give 

 up my theory and at once announce 

 it, so that we may waste no more 

 time and money in this line, but 

 throw all our energies in another, and 

 what we deem the most profitable 

 direction. 



Sometimes when a cell containing 

 pollen below and honey on top is ex- 

 tracted of its honey, we find a dried, 

 glazed surface upon the pollen, mak- 

 ing a perfect division between the 

 two commodities ; at other times we 

 find no such glazed division, but find 

 that the honey has soaked into the 

 pollen, as it were, and when we ex- 

 tract the honey, some of the top por- 

 tion of the pollen comes out with the 

 honey and injures its flavor. This is 

 rarely seen except when extracting 

 combs from which bees perished dur- 

 ing the winter. Think of these things. 



THE HIBERXATION THEORY. 



Just as I feared, there now seems 

 to be a misunderstanding regarding 

 what different persons mean by hiber- 

 nation. As I understood Mr. Clarke's 

 first article on that subject, he had 

 what was to me a "new'' and false 

 theory. As I understand him now, 

 he has an old, well-known, and true 

 theory. He told us some time ago 

 that to get bees into tliis hibernating 

 state, we must have a low tempera- 

 ture; cold, and, as he thought it nec- 

 essary that they should often arouse 

 from that hibernating condition, he 

 would occasionally advocate the other 

 extreme. From this I inferred that 

 he beheved that circulation, motion, 

 and heat-throwing-off and producing 

 power all ceased, as is the case with 

 wasps which pass the winter in a state 

 of perfect torpor and isolation. 



I do not claim to know, but I do not 

 believe that our colonizing bees ever 

 enter for one moment into any such 

 condition. If Mr. Clarke will hold to 

 this former ground, he will have a 

 new theory, and one on which we 

 radically differ ; but if he only holds 

 to the theory that bees often do win- 

 ter the best and the cheapest wlien 

 they enter an almost perfect state of 

 quietude (one in which they consume 

 very little food, hardly making a 

 sound or motion of the air ; one 

 which is aided by an even cool tem- 

 perature, but not a low or changing 

 temperature ; one in which at all 

 times circulation is going on in their 

 bodies, the same bodies exuding 

 warmth— bodies which will move at 

 once if touched, and always possess- 

 ing sensation), then we will agree in 

 regard to the best condition for bees 

 during winter. But the theory is not 



