PUBLISHED EVERY WEEK 



AT $1.00 PER ANNUM. 





35tli Year. 



CHICAGO, ILL., MAY 16, 1895. 



No. 20. 



Corjtributed /Krticlcs^ 



On Imfiortant Aiiiarian Sut>Jecrts. 



Something on the Prevention of Swarming. 



BY C. DAVENPORT. 



I believe the majority of bee-keepers, especially in the 

 North, favor natural swarming. They claim better results 

 can be obtained by allowing each colony to swarm once. I 

 am very glad to say that I cannot agree with them, not that I 



we have queen-traps and swarm guards which are a great 

 help, although they do not work as well«as some might infer 

 from reading about them, especially in large yards, for when 

 the traps or guards are used swarms will sometimes alight and 

 mix up, and occasionally two or three will go, or try to go, 

 into one hive, and if there are any e.xtra queens around, virgin 

 or otherwise, swarms will sometimes accept one of these, and 

 pull for the woods. I have lost a few swarms this way, and it 

 was a great mystery to me why tliey left, when I had their 

 queens trapped. I never knew the reason until recently, 

 when Hon. R. L. Taylor explained the mystery in a late num- 

 ber of the Review, saying that a swarm will accept, in the 

 absence of its own queen, any other laying queen, and less 

 readily a virgin queen. In a large apiary there are apt to be 



Sespc Apiari/, owned hy Mr. J. F. 31clntijrc, at I'iUmore, Calif .—Looking Wesf^'ard. 



like to disagree, for I do not, but I am glad that I can obtain 

 as good, or better, results without allowing natural swarming, 

 and thus save a great deal of hard work in chasing and climb- 

 ing after swarms. I have had all the natural swarming I 

 want on a large scale. I practiced this for a number of years 

 when I run only one yard, and in and near this yard were a 

 great many large trees in which many swarms would alight in 

 such high and inaccessible places that no swarm-catcher that 

 ever was or ever can be made would secure them. But now 



some of the latter around that have been driven from the 

 hives ; this is more apt to be the case if there are many box- 

 hives in the yard. 



I notice there is considerable favorable comment being 

 made on the plan of keeping colonics in box-hives for breeders, 

 allowing them to swarm, then put the swarms into shallow 

 hives, and run and depend on them for surplus. I have had 

 some colonies in box-hives, both large and small, and run 

 them on this plan for over ten years. One time 1 had over 50 



