204 



THE POMOLOGIST AND GARDENER. 



1871 



totes on mtt 



stopping Swarms of Bees. 



Bt S. J. Parker, M. D., Ithaca, N. Y. 



Ed. PoMOT-oaisT and Gabdener : I never had 

 but one swarm of bees to stop in the fifteen years I 

 have kept bees. I never lost a swarm by its coming 

 out of a hive after liiving and going off; and I owe it 

 to the fact that I use no molasses, saleratus, salt or 

 other dirty tMim '" my hives. I do not allow any 

 noise, nor confusion of any kind, as tin horns, bells, 

 looking-gla.sses to imitate lightning flashes, throw- 

 ing of dirt, or stones, or other nonitense when a 

 swarm comes out. My silly neighbors often drive, 

 by tin pans, dirty daubed hives, horns, bell ringing, 

 and all that little boys' play work, away or to my 

 grounds ; but I order it stopped, and more than 

 one swarm has been driven to my grounds to alight 

 by these absurd things. Talk of frightening a 

 swarm of bees! in this enlightened age! Why 

 don't you frighten Lake Michigan or the Mississ- 

 ippi River, or a thunder shower by stones, dirt and 

 tin horns? No ; keep still, that is the best way to 

 control a swarm of bees. I have from ten to thirty 

 swarms a year. Not one has ever gone off two hundred 

 feet from the hive it came, out of before it lit. The old 

 coots, that drum tin pans and blow horns and all 

 that, can't saj' as much. They chase with their 

 unwise din bees all over their own and neighbors' 

 lots often. 



Next, I give ordg dean hives, kept in a elean dry 

 garret of my house, to a swarm. No mouldy, dirty, 

 damp, old clatter-trap hive, made as nasty and re- 

 ■pvlsive as can be to the bees by salt, molasses, stink- 

 ing (to the bees) mint, whiskey, (a deadly poison to 

 a bee), or other, to the bees, nanseoiis disagreeable 

 things. Hence a swarm, with me, once in a hive, 

 always stays, with only one variation. In fifteen 

 years not a swarm ever has left my hive, except 

 two. First, the Queen got under a stick used to 

 hold the hive up and was killed. The swann was 

 restless at sundown and dark, making a moaning 

 noise. At daylight the next morning they came 

 out, and went back to their old hive, where I found 

 the dead Queen under the stick. So they left not 

 because of any go off to the swarm, but because 

 they could not survive without a Queen. Second, 

 a swarm was hived by me last year. They left the 

 hive at about ten o'clock the next day, and went 

 back in the old hive, and I found three dead 

 •gueens, probably all stung to death by each other, 

 in their fight for the queenship of the hive. So I 

 say, no man need loose a swarm, or have a fear of 

 the loss of one by their going off". IJe is to blame if 

 he loses one in a hundred swarms. 



Next, IharuUe my bees ruddy when hiveing them. I 



am as still as a mouse until they light, then I take 

 my stillness oflf— yet, I do nothing intentionally 

 that shall endanger a queen's life. How, then, am 

 Ir!(*;to them? First, I do not put them gently 

 into a hive turned upwards, because then they 

 might not get t!ie idea they had left their lighting 

 place. No ; I put the hive on two sticks, a little 

 ways off^a foot or two — and shake them down on 

 a flat space in front of the hive, a little roughly for 

 the purpose of letting every bee know tliat tJu-y are off 

 of tfieir lighting place. If they do not begin at once 

 to go in buzzin^g, I take a flat shingle, dust pan or 

 dipper, or flat stick and gently take up a pint or so 

 of them, and shake them quite hard down by the 

 entrance to the hive, so that they shall see it. If 

 half of the .swarm go in, and the rest are slow about 

 going in, why, I tell them to hurry up, that's all, by 

 sprinkling a little water on them, or by taking up a 

 pint more, and shaking them all over those that are 

 quiet. If they crawl up the sides of the hive, or on 

 top of it, I am not as gentle in sweeping them ofi" as 

 I might be. When I first began thi.s, I often got 

 stung, but I work it so as to hurry up the bees and 

 do not get a sting. Much lies in the way this is 

 done, and the immovable nerves one learns to 

 have by practice with bees. 



Again, I take my hived swarm, in ten to fifteen 

 minutes to their permanent stand, that is in ten to 

 fifteen minutes after I shake them ofl' of their light- 

 ing place. Sometimes this cannot be done so soon 

 — but do not let them stay over a lialf hour off of their 

 permanent -itand. If any bees are in any quantity 

 on the outside of the hive, [ brush them oft" on the 

 ground uliout their permanent stand. They have 

 no business out of the hive, and I let them know it. 

 I also immediately take the hiving cloth away, or in 

 a few minutes, and shake any bees on it, ou the 

 ground in front of the new hive, and adjust the 

 hive entrances as they are always to be. Lastly, I 

 never allow the least sunshine on the hive for twen- 

 ty -four hours before hiving bees, or for three days 

 after they are hived. Then I let the sun shine on 

 day by day a little, until all that naturally falls on 

 the spot, strikes the hive. 



Now I would not thank any man, unless lie his 

 better reasons than /, for any better or surer way to 

 hive bees. You sec, Mr. Editor, that I have put a 

 good deal of good natured snap in this article. The 

 truth is, I have stopped this gold pen, that has a 

 pretty sharp irridium point on it; and has stung 

 many a man a hundred or a thousand miles off, as 

 well as caused tens of thousands to be pleased. I 

 have stopped it tor a few minutes now and then, to 

 get as irritable word as I could think of For I am 

 so tired of these writers on bees, that Vant a good 

 "braying in a mortar" that their " folly may depart 

 from them," that I have let my gold pen loose in 

 this article, while I have been laughing at these 



