AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



809 



Topics of Intgrest. 



ATOidlni Swarms, Placing Sections, Etc. 



C. W. DAYTON. 



The report of the Northwestern Con- 

 vention, at Chicago, on Nov. 19 aiid 

 20, as given in the American Bee 

 Journal, is the most Interesting con- 

 vention report I have ever read, there 

 being so much valuable matter in it, and 

 it is so well "boiled down." 



The most interesting part to me is the 

 "Prevention of Swarming," on page 

 720, and the preventives are mentioned 

 as scarcity of drones and abundant 

 space in the brood-chamber. 



Now, the question comes up as to what 

 kind of space it should be— space for 

 brood, honey, or bees, which ? Mr. 

 Dadant says for honey; T think, for all 

 of the three. If six or seven combs of 

 brood are in a mass together the bees 

 may swarm, when, to divide the brood 

 and put in two or three empty combs in 

 the center will delay preparations for 

 swarming. This change in the arrange- 

 ment of the combs of the brood-nest is a 

 damper in addition to the increased 

 space. In order to do this, use at least a 

 twelve-frame hive, and once in four or 

 five days put the two outside combs in 

 the centre, and the two center combs on 

 the outside, a little time before they pre- 

 pare to swarm, and there will be few, if 

 any swarms. With me it is not one in 

 one hundred. 



Non-Swarming' Strains. 



Mr. Root says: "Get non-swarming 

 strains of bees, as there are non-sitting 

 strains of poultry." Perhaps there are 

 as many non-swarming strains of bees 

 advertised as of poultry, yet the bees 

 swarm and the hens sit ; and Mr. Pop- 

 pleton says the " non-swarming " queens 

 are "no go." Every one knows how 

 easy it is to prevent the hen from sitting 

 by disturbing the nest often, but to 

 change her mind on the sitting question 

 after she has been sitting three or four 

 days, is a much more aggravated case. 



If we wait until there are eggs in 

 queen-cells before taking measures on 

 the swarming matter, we will be as 

 much disappointed as in disturbing the 

 sitting hen, as they are ordinarily more 

 than likely to swarm anyway. If the 

 cells are far enough advanced to be 

 capped, even inversion will do no good. 



They will swarm. That is exactly what 

 has been done — wait until the bees are 

 on the point of swarming before paying 

 them any attention, and then resort to 

 cutting out queen-cells, in the boiling 

 sun, and giving room. 



When it was found that these plans 

 would not prevent swarms then the sys- 

 tem of hiving swarms on empty frames, 

 and arranging excluders so as to make 

 the newly-hived swarms immediately be- 

 gin work in the sections, was adopted. 

 This was a case of " what cannot be 

 cured must be endured." It is far pre- 

 ferable to run the colonies straight 

 through the season, without a move 

 toward swarming. More can be handled 

 in the straightforward way. Indeed, I 

 have seen whole apiaries where the 

 apiarist was in perplexity as to which 

 hives to put the surplus receptacles on 

 to have them where the bees would store 

 honey in them. Swarming may make 

 a sort of oscillating, vibrating, reciproc- 

 ating state of the apiary, so when one 

 thinks he has the bees nicely settled 

 down to busness, he may discover it to 

 be just the contrary. 



A Poor Rule to Follow. 



We often see it advised to put on the 

 surplus receptacles when the bees begin 

 to whiten the tops of the brood-combs, 

 and build pieces of comb here and there. 

 True, it is evidence that more room is 

 needed; but it is just as evident also that 

 the room has been needed for some con- 

 siderable time, and the bees are certain 

 to have made preparations for swarming 

 by that time. If the colony is going to 

 swarm there is slight advantage in put- 

 ting the surplus receptacles on because 

 they will soon need to be removed and 

 put on another hive where the swarm is. 

 It is discouraging to get a colony nicely 

 at work in one or two racks of sections, 

 and then the bees swarm and leave them 

 empty. 



A Better Rule to Follow. 



The time to give more space is not 

 when the combs begin to whiten, but 

 four or five days earlier; and three or 

 four days earlier still to insure certainty. 

 When more room is required, if there is 

 a super half full of sections put on, and 

 the space for the other half of the sec- 

 tions left vacant, the new combs will be 

 extended upward three or four inches 

 into the cap of the hive by the time they 

 begin working on the comb-foundation 

 in the sections. And if there is no extra 

 enticement into the sections, the whole 

 of the other part of the cap will be stored 



