346 



^mm MMKKie-Mif ®b® jiQ>^'MmmiL. 



^^^^^^^^^^^'^^^^AA^A^^^Ai^A^^A^A^mA^A^^^.^A^^ ^^^^A.^^^^^A.A^^.A.^^^ 



the blades of grass, and trj'ing to t;ike 

 wing. The open end of the cage, the 

 stopper being witlulrawn, is held im- 

 mediately over her, when she at once 

 enters and the cage is elosed, plaeed 

 in a basket, and the basket hung by its 

 hook in a tree ontof the sun, at a plaee 

 where the swarm may find the queen. 

 Take a new hive to the one sending out 

 the swarm, removing the latter from 

 ■its place and turning it around, put the 

 new hive where the other stood, and 

 change the section-eases from the old 

 hive to tlie new. In the meantime the 

 swarm has found the queen, and is 

 soon clustered in the basket, when I 

 pour the bees out upon the ground in 

 front of the hive prepared for them, 

 and when they fairly take up their 

 march for their new home, I release 

 the queen and see that she runs into 

 the hive, because many of the bees 

 will refuse to go in until she does. 

 This is hardly done before another 

 swarm issues. I cage' the queen and 

 arrange the hives as before, but the 

 swarm, instead of finding the queen 

 in the basket, begins to cluster at 

 another place, so I at once remove the 

 basket and hang it near that point, 

 and the swarm at once takes possession 

 of it. Before this one is fully hived, 

 another swarm is in the air, and bj' 

 the time I have caged its queen, it dis- 

 covers her absence, and is already re- 

 turning as I place their new hive in 

 position. I hasten the return by 

 placing the queen at the entrance, 

 and as soon as the bees are rapidly 

 alighting I release and run her in. 



It is now 10 o'clock, and swarming 

 has fairly begun. Two swarms now 

 come out almost at the same moment, 

 and unite in the air. I cage their 

 queens, but notice that the swarms 

 are attracted by the commotion at the 

 hive into which the last swarm was 

 put, and are already beginning to 

 alight there. I push the queens into 

 my pocket, snatch a sheet and the 

 smoker, and spreading the former over 

 the hive threatened with invasion, 

 with a few pufVs of smoke from the 

 latter, 1 drive away the flying swarms, 

 when they begin to cluster on a neigh- 

 boring branch of an apple tree. I at 

 once put each queen in a basket by 

 herself, and hang the baskets together 

 where the cluster is forming. Soon 

 one basket has its share of the bees, 

 and I steal it away and hang it out of 

 sight in thick foliage, or set it in the 

 bee-cellar. 



Now other swarms come out — tive 

 in pretty quick succession — so I take 

 • the otiier basket with the swarm and 

 hang it in plain sight on a branch 

 favorable for holding a large cluster 

 of bees, and convenient for shaking 

 them off. Here, attracted by the 

 swarm in the basket, all swarms will 



for the present congregate. I now 

 proceed lirst to cage all the queens out, 

 and all others as they come out and 

 put them in Ijaskets hung near tlie 

 cluster, or out of the way in the shade 

 until wanted. Then as I have time I 

 arrange the hives, and hive swarms 

 taken from the general cluster, giving 

 each a queen until all the bees are 

 distributed. 



It would make a long story to re- 

 count all the expedients at times re- 

 sorted to, to induce the bees to assist 

 in making their hiving easy, hut the 

 foi'egoing indicates the general method 

 pursued. Sometimes a swarm will 

 clu.ster out of reach from the ground. 

 In such cases, if practicable, a basket 

 with the queen is hung und^r the clus- 

 ter near the ground, and with a little 

 shaking the cluster drops down, the 

 queen is soon discovered, and the 

 swarm gathers in the basket, or, if 

 more convenient, a pole is used with a 

 hook for the basket, say 20 inches 

 from the upper end. The basket is 

 raised with the pole and held under 

 the cluster, while the latter is jarred 

 off with the upper end of the pole. 



With undipped queens on a good 

 day for swarms, I should be almost in 

 despair. I have had but one queen 

 superseded that I thought was super- 

 seded on account of clipping, and she 

 had all four wings cut off short. My 

 queens are not superseded soon enough 

 to please me. I find too many that are 

 approaching three years in age. 



Lapeer, Mich. 



HIVES AND NECTAR. 



Winter Losses and Large Hives 

 — Selling Bfeetar. 



Written for the American Bee Jmi/maX 



BY WILLIAM CAMM. 



Out of 90 colonies my loss will be 

 fully one-third. Looking for a better 

 location last fall, I expected to move, 

 or sell my bees, and would not break 

 the brace-combs to look int<j them, 

 preferring to let the winter weed them 

 out, as we need a race of bees here 

 that can stand drouth. 



Most of the white clover was killed 

 bj' the excessive dry weather of last 

 year ; om- spring rains passed without 

 getting nnich into the ground, as the 

 frost was not out when they fell. The 

 weather has continued dry, and though 

 apple-trees are blooming profusely, 

 the weather is too cool for bees to get 

 mucli from them. 



M;iny express impatience at the cool 

 weather ; but it is our only hoiie for 

 rain. We have no moisture to send 

 up to form th(! clouds that give us local 

 rains, and summer showers ; and 

 should it turn warm, a calamity would 



result ; for the heat radiated by the 

 exposure of so much bare soil to an 

 ardent sun, would force up to the con- 

 densing point and exhaust, and clouds 

 that could otherwise reach us from a 

 large body of water. 



Hives to Suit Ijoralltles and Seasous. 



Small hives may do for southwestern 

 Michigan, where prevailing winds give 

 rains from the lakes, but they will not 

 not do here, unless we are able and 

 willing to feed back more than the 

 profits of our apiaries. Mj' frame is 

 10x12 inches, outside measure. I have 

 60 hives with 10 frames and telescope 

 caps, 5 Armstrong hives of the 

 "Crown" pattern, and 25 hives with 



13 and 14 frames, of my own make, 

 but single-walled. All were treated 

 alike, except the 25 of the colonies in 

 10-frame telescope hives had been used 

 last season, with an upper stoiy for ex- 

 tracting, and such colonies usually do 

 not store as much in the brood-cham- 

 ber as colonies used for producing 

 comb honey. 



All of m}' bees were exposed to the 

 winter on the summer stands ; but half 

 of the colonies in the 10-frame hives 

 are dead from starvation ; 15 of those 

 used for extracting having gone, al- 

 though they had the advantage of 

 double walls ; only one in the 13 and 



14 frame hives has died, though the 

 walls were single, and no frames were 

 taken out, or division-boards removed ; 

 while none in the Armstrong hives 

 died. 



I much prefer the 10-frame hive for 

 convenience in handling, and with 

 good seasons it will allow of as great 

 a yield as a large hive ; but since we 

 cannot make the season to suit the 

 hive, we must make the hive to suit 

 the season. 



Selling Neetar on Land. 



On page 282, W. J. Wilier suggests 

 the selling of nectar land. Nectar is 

 a natural product that cannot be gath- 

 ered without the bee, and those who 

 take the troubh^ to keep bees, should 

 have the nectar for tlieir pains. We 

 must not forget, in this connection, 

 that the bee was not made primarily, 

 to gather honey,but to fertilize flowers; 

 the gathering of honey is only inci- 

 dental, and inducive to the fertilization 

 of flowers. If, then, the bee-keeper 

 should have to pay the land-owner for 

 the nectar the bees gather, the land- 

 owner should, in strict equity, pay the 

 bee-keeper still more for the service 

 performed bj' his bees. 



But there is another phase to this 

 question that must not be overlooked. 

 We decided a hundred years ago that 

 men were endowed by their Creator 

 with an inalienahk' right to life, etc., 

 but we liave made a farce and mock- 

 ery of this self-(n-ident truth by prae- 



