THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



43 



upper part of the trap. If a swarm is seen 

 when issuing, the operator moves the old 

 hive to one side, puts a new one in its place, 

 and as the bees are entering the hive, having 

 returned to the old location, the queen is al- 

 lowed to join the swarm. If the swarm is 

 not seen when issuing, the queen is trapped 

 just the same and remains in the trap, a 

 small cluster of workers remaining with her 

 and feeding and protecting her. When a 

 queen and a cluster of bees are found in a 

 trap it is known that the colony has swarmed 

 and the apiarist can divide the colony or 

 treat it as he thinks best. (That is another 

 story.) 



Now, friends, don't you see that there is 

 but a single step from this queen trap to the 

 putting of an empty hive by the side of the 

 old one, connecting the two by means of a 

 tube in which is placed a cone, then when the 

 queen in her attempts to follow the swarm 

 will enter this tube and crawl along until she 

 comes to the entrance of the new hive which 

 is in waiting. Of course the entrance to the 

 new hive is also covered with queen-exclud- 

 ing metal so that the queen cannot escape. 

 To Mr. Alley also belongs the honor of taking 

 this "next step." 



DIBBEKN SELJr - HIVEK. 



Every bee-keeper knows of the inclination 

 of bees to climb upwardH. In trying to climb 

 up, the queen sometimes wasted so much 

 time that the swarm returned before she had 

 found and entered the tube at the side. To 

 remedy this difficulty, Mr. C. H. Dibbern 

 placed the new hive on top of the old one and 

 formed a passage way from the front en- 

 trance of the old hive to the new one on the 



top. This remedied one trouble but not the 

 last one. When bees swarm and their queen 

 is not with them they return to the old loca- 

 tion. They will go back to exactly the same 

 spot. Even though the queen is found at the 

 entrance of a hive near by, only a portion of 

 the bees will join her. As a rule, I presume 

 that the queen is not discovered until the 

 swarm returns, and when the bees make up 

 their minds to return they often come back 

 with a rush, and tumble pell mell into the 

 entrance of the old hive before they even 

 have time to discover the queen that is be- 

 hind the bars at the entrance of the neigh- 

 boring hive. 



This was the fault of self-hivers, that they 

 secured only a small portion of the swarm, 

 when Mr. E. L. Pratt conceived the idea of 

 having the new hive placed in front of the 

 entrance of the old hive, the bees passing 

 through this hive when on their way to and 

 from the old hive. 



Right here I think that I can do no better 

 than to copy from Gleanings an illustration 

 of the Pratt hiver and a portion of the ac- 

 companyiag description as given by Mr. 

 Pratt : 



"The hive to receive the swarm is placed 

 in front of the colony expected to swarm. 

 The front ends of both bottom-boards are 

 abutted so as to form a continuous passage 

 from the swarming colony through the new 

 hive. A little block is placed into the open 

 space between the two hives, so that the bees 

 cannot escape from that way. By covering 

 this space with wire screen, the ventilation 

 of the hives will be sufficient for the stron- 

 gest colonies. 



With this arrangement the bees are forced 

 to go and come through the new hive with 

 their honey and pollen. A triangular zinc 

 bee-escape is now placed on the bottom- 

 board inside the new hive, with its open base 

 close up against the entrance of the colony 

 expected to swarm. This escape is made of 

 perforated zinc, and has a hole in its apex for 

 the queen to escape through. The outside 

 entrance to the new hive is covered with an 

 ordinary excluder, so that the queen can not 

 escape from within the new hive after she 

 passes the zinc escape. 



When the swarm issues, the bees rush pell 

 mell through the zinc escape and empty hive 

 into the air. The queen on finding she can 

 not get through the zinc at the entrance, will 

 pass down the escape, and is led through the 

 hole in the apex, when she will quickly enter 

 the new hive, where she will be effectually 

 trapped. All the exits to the new hive being 

 covered with excluding zinc, the queen is 

 made a prisoner inside the new hive ; and as 

 soon as the bees that have swarmed into the 

 air miss their queen, back they will come to 

 the old entrance, as their instinct dictates, 

 thus automatically hiving themselves in the 



