THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



45 



the cost of honey is the necessity of keeping 

 some one constantly on the watch for swarms 

 during two months of the year. It is the 

 greatest obstacle in the way of establishing 

 out-apiaries. If self-hivers prove to be the 

 success that they promise to be, a visit once 

 in three or four days, possibly once a week in 

 some instances, to arrange the colonies that 

 have swarmed, will be all that is necessary. 



In the commencement of this article it 

 was mentioned that the queen; accompanied 

 by a "bodyguard" of workers would re- 

 main in a queen trap after a swarm had is- 

 sued from a hive having-a trap in front of it. 

 Mr. R. L. Taylor takes advantage of this fact 

 to enable him to manage his bees without 

 close attention and yet dispense with the use 

 of a self-hiver. He has found that a queen 

 can safely be left three or four days in a trap 

 and that he can manage by visiting an api- 

 ary once in that length of time and dividing 

 those colonies that have swarmed. He says 

 that he has no use for a self-hiver, the queen 

 trap answering every purpose. It seems to 

 me that the use of the trap would do away 

 with the labor of dividing. The division 

 would be already made and there would be 

 only the work of placing the old colony on a 

 new stand, cutting out the cells, and trans- 

 ferring the supers to the n«w swarm, or per- 

 forming whatever manipulations the bee- 

 keeper found necessary. There is one point 

 in favor of the Taylor-plan, there would be 

 no break in the work being done in the sec- 

 tions, whereas, by the self-hiving arrange- 

 ment, work is stopj)ed in the supers until 

 the apiarist appears to make the changes 

 necessary to get the bees at work again in the 

 supers. 



I should i>e glad to have Mr. Taylor, or any 

 one who has had experitruce, write upon this 

 point or upon any other connected with this 

 important subject and we will make a " self- 

 hiver number " of the March Review. 



Since the above was written there is anoth- 

 er point occurs to me that ought to be con- 

 sidered, and that is the trouble arising from 

 two or more swarms issuing at the same 

 time and uniting in the air. The larger the 

 apiary, the greater becomes this drawback. 

 This same difficulty, however, has to be con- 

 tended with in any system of management 

 that allows the bees to fly in the open air 

 when they swarm. In a large apiary, re- 

 quiring an attendant constantly during the 

 honey harvest, a swarm catcher is away 

 ahead of a self-hiver. 



eXTRT^OXED. 



Wintering Bees Under the Snow.— It is 



Likely to be a Failure. 

 Every little while some one asks if it is ad- 

 visable to keep the snow away from the hives 

 in the winter, or let it cover them over. Mr. 

 Doolittle, in Gleanings says, well, here is the 

 vital part of what he says: 



'.'I have found that, if the hives are cover- 

 ed two-thirds the way up the brood-cham- 

 ber, it is a great advantage; but if the hives 

 are covei-ed two-thirds the way up the cap or 

 cover, or completely over, it is a positive 

 damage to the bees, and worse than no snow 

 at all. 



The difficulty seems to be that, as soon as 

 the hives are covered with snow, the warmth 

 of the ground, combined with the warmth of 

 the bees, makes it so warm that the bees be- 

 come uneasy, go to breeding, consume large 

 quantities of honey, thus distending their 

 bodies and using up their vitality, causing 

 them to die of old age during February, 

 March, and April, while the young bees have 

 not the usual strength and vitality of bees 

 hatched in September and October to with- 

 stand the rigors of winter, so spring dwin- 

 dling and death are the result." 



Why the Younger Bees Cling to The ir Hive 

 Even if it is Moved. 



Some of the readers of the Review may 

 remember that Mr. B. Taylor did not make 

 the success of the revolving non-swarmer 

 that he had hoped. ( )ne thing that he had 

 expected was that it would equalize the col- 

 onies — make the strong weaker and weak 

 stronger. As it turned out, the colonies 

 strong in the spring remained so. 



The Heddon method of preventing after- 

 swarming, by leaving the old colony by the 

 side of the newly hived swarm for a week 

 and theu placing it upon a new stand, is not 

 always a success. Why these things are thus 

 and so, Mr. Doolittle explains as follows in 

 Gleanings : 



" In ' Stray Straws,' found in the Decem- 

 ber loth issue of Gleanings for 1892, I find 

 this : ' A common error is to suppose that, 

 in setting a weak colouy in place of a strong 

 one in order to strengthen it, it is important 

 that the change be made when the largest 

 number of bees are out. There will be just 

 as much gain if the change is made at mid- 

 night.' Usually we find Dr. Miller saying 

 ' I guess so,' or ' I shouldn't wonder,' or ' I 

 don't know :' but here is a positive state- 

 ment, made under his name, and, strange to 

 say, that, in dropping his usual discreetness, 

 he has fallen into an error which he could 

 not have fallen into had he been so discreet 



