70 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



iu. Of the 14 hives treated on this plau, I 



fouud one hive witliout a queen in the fall. 



Rodney. Iowa. Jan. 23. 1893. 



Self- Hivers Versus Queen Traps.— The For- 

 mer are too Costly and Cause too Much 

 Labor, Loss and Bisk. 



B. L. TAyLOB. 



^ S an article to sell what a great thing 

 a self-hiver would be I It would be 

 far ahead of the moth trap. To talk 

 of bees hiving themselves is like real magic, 

 not mere slight of hand ; for without doubt 

 bees can be made to hive themselves iu a 

 way. And herein is the danger. They are 

 sure to be bought and disappointment and 

 loss are sure to follow, at least until further 

 improvements are made. 



I have been accustomed to look upon the 

 struggles of the half dozen inventions of 

 self-hivers as a source of amusement, but 

 when the editor of the Review goes so far 

 as only to say : "If self-hivers prove to be 

 the success they promise to be," I am a lit- 

 tle startled and feel like inquiring where is 

 there any promise ? Not in the fact that the 

 queen can be trapped and some bees secured 

 with her, surely. That is easy. But at this 

 point the trouble begins. 



What do we want a hiver for ? Not as a 

 curiosity. It must be of some practical ad- 

 vantage. Unless it will pay for itself and 

 some little more it will be of no utility. It 

 must effect a saving somewhere, either in 

 time, money, care, or labor, without a coun- 

 terbalancing loss in the same items or in the 

 amount of surplus secured. 



The self-hiver has no standing at all unless 

 at the very outset it practically secures the 

 entire swarm every time. That it does even 

 this, judging from what the inventors say of 

 each others device and the known perversity 

 of bees in not conducting themselves as the 

 apiarist thinks they ought to, is not yet by 

 any means certain. But until it does this it 

 must fall in competition with the queen- trap 

 which prevents the loss of swarms at much 

 less expense with the additional advantage 

 that it more readily gives up the secret that 

 a swa*m has passed through it. But for the 

 sake of the argument let it be admitted that 

 the hiver will do all that is claimed for it 

 and that it will practically secure the entire 

 swarm every time, how does it stand then in 

 comparison with the queen-trap ? 



At the outset the cost of the traps is per- 

 haps but about one-twentieth of tlie cost of 

 the hivers for, of course, no one would think 

 of using them where they are liable to be in- 

 habited by bees for three or four days be- 

 fore discovery, without furnishing them each 

 with a full set of combs or frames of foun- 

 dation. 



The trap is adjusted in a moment perfect- 

 ly, while the adjustment of two hives to the 

 same level and to each other, is a most criti- 

 cal operation, even so expert an apiarist as 

 Dr. Miller, let his queen get out ; or if one 

 hive is put on top of the other, difficulties 

 actually insurmountable are encountered. 



If there has been swarming, where traps 

 are used, the apiarist by walking rapidly 

 along the rows of hives discovers at a glance 

 where it has been, but how is it with the 

 hivers ? Suppose you have an out-apiary of 

 150 colonies you must raise at best LW cov- 

 ers to determine where the swarming has 

 occurred, or if the Pratt hiver, the one that 

 seems to be in the lead, is used, you must 

 lift 250 old hii-es with the supers, heavily la- 

 den, as they are likely to be, to determine 

 from which hives swarms have issued, for the 

 hiver is put under the old colony ; and this 

 every time the apiary is visited if justice is 

 done. The editor of Gleanings says of Pratt's 

 tiering-up hiver : "The lifting of the upper 

 story is no great objection." Whew I I feel 

 exhausted at the very thought of it. And 

 then suppose three or four or five swarms had 

 come out at the same time and had united, as 

 they would surely do if they were at all like 

 mine, and had gone into one of the hives to- 

 gether, you would be sure the hiver was a 

 great success, but you would be quite oblivi- 

 ous of the three or four queens hid away iu 

 the corners of as many other hives with a 

 teaspoonful of bees each. The old queens 

 being shut out of their hives and the young 

 queens soon to be hatched being shut in, the 

 colony is doomed to speedy destruction un- 

 less the sharp eyed apiarist discovers that all 

 is not right. With the trap there is no such 

 risk or uncertainty. 



Again, in the absence of the apiarist, in 

 the hives having traps whence swarms have 

 issued, the storing in the supers has gone on 

 without abatement, while in the hiver, not 

 only has nothing been stored in sections, but 

 the brood-chamber has in all probability 

 been put into such shape that the bees will 

 be loth to enter the sections when they are 

 put on. 



