84 



THE BEEKEEPERS' REVIEW. 



have no premature swarms. When the 

 field-force is in proportion to the young 

 bees the probabilities of swarming are 

 past. 



ADV.A.NTAGES OF REMOVING 

 THE OUEKNS. 



About 12 years ago I went into the 

 yard, and in a little less than two days I 

 took away nearly all the queens in the 

 yard — over 120 in all. It was just at the 

 beginning of wheat harvest. I had ten 

 acres of wheat to harvest and only two or 

 three neighbors near me. I could get no 

 help, and I had to do the harvesting with 

 a cradle and rake. By taking away the 

 queens it gave me control of the swarm- 

 ing lor at least ten days. Not onh' this, 

 but I wanted every colony to have a 

 yoioig queen. Where we kill or take 

 away the queens, all of the swarming 

 must come in about three days, as the 

 first young queens all hatch in this timo. 

 .\nd it gives us partial control of the 

 mating of our queens if we have a choice 

 lot of drones for the occasion. We get 

 more knowledge of swarming in the three 

 days than we would get in 10 vears with 

 the common method of management. 

 Many things happen that would not oc- 

 cur if we ran our colonies for comb hon- 

 ey, and let them swarm as they are in- 

 clined. 



SVV.\RMING WITHOUT QUEENS. 



About II or 12 days after taking away 

 the queens I began to get a little nervous, 

 although I had that wheat in the stack, 

 for I kept thinking: "vSnppose 60 or 80 of 

 those colonies should swarm at nearly the 

 same time. Between 40 and 50 of those 

 colonies were run for comb honey, and 

 I was certain they luoiild swarm, so I 

 concluded to do soinetliiiii^. I went 

 through every colony run for comb 

 honey, and part of those run for e.xtract- 

 ed hone}% and destro\-ed all the queen 

 cells, except one in each colony of a few 

 of the choicest colonies I could pick out. 

 When I had this done I thought I had 

 performed one of the grandest achieve- 

 ments possible. I was sure everything 



was coming my way. Now let us see 

 the blunder I made. When the time 

 came for those colonies to swarm, nearly 

 all run for comb honey swarmed; at least 

 15 or 20 swarmed ivithout a queen. Some 

 of them swarmed and returned to the 

 hive. I opened the hives, and in nearly 

 half of those that had swarmed, I found 

 that no queen had hatched; and it was two 

 or three days before some of them had a 

 queen. 



ONE-H.\I.K .\ COLONY S\V.\RMS— THE 



OTHER HALF DOES NOT. 



There is a reason why these things 

 happen, but before I explain, let me give 

 you another experience I had; besides, it 

 is just what I need to explain and answer 

 these questions. The latter part of the 

 buckwheat bloom I had a colony of hy- 

 brids that was about to swarm, and it 

 was the only colony in the yard that I 

 expected to swarm. It occupied hive 

 No. 36, and was near the south side of 

 the 3ard. I could not be at home to look 

 after it, so I opened the hive, took 

 away the queen, and destroyed the 

 queen cells. Two months previous to 

 this I had purchased a number of queens 

 from different parties; and among them 

 were two queens that produced 5-banded 

 bees — the first I had ever seen. I took 

 a fancy to those bees, and I decided to 

 raise a few queens from this stock, .so I 

 had commenced feeding those two colo- 

 nies, and had put drone combs in one of 

 them for the purpose of raising drones. 

 This colony ( the one having drone 

 comb) occupied hive No. 190, and was on 

 the north side of the yard. After taking 

 away several combs containing drone 

 brood, and giving them to queenless col- 

 onies, I also fed those colonies. I found 

 No. 190 was getting rather light, and 

 would not be in good condition for win- 

 ter, .so I decided to build it up. To do 

 this, I went across the yard to No. 36, 

 where I had taken away the queen, eight 

 or nine days previous, took three frames 

 of brood, bees and all, destroyed the 

 queen cells on those three frames, and 



