7M 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Junk 



the same tiine that the bees do after having 

 tliscovered she is not in the crowd. Even if 

 she gets some little distance from the hive, 

 the lond hum they make as they return, Mill 

 guide her liome many times, but unless the 

 ajjiarist is at hand at such times to look af- 

 ter affairs, many (jueens will ]>e lost, and 

 the bees will rear a lot of young tjueens and 

 go into after swarming in good earnest, 

 making even the tirst swann an "after 

 swarm."' A German friend who knows lit- 

 tle of bee cultiu'e, once told me my bees were 

 swarnnng, and that if 1 did not ring, the 

 l)ells, &(!., they would cerUiinly go to the 

 woods. As I quietly picked up the (pieen in 

 passing the hive I told him if they started 

 to go away, ] would call them back. Sure 

 enough, they did start for the woods, and 

 had gone so far that 1 really began to be 

 frightened myself, when away in the dis- 

 tance we saw them suddenly wheel about 

 and i-etum to the , hive at our very feet. 

 ^Vhile he gave me credit of having some su- 

 pernatural power over bees, I felt extremely 

 glad I had taken precautions to clip all our 

 (pieen's wings but a few days l^efore. After 

 this 1 felt a little proud of my control over 

 these wayward insects until a tine swarm of 

 Italians started off' under similar circum- 

 stances, and despite my very complacent 

 positive remarks to the effect that they 

 would soon come home, they went off and 

 staid "oft".'"' In an humbler and I dare say 

 wiser frame of mind, I •' investigated," and 

 found they had joined with a very small 

 third swarm of black bees that had just 

 come from one of a neighbor's hives. I 

 tried to "explain,"'' but it required a tive 

 dollar bill to make matters so clear that I 

 could carry back my rousing swarm of yel- 

 low bees and sort out the black unfertile 

 queen, that they might be made to accept 

 their own. Thus you see my friends, how 

 many a slip there is in bee culture between 

 <"up and lip, and how very important it is 

 that you keej) i)osted and also "post" your- 

 self in some consi)icuous i)lace near or in 

 the apiary if you allow natinal swarming, and 

 do not want your golden visions— and bees 

 —to take, to themselves wings and fly away. 



AHSCONDINO IN EAKLY SPRING. 



This seems to occur just at a time when 

 you can ill aff'ord to lose a single bee ; and 

 worse still, only when our stocks are gener- 

 ally, rather weak, so that we dislike the idea 

 of losing any of them. In this case they do 

 not as a general thing seem to care ])articu- 

 larly for going to the woods, but rather take 

 a fancy to jmshing their way into s«nne of 



the adjoining hives, and at times a whole 

 apiary will seem so ci*azy with the idea, as; 

 to l>eeome utterly demoralized. 



A neighbor who made a hobby of smalT 

 hives — less than half the usual sire — one tine 

 April day had as many as 40 colonies leave 

 their hives and cluster together in all sorts 

 of promiscuous combinations. To say that 

 then" owner was pen^lf^xed, would be stating 

 the matter very mildly. 



Similar cases, th«iugh j^eiiiaps not as bad, 

 have been reported from time to time ever 

 since novices commenced to learn the sci- 

 ence of bee culture, and although cases of 

 swarming out in the spring were known 

 once in a great while l^efore the new im- 

 provements, they were nothing like the ma- 

 nia that has seemed to possess entire a]}ia- 

 ries— small ones — since tJie time of artificial 

 swanning, honey extractors, &c. We would 

 by no means discourage these improve- 

 ments, but only wani Ijeginners against ma- 

 king too niuch haste to l>e rich. Do no di- 

 vide or commence swanning your bees, until 

 they are abundantly strong ; have them go 

 into winter (piailei-s with an abundance of 

 sealed honey in tough old combs as far as 

 may be, give them hives with walls thick 

 and warm of some porous material, such as 

 chaff or straw, with a good thickness of the 

 same above, and you will have little cause 

 to fear any trouble from bees absconding in 

 in the si)ring. 



auscondixit nucleus swakms. 



This, like the above seems an outgrowth 

 of the artificial system of working with bees, 

 especially the plan of rearing queens in nu- 

 clei formed of two or three frames five or six 

 inches square. Tliis small hive system was 

 much in vogue about the year 1865. For 

 awhile all worked finely, but soon complaints 

 began to be heard that the bees left theii- 

 hives in a body, with the queen, whenever 

 she attemi)ted to take her flight to meet the 

 drones. Giving them unsealed lai'va% to 

 amuse and console themselves with while 

 she was absent, was then advised and it an- 

 swered very well for a time, birt eventually 

 one after another began to declare they 

 wanted no frame in the apiary for queiMt 

 rearing, smaller than the ordinaiy brood 

 frame. Since this but little has been heard 

 in the way of comi)laints of this kind of al)- 

 sconding. Where one lias the time to study 

 these little swarms, there is something very 

 interesting and amusing about them. We 

 have had them do finely for several weeks, 

 with [)erhaps no more than a good i)int of 

 bees. A good day's work during clover 



