104 



SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



start queen-cells when they had suf- 

 ficient room for all the storage capacity. 

 I found that they were excellent comb- 

 honey-builders, as far as they went, but 

 the record in amount of pounds was 

 away behind the common German bee 

 and the Italian, and a number of bee- 

 keepers could not distinguish them from 

 the common bee. But I do not think 

 I have really had them long enough to 

 say whether that is the natural tendency 

 or not. I think it is hardly a fair esti- 

 mate. I am wintering 75 of them, se- 

 lected ones, and I intend to try them. 



W. G. Reynolds — I haven't had ex- 

 perience myself, but a neighbor of mine 

 has. A year ago last summer he bought 

 some. He was away one day and a 

 swarm got out, and his wife attempted 

 to hive them, or to get them in, and 

 they got under her veil and she was 

 laid up for a week; and during the time 

 she was in bed, between life and death, 

 her sister attempted to hive another 

 swarm, and she had the same experi- 

 ence. 



Wm. M. Whitney — I have one colony of 

 Caucasian bees, but have not had them 

 long enough to form any definite opin- 

 ion as to what they may be worth. I 

 have handled them a good deal and they 

 seem very gentle. They are what are 

 called a "grey Caucasian." I have 

 handled them perhaps a half-dozen times 

 without smoke and without veil. They 

 go over the frames with their wings 

 about half raised, as if they were going 

 to fly, but still they are very gentle and 

 easy to control. I have been told by 

 some individuals, who had had consid- 

 erable experience, that they would al- 

 most close up the entrance with pro- 

 polis — they just daub everything up — 

 but that has not been my observation. 

 I don't know what they might do. I 

 simply got mine for the purpose of ex- 

 perimenting a little, to know for my- 

 self what to make of them. 



Cause of Swarming Impulse. 



"What is the chief cause of the 

 swarming impulse?" 



F. Wilcox — I venture the opinion that 

 that question is prompted by the state- 

 ment made that Caucasians show a tend- 

 ency to swarming, to building queen- 

 cells, and the question naturally arises, 

 Is that tendency a hereditary tendency? 

 Is one race or strain of b.ees more in- 

 clined to swarm than another, or is it 

 other conditions, such as atmosphere, or 

 diflferences of the season? There are 



various influences that tend to promote 

 swarming, but the question is. What is 

 the chief influence? And I wonder 

 whether the tendency to swarming is 

 anything against the Caucasians or not, 

 whether it is hereditary or not. 



H. F. Moore — It occurs to me that 

 the chief cause here is the insinct im- 

 planted in man, and all animal creation 

 from man down, to multiply and people 

 the earth. That is the reason why bees 

 swarm, and it is absolutely hopeless to 

 attempt ever to get rid of it. The ques- 

 tion is, Is it desirable to get rid of it? 



Mr. Wilcox — The question is. Is it 

 greater in one race than another? 



Dr. C. C. Miller— If it is not getting 

 away from the subject, I would like to 

 reply to Mr. Moore's remarks, that how- 

 ever undesirable it may be for him to 

 try to get rid of the swarming impulse, 

 there are a whole lot of us that would 

 give just about half our lives if we could 

 get rid of the swarming impulse. It 

 would take off half of the trouble we 

 have in bee-keeping. I, for one, have 

 been trying to find out for a good many 

 years what is down at the bottom of 

 it, that is, the answer to that question. 

 I don't know what it is, by any means. 

 I think possibly there may be a good 

 deal of reason in the answer that is 

 given by some, that the prime cause of 

 swarming, or the basic cause, at least, 

 is the accumulation in the nurse-bees 

 of a certain amount of the chyle food 

 they have prepared, and they become, 

 as you might term it, in that way 

 clogged with that, and then comes the 

 swarming fever. Now if Mr. Moore is 

 correct, of course we don't care any- 

 thing about that. I am sure that Mr. 

 Moore is "away off." In my case, I 

 would give a whole lot to know what 

 makes bees swarm, and put a percent 

 on top of that to know how to stop the 

 swarming. 



Mr. Moore — Produce extracted honey. 



E, K. Meredith — I suppose that the 

 impulse of swarming is in the relation, 

 to a certain extent, of birds laying eggs. 

 It is just simply a matter of nature 

 propagating or keeping up the race of 

 bees, just the same as any other bird 

 or animal does. That is my answer to 

 the question of why bees swarm. 



Mr. Abbott — I think about 15 or 20 

 years ago I wrote some articles for the 

 American Bee Journal, that seemed to 

 have a good deal of heresy in them, in 

 the minds of some of our brethren, 

 among them Dr. Miller; and I think I 



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