ADVANCED BEE-CULTURE 



41 



ing any more from issuing. As he works, 

 let him frequently cast his eye quickly 

 over the entire yard. The moment he 

 sees a swarm beginning to come out, let 

 him run to the hive, quickly remove the 

 supers and dash a quantity of water into 

 the hive. The effect is a mo.st radical 

 one; that swarm will not issue for at 

 least a day or two. Throwing water into 

 the brood nest is not injurious to the 

 brood or bees; as the water so used is 

 warm from having stood in the sun in the 

 pails heretofore mentioned. 



I believe that the majority of advanced 

 bee-keepers now hive their swarms by 

 having the queens' wings clipped, and 

 allowing the bees to return to the old 

 location, which they will do when they 

 find that the queen is not with them. 

 Of course the queen attempts to follow 

 the bees, and is found in front of the hive 

 by the bee-keeper, who cages her, and 

 sets the old hive to one side," replacing 

 it with a new hive prepared for the oc- 

 cupancy of the swarm. When the bees 

 return, they enter the new hive, suppos- 

 ing it to be their old home, thus hiving 

 themselves. While they are entering 

 the hive, the queen is allowed to run 

 in with them — and the work is done. 

 There is another method of carrying out 

 this principle; it is that of catching the 

 queen in a trap in front of the hive. The 

 lower part of the trap is covered with 

 perforated zinc, the perforations being 

 ot such size that the workers can pass, 

 but the queen finds and passes through a 

 cone shaped opening in the upper part of 

 trap. There she finds herself in another 

 apartment, and the chance that she will 

 find the narrow mouth of the cone and 

 return is as one in a thousand. The use 

 of the trap saves clipping the queen's 

 wings, also the trouble of looking for her 

 when the swarm is out, together with the 

 possibility of her being lost. The ob- 

 jections to the trap are its cost, a slight 

 hindrance to the bees passing out and in, 

 and its. interference somewhat with the 

 ventilation of the hive. A trap placed 

 over the mouth of a hive containing a 



newly hived swarm, will prevent loss 

 from "swarming out." Taking every- 

 thing into consideration, my preference 

 is clipped queens. 



If only one swarm would issue at a 

 time, there would be no difficulty at all 

 in managing swarms with clipped queens. 

 When two or more swarms come out at 

 the same time, and no water is thrown 

 between them, they are almost certain to 

 unite. After circling about for awhile 

 the bees return. If each bee would re- 

 turn to its own hive, all would be well; 

 but when the bees of one swarm begin to 

 go back, a large share of the bees in the 

 air follow them. A few bees from each 

 swarm usually return to their respective 

 homes, but the majority "follow my 

 leader. " It is impossible to give any set 

 rules that may be followed in such 

 emergencies. If only two swarms have 

 united, the bees may be allowed to enter 

 until it is estimated that one-half the 

 bees are in the hive, when it may be re- 

 moved and the other hive brought and 

 put in its place. It should not be for- 

 gotten that, as a rule, other things being 

 equal, a bee will do as good work in one 

 hive as in another. Some bee-keepers, 

 when several swarms come to one place, 

 take supers from other hives, where the 

 bees are working none the best, and place 

 them upon the hive into which the bees 

 are entering. As soon as the supers are 

 full of bees they are returned to the hive 

 from whence they were taken. A colony 

 made unusually strong by uniting 

 swarms, will store a larger quantity of 

 honey, but will be no stronger at the end 

 of the season. 



Another plan of managing, where sev- 

 eral swarms come out at the same time, 

 is not to allow the bees to return to hives, 

 but put the caged queens in baskets, 

 each queen in a separate basket, and hang 

 the baskets on the branches of a tree 

 where the bees show a disposition to 

 congregate. The bees soon find and 

 cluster about the queens in the baskets. 

 As soon as a queen is found with sufficient 

 bees to form a good swarm , remove that 



