172 FIFTY YEARS AMOifG THE BEfi^ 



looked upon the issuing of a swarm with feelings other than 

 those akin to pain, unless it might be the first swarm I ever had. 



BAD MANNERS OF SWARMS. 



I am not an expert at hiving swarms. They don't act nice- 

 ly for me. After I have climbed a tree with laborious pains 

 and shaken down a swarm with a hive under it at jiist the 

 right place, the swarm instead of entering in a well-mannered 

 sort of style will just as likely as not keep flying back every 

 time it is shaken down, unless it should take it into its head 

 to give me more exercise by taking another tree. I got a 

 Manum swarm-cateher, but I do not remember that I ever used 

 it with success. One day when I was trying to use it, J. T. Cal- 

 vert, the energetic business man of The A. I. Root Co., was 

 here. He helped me. He made a catcher of his hands and put 

 the bees in the catcher by main strength. But they wouldn't 

 stay "catched," and they didn't. . So I don't like swarming, 

 even if I didn't think it interfered with the honey crop. 



WHY DO BEES SWARM! 



Upon no other subject connected with beekeeping have I 

 studied so much, tried so many plans, or made so many fail- 

 ures, as with regard to prevention of swarming. If I knew all 

 about just what makes a colony swarm, I would be in better 

 shape to use preventive measures; but I don't know all about 

 it. Of course I know that want of room and want of ventila- 

 tion may hasten swarming, and possibly some other things of 

 that kind ; but after all there is a good deal of mystery about 

 the whole affair. 



VENTILATION AND ROOM. 



I think it is of some use to take pains to see that the bees 

 are never cramped for room. I believe that raising the hive on 

 blocks % of an inch or more is a good thing. It is also a good 

 thing to rear queens from stock that has shown little inclina- 

 tion to swarming. Indeed, with room enough and ventilation 

 enough it is possible that bees would never swarm. Some one 

 will say to me that bees may swarm with a hogshead of room. 



