March 1908. J 



257 



Apiculture 



In view of this, up-to-date apicultur- 

 alists have devised a method of increase 

 more nearly on the lines of natural 

 swarming which never disheartens the 

 bees. 



SCIENTIFIC INCREASE. 



"When a hive throws out a swarm what 

 does that swarm take with it? Three 

 things. A queen, plenty of young bees 

 and a great amount of honey— every 

 bee being gorged. Our object, there- 

 fore, must be to secure these necessities 

 for a new colony ; and they will then 

 settle down contentedly. 



Now, it is a simple matter to induce 

 bees to gorge with honey ; smoke 

 them and tap the sides of the hive. 

 Again, if you shake a frame of bees, the 

 young bees will fall off more than the 

 old. Therefore you have the outline of 

 the operation clear. 



Cover the entrance-hole of a hive with 

 wire gauze or perforated zinc Place 

 four or five frames in it, one of which, at 

 least, containing honey (or you can fill 

 an empty comb with syrup) but no brood. 

 The other frames can be filled with 

 empty comb or foundation. Shove these 

 frames up to one side of the hive and 

 move a dummy-board up against them. 

 This dummy-board should have a half- 

 inch space between its base and the 

 floorof the hive— or even an inch. Light- 

 ly tack a piece of stuff over the frames 

 and dummy-board, leaving a flap suffi- 

 cient on the side of the dummy- 

 board to cover the rest of the hive. 

 Your new hive is now ready to receive 

 bees. 



From a very strong colony take out, 

 one by one, four or five frames and, 

 lowering each in turn half into the 

 empty part of the new hive, give a quick 

 jerk or two downwards. This will dis- 

 lodge all the young bees and most of the 

 old ones. Return the shaken frames 

 back to the parent hive. The bees left 

 in it will be sufficient to hatch the brood 

 from the shaken frames. 



When the bees are shaken off the 

 frames, they will fall to the floor-board 

 and at once run under the dummy-board 

 and form a cluster in the middle of the 

 new hive. But you must be very care- 

 ful not to shake the old queen in with 

 them. Cover up the new hive and carry 

 it into a cool, dark place, where it must 

 remain six hours. By that time all the 

 bees have discovered that they are hope- 

 lessly queenless, and will accept with 

 joy any queen offered them. Moreover 

 they are so madly intent on trying to get 

 out, that they have no time to attend 

 to any other unfortunate that happens 

 to enter their prison. If you do not 



mind cutting your hive, you can .bore 

 an inch hole at one end and stop it 

 with a cork. But, of course, if your 

 hive is double-walled, you must have 

 two holes (one in each wall) opposite 

 one another and connected by a metal 

 tube. The queen can then be grasped 

 between the forefinger and thumb- 

 she will not sting -by the thorax, very 

 gently, and headed into the hole when 

 the cork is drawn. The hive should 

 now, if possible, be at once taken to 

 a spot at least a mile away, and the 

 entrance opened. There the bees can 

 remain a fortnight before being brought 

 back. But, if you cannot take them 

 so far, then keep them imprisoned three 

 days— but in this case a lot of bees 

 will die of fretting. 



If you were careful to make the 

 bees gorge well before shaking, you 

 now have what is practically a natural 

 swarm which will settle down content- 

 edly as such. And you can take 

 another shake of bees from the parent 

 hive in about a fortnight or three weeks. 

 It does not really matter whether the 

 queen you run into the new hive is 

 a virgin or not. Preferably not ; but if 

 she is, when she has been accepted, 

 you can introduce a frame of brood 

 (ever so little) in order to keep the 

 bees from following her out on her 

 wedding-flight— or the same result can 

 usually be achieved by means of copious 

 feeding. 



If the weather is wet or there is 

 little nutural feed after making an 

 artificial swarm, you had better feed 

 slowly so as to induce the new queen 

 to lay regularly and well, In a month 

 your new stock ought to be growing 

 very strong. 



Bees may be taken from several hives, 

 provided a frame be shaken from each 

 hive without allowing too long a time 

 to elapse between the shaking of each 

 frame. But you must always be very 

 careful not to get the queen in haphaz- 

 ard shaking. Again, if a populous 

 hive throws out a very large nutural 

 swarm, this can be divided, if you 

 like, into two or three " shakes," and 

 each will rapidly build up if given a 

 fertile queen. 



It may also be useful to remember 

 that, before running a queen into a 

 "shake," you can utilize that "shake" 

 to start queen-cells in your cell-cups. 

 But you must, of course, be careful 

 to remove all the cups prior to run- 

 ning in a queen. If the cups are left 

 with the " shake " for a day, they 

 will be so far advanced as to be readily 

 acceptable to a nursery-hive in the usual 

 way. 



