JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
474 
[ June 9, 1881. 
case to the swarming of bees ? Careful preparation is made in a 
bee hive for an increase of population, for emigration and colo¬ 
nisation, and for placing a queen over every colony. During 
the spring months steady progress is made till the crisis of 
swarming is reached. The hive becomes crowded to excess ; 
fanning is resorted to, to save the community from suffocation ; 
and even while the fanning process goes on bees may be seen 
coming to the door and on to the flight board for fresh air. A 
glut of honey may come, giving the bees less room inside ; a 
change in the weather may render the inner life more unbearable 
and cause clustering outside. These indicate the approaching 
crisis of swarming. The moment arrives and the rush commences. 
The bees, with rations for three days’ keep, run to the point of 
the flight board before they take wing, and when on the wing 
what a noise they make, whirling and twirling above and around 
their hives 1 Attempts to swarm without making a great noise 
would be a failure ; for by noise bees follow one another, keep 
close together, and gather into a cluster on a hedge or tree. 
About two-thirds of the bees of a full hive go with the first 
swarm and never return. The bees with the old queen bid a final 
adieu to the old hive, and those left in the old hive are more 
c imfortable and better off without their old companions, 't hough 
without a queen, they contentedly await the birth of a princess. 
She has rival sisters which come to maturity about the same time 
and covet the high position of the first-born, and iu every en¬ 
counter between queen bees the result is fatal to one of them. If 
the bees wish to send off a second colony they endeavour to 
prevent encounters between young queens by keeping the reigning 
queen from attacking her sisters in their cells, allowing all to 
pipe and bark at one another for three full days as much as they 
like. If the bees determine not to swarm, piping is prevented and 
the supernumerary queens are killed. This is a brief and well- 
known story of what takes place in swarming. 
That it is natural for bees to swarm all apiarians admit; and, 
in our opinion the day is not far distant when advanced api¬ 
arians will consider that, in the profitable and successful manage¬ 
ment of bees, the swarming system should be generally carried 
out. I say generally, for in very unfavourable seasons and under 
special circumstances and aims wise bee-keepers alter their plans 
and modify their practice. The exception, however, is not the 
rule. The more I practise bee-keeping and consider the subject, 
the more I am convinced that the swarming system of manage¬ 
ment in competent hands is the best for profit to bee-masters, 
best for strength of hives and health of the bees. 
The readers of the Journal of Horticulture have been frequently 
told that if they make their hives doubly strong with bees in 
autumn they cannot well fail to be successful bee-keepers or to 
obtain swarms, and with these in fine seasons they may have 
large harvests of honey. Large hives made strong with bees in 
autumn is the shortest and easiest road to the highest excellence 
in apiculture. 
Swarming generally commences in May and continues till the 
end of June. Iu Scotland swarming is permitted to continue for 
eight or ten days in July, but there, and also in some parts of 
England, Heather abounds, which lengthens the honey season till 
September. Circumstances and the aims of the bee-master must 
determine when swarming should end and supering commence. 
The taking or rejection of second swarms is a point that should 
be decided by the bee-master, for he best knows the size of his 
hives and the locality around them. From large early swarmers 
we have found that second swarms are an advantage, and from 
later swarmers a disadvantage in our localities. In sending off 
second swarms about half the bees go with the swarms and half 
remain in the old stocks. Second swarms from large hives weigh 
about 3^ lbs. each; from small hives about 1^- lb. each. First 
swarms from small hives are proportionately larger than from 
large hives—that is to say, that though second swarms from small 
hives are, generally speaking, not half so large as those from large 
hives, the first swarms from the former come to within about one- 
third of the size of swarms from large hives. This is not easily 
accounted for. The reason may possibly lie in the fact that 
clustering outside before swarming is usual with small hives—not 
so with large ones, which swarm without clustering as a rule. 
After the queen and first swarm have left a stock tue brood 
nearly filling it continues to be hatched into bees daily for three 
weeks. Thus there is a great increase of population and some¬ 
times a decrease in weight—always a decrease in weight if honey 
be not gathered enough to make good the loss of weight in brood. 
But the cells which yielded the brood are empty, making the effec¬ 
tive strength of the population great for work. In such hives 
there are both store-room and workers. Why, then, turn the bees 
out aud put them into an empty hive to begin house-keeping and 
comb-building again ? Why recommend a practice so against 
reason ? Well, this practice does seem unreasonable, and I dare 
not argue the matter. Still, I follow the practice when my stock 
hives are heavy enough to yield 20 lbs. of honey each on the 
twenty-first day after swarming, for 20 lbs. of honey realise 25s., 
which to me covers a multitude of defects in practice. Twenty- 
five shillings per stock hive at the first harvest is an agreeable 
profit. Then, in such seasons the swarms, two or more per stock 
hive, are working in hives with young combs, and the old combs 
all melted down. To dispose of old combs with advantage is a 
great satisfaction to me. How it is, let doctors tell, that swarms 
work, as a rule, harder than stock hives, and bees in young 
combs do better than in old ones. The fact only is noted here. 
The other fact, too, is worth remarking—viz., the introduction of 
comb foundations for the use of swarms, and the creation of 
natural combs in swarm hives by feeding for a few days when 
they first enter them. A good beginning may be thus made at 
the cost of a trifle of the 25.9. per hive profit alluded to.— 
A. Pettigkew, Bowdon , Cheshire. 
DRIVING BEES IN SITU. 
I WAS much gratified to find in the Journal of the week before 
last that you purposed giving the questions asked as well as the 
answer, as I have often wished to know what they were ; and, 
indeed, it would make the Journal doubly useful, and I hope you 
will continue it when space will allow. I now want you to be 
good enough to let me know whether, in driving bees from a flat- 
topped hive instead of turning up the hive and placing it mouth 
to mouth with another, I could not take out the bung at the top, 
place the empty hive over, and so drive the bees, as it would be 
much easier to do?— Clifton. 
[It is the nature of the bee to store her honey above the 
brood, or far from the entrance to her home. The reasons for this 
are two at least. 1st, In winter the warm air rising from the 
cluster always keeps the honey at such a temperature that the 
cells can be opened and appropriated, howsoever intense the cold 
without may be. If, on the contrary, the honey were below the 
bees, the store would instantly chill and benumb the owners if 
they attempted to touch it. 2nd, The honey is far from the 
entrance to save it from plunderers ; and leaving man and the bee 
itself, the chief of these, out of view, we find figuring here 
rats, mice, wasps, ants, and a host of other creatures large and 
small that would be quite willing to profit by such an arrange¬ 
ment as would allow them to get the honey first and meet its 
defenders afterwards. 
When assailed the bee rushes to the entrance to meet the enemy, 
but when frightened it retreats upwards to get at its store and fill 
its honey bag. In driving the agitation of the comb produces terror, 
and a rush upwards is the result; but by inverting the skep to be 
driven, the instinct aforesaid, instead of conducting tire insects to 
their store and giving them cover and security amidst their combs, 
puts them at our disposal. Our correspondent is quite right 
in supposing that if we can open a hive above driving is possible 
without inversion. Mr. Cheshire has, in one of his books, related 
how this was put to the test in the case of a Woodbury hive 
which had cross-built combs. To lift out any frame by itself was 
impossible. The cover was removed. An empty Woodbury minus 
floor-board took its place, and now drumming on the side soon sent 
the bees aloft, and the forced swarm remained on the stand, while 
in the absence of the bees the combs were cut out, straightened, 
and replaced. But although this was accomplished, the simple 
removal of the bung will not make its repetition possible with 
the skep. The combs are fixed to the roof, and the bees between 
the side combs will at their ascent find no exit, so that but a 
portion only will be secured. Again, the heavy honey at the top 
of the skep will by the rapping be by degrees detached, and the 
comb will probably drop in confusion, to the ruin of the colony 
our correspondent desires to secure. But if this disaster does not 
follow, the queen, if not in the centre to which the bung-hole 
opens, will simply wait against the hive top as under a bomb¬ 
proof while the bee-keeper’s artillery is attacking the walls. In 
driving a skep a few weeks ago we cut off the side of the house of 
straw, removed and transferred to frames more than half the 
combs, and not till then did we find the queen, gummy with 
honey, hiding in the recesses of the bung-hole, in which she had 
no doubt passed her time during each driving. This, which is not 
a very uncommon case, shows that if some cover can be found by 
the queen we are unlikely to secure her ; this being so, the chances 
of success in the manner our correspondent suggests are but meagre. 
The whole process, as ordinarily conducted, is so easy that to 
attempt it is to succeed, and we therefore counsel that the hive 
be inverted, and that by preference open driving be adopted, when 
