JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
494 
[ June 16, 1881. 
queen cells and supering, or clearing by the extractor a comb of 
honey from the side, and putting this in the centre of the brood 
nest, or, if honey is not at the time being yielded, simply shaving 
off the capping and inserting it centrally, will help us in our 
object; but we are talking of swarming now and not its preven¬ 
tion. Before explaining our methods, however, let us try to meet 
a possible objection. If supers are on and being filled, then 
swarming is most to be dreaded, and then the examination cannot 
be made ; no, but due caution at the time of supering may have 
made the probabilities of swarming remote. If hatching brood 
was then made to occupy the centre of the hive while younger 
brood and eggs stood towards its end the natural process of matu¬ 
ration has constantly been opening new cells to receive the eggs, 
the queen is waiting to deposit, and the crowding of the brood 
nest, which is the bees’ natural prompter to colonisation, has been 
prevented. 
But we are intent upon making our swarm artificially. Our 
hive is very strong, and either cells are growing, or we have 
some ripe ODes, or, better still, a queen already laying waiting for 
insertion. The swarm we will suppose is not for ourselves, but is 
to go to a distance. It may travel in a skep, inverted over the 
mouth of which canvas or cheese cloth is tied, or we may use 
what is commonly called a swarm box—that is, a rough case, a 
convenient size for which would be a foot long, and 10 inches high 
and wide. It is not composed wholly of wood, 
--— 6 but has two large openings—one in front at 
the lower part, and the other in the back at 
top. The lines given indicate a cross section. 
At b perforated zinc is permanently fixed ; at a 
zinc is also nailed after the bees have entered. 
In addition to the hive to receive the swarm we 
require a flat board, not less than 30 inches 
a _ each way, and a dome queen cage or little lid¬ 
less box of some kind. We open the hive as it 
stands, and search for the queen. The excitement and slight use 
of smoke cause the bees to gorge while we inspect the combs. 
The mother is found, and is carefully picked off by the wings and 
placed beneath the cage, which is stood over the frames upon a 
piece of card. The hive is now removed to give place to a stool 
the height of the hive stand, upon which our large board is now 
placed, while upon it we plant our swarm box or skep, propping 
the front if the latter with a stone. We take our first comb from 
the stock, sharply jerking it downwards over the board in front 
of the swarm box. The bees fall, the older ones at first taking 
wing, but the younger commence a quick march in ; a second 
comb is brought and treated as the first. The queen cage 
follows, and we satisfy ourselves that the carefully liberated 
tenant is safely housed. We add bees from other combs, and if 
we are pressed for time scoop up those upon the board towards 
the entrance of the box, using a large address card for the pur¬ 
pose. If we commenced operations in the evening we may leave 
our box till dark, and then, placing the perforated zinc over the 
opening, nail up and have ready for transit at once. It is better 
when honey is being freely gathered to operate in the morning, 
because at the close of a day’s work the limpid nectar is thrown 
out by the jerking of the combs and somewhat agglutinates the 
bees ; but in the morning the gathering of the previous day has had 
the advantage of thickening by evaporation during the night. 
The hive should now be returned to its stand to receive all 
those that had been left on the wing at the removal of the box. 
A few very young bees always drop upon the ground, and would 
be lost if we neglect to put a stick thence to the alighting board. 
Although unable to fly they will crawl up this and enter the stock. 
If the swarm to be made is to remain with us, and the hive it is 
to tenant carries a frame of a different size from that of the old 
hive, we proceed as before, finding the queen and caging her first. 
This is important, for if we commence work by removing the 
hive we may be made nervous in feeling that the queen ought at 
once to be found, and may have in consequence to repeat with 
emphasis “ The more haste the less speed ! ” The queen secured 
the hives change places, and about three combs have their bees 
jerked from them. The remainder of the swarm will be made by 
the flying bees. The door of the old stock will be contracted, 
while it should have a bottle of very thin syrup (1 lb. of sugar to 
a quart of water) given to it, as this will supply the water needful 
for the grub-raising, and will enable the bees to remain at home 
to keep at this work. The swarm should also be fed with syrup 
(3 or 4 lbs. of sugar to a quart of water), and may now be treated 
precisely as a natural swarm, and will as such receive further 
notice hereafter.— Frank R. Cheshire, Avenue House, Acton, W. 
How I take Artificial Swarms from Bar-frame Hives. 
—I remove the crown boards, take a bar hive the same size, and 
place it on the top of the one I want to drive ; I then blow some 
smoke in at the mouth of the hive ; then drum it (it takes rather 
longer drumming than a straw hive). I look in at the windows 
to see when there is a good swarm. There are four windows in my 
hives. The hives are 16 inches square and 11 inches deep. 1 
then take it off, place it by the side of the parent hive, same as 
you would the straw. I then put in the ten bars and close it 
up. I have adopted this plan for three years, and found it 
answer well.—J. M., Lincoln. 
BITTER HONEY. 
In some places and seasons bees work on Dandelions and Rag¬ 
weed (Senecio Jacobsea) when more eligible honey flowers are 
scarce, and the honey gathered from the flowers of these plants 
is dark in colour and disagreeable in taste. It is to be regretted 
that bees ever touch Ragweed and Dandelion, for the honey 
gathered from them is worse than useless, as the bees deposit it 
in cells beside good clear honey. In this way the bad spoils the 
good and makes it unsightly and unsaleable. Honey gathered 
from Dandelions and Ragweed is of a dark green colour, and 
when seen through the cells of white comb appears to be as brown 
as porter or treacle. A bee-keeper at Partington, about five miles 
from Bowdon, came to see me ten days ago, when he said that 
one of his supered hives had swarmed after half filling its super 
with honey gathered from Dandelions, honey which he described 
as “black and bitter.” About a week ago while walking about 
in Dunbam Park, I called to see the gardens at the Hall, and 
found that the gardener had six hives full enough for swarming. 
One had a glass super on it filled with brood and black honey 
sealed up. Another full hive exhibited its black honey through a 
glass lid in its crown. The gardener said he had found, about a 
week before I called, that his bees had been among the Dande¬ 
lions. He was asked what he would do with the dark-coloured 
honey. He said it might do “ for feeding bees in winter, or be 
used like Dandelion coffee for people with diseased livers.” 
Though I have long known that bees work on Dandelions and 
Ragweed in times of scarcity, I have never had in my apiary the 
dark-coloured honey.—A. Pettigrew. 
REVIEW OF BOOK. 
The Stewarton: The Hive fur the Busy Man. By the Rev. E. 
Bartrum, M.A., Berkhampstead. 45 pages. London : Long¬ 
man, Green, & Co., Paternoster Row. 
This little manual is an honest attempt to popularise the so- 
called Stewarton hive and system of management. It includes 
the paper recently read by the author before the British Bee¬ 
keeper’s Association with the discussion that followed, and several 
appendices from the well-known pen of “ A Renfrewshire Bee¬ 
keeper,” and is illustrated sufficiently to make plain the text. 
As may be supposed under the circumstances, it is by no means 
one-sided, like certain other productions of those who have “ an 
axe to grind.” True, the skep system is ignored in the discussion, 
it being taken for granted that the modern hive must be such as 
to permit the inspection of the cells and the easy manipulation of 
the combs. Probably the Association may yet bring forward 
some champion of the skep system whose paper will be looked for 
with much interest. In this manual the discussion thus mainly 
turns upon the comparative merits of the octagonal Stewarton 
and the ordinary rectangular bar-frame hive. Naturally it 
divides attention between the hive and its management. The 
advantages of the octagonal form are discussed on the lines of 
conformity to Nature, and were it not impossible to have uniform 
and interchangeable frames in such a hive we should at once con¬ 
cede the position. Besides, the form of the hive and its frames 
(for it seems to be admitted that it must have moveable frames) 
renders it difficult to make except by experts. It is against it 
also that it does not admit of using the modern and, we believe, 
indispensable sections, without at least altering one portion of 
the hive to the rectangular form. 
Under the head of Management we are of course placed under 
the tuition of the ablest exponent of the system, “ A Renfrew¬ 
shire Bee-keeper.” We are told to put two prime swarms into 
the hive at an interval of some days, to tier up or nadir as occa¬ 
sion may require, manipulate slides, &c. We wonder why this 
system should be admitted, except of course the sides and pegs, 
by those who discussed the matter as peculiarly the Stewarton 
system. Did those hives “ with legs ” have to do with the admis¬ 
sion ? Ever since we used bar-frame hives we have been in the 
habit of tiering up or nadiring just as “ Renfrewshire ” does. 
Abolish “ those legs ” and all things are possible. 
Our author candidly admits that “ for purposes of manipulation 
