December 11, 1890. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
527 
variably cast a considerable quantity of their foliage. To do them well 
they should occupy a light position in a low house, or on a shelf close to 
the glass, where the temperature ranges about 50° at night. These 
p’ants are easily grown, and deserve more attention for decorative 
purposes. 
APIARIAN NOTES. 
Bees Entering Supers. 
What is the best method of inducing bees to enter supers ? or 
what is the reason my bees will not enter their supers ? These and 
similar questions are frequently sent, not only by beginners, but 
by bee-keepers of some experience. Yarious reasons may be 
assigned, such as being too late in placing them on ; the same result 
may arise from being too early. In both cases the bees will swarm ; 
in the former because they were crowded in the hive, and the 
worker cells filled with eggs, larvae, or pupae, and as honey becomes 
plentiful the newly vacated cells of the hatching bees are filled 
with it. Whenever a queen is in any way restricted in performing 
her maternal duties the bees naturally raise royal cells, and when 
once these are begun no effort of the bee-keeper short of excising 
these cells and giving more breeding space will prevent swarms 
issuing. Even this has not always the desired effect, but a young 
queen with the same provisions will prevent it, at least for a 
time. 
In the latter case the interior of the hive is cooled, much in the 
same way as when the brood is spread the cluster of bees is con¬ 
tracted, and outlying eggs and brood are extracted, and the space 
above and at the side of the bees is filled with honey, and bees 
do not travel over sealed honey freely, and swarming ensues, 
but in an inferior or impoverished form. On account of the egg¬ 
eating the swarm is generally much smaller than it would otherwise 
have been. 
Bees also refuse to enter supers if breeding has been stopped 
through a stress of weather, the hive being much in the same con¬ 
dition as when supers are placed on too early. To induce bees to 
enter supers satisfactorily and at the right time they should be 
placed on at the right time, when honey is beginning to flow, and 
the bees almost on the eve of crowding out, and to prevent any 
attempt at swarming ample breeding space must be maintained. 
The Lanarkshire hives permit an internal examination of any 
division without removing one or the other, and although it is 
unadvisable to open up hives when bees are at active work, it is 
sometimes advisable to do so. 
The bee-keeper and the beginner should not only study the bees, 
but the weather. The bees must be strong, the weather fine, and 
the flowers yielding honey, before supers are placed on, but then 
not a moment should be lost until that is done, and in such a way as 
to give the bees neither labour in propolising chinks nor in reducing 
the temperature of the hive. 
Swarming. 
The beginner is never long in discovering the vagaries of bees 
when swarming. Nor is it possible to give here all the instruc¬ 
tions necessary to hive bees under every form they assume, or 
from any position they may take. One thing, however, is certain, 
the best way is to get the bees into their permanent hive at 
once. With the majority of modern frame hives this can only 
be done satisfactorily in a few instances, while many a swarm has 
been lost or much trouble given by a second hiving, owing to 
shaking the bees into them from another receptacle, which is 
obviated no doubt by waiting till near dusk, but necessitating the 
loss of a day’s working, being the most important, too, to any 
swarm of bees. 
The hiving box described some years since obviates the risk of 
bees taking a second flight, and secures the first day’s work, which 
may be augmented by giving the bees a frame or two of built-out 
comb. I have had swarms increase in weight from 5 to 10 lbs. the 
day on which they swarmed when provided with combs. 
The same kind of box may be used for single-cased hives. Bee¬ 
keepers should have several pairs of steps and ladders (the former 
are very handy when there are good fences to cross), which pre¬ 
vents their destruction or the necessity of having to creep through 
them. Before the population increased to the extent it is there 
were more tall trees in our neighbourhood, and good hedges often 
of dense growth. Where bees often hived in such inaccessible 
places great difficulty arose in getting the bees out and into their 
permanent hive, smoke and tobacco juice being the only agents in 
those days employed in the dislodgment of bees from the thickets. 
Gooseberry bushes and a few scraggy t' e "S and hedges are the 
principal places to which our bees betake themselves for their 
temporary hiving place. When a swarm issues I seldom allow it to 
settle, but at once proceed to get the bees to take to their perma¬ 
nent hive (which is lighter than double-cased ones) or to the hiving 
box, and I seldom fail. Whenever the bees begin to cluster I either 
place the hive or box above them or catch them in a bellglass,. 
tumbling them into the hive or upon the alighting board, when,, 
with the full doorway, they as a rule commence “ fanning ” and 
enter the hive, when the others with the queen follow. After a 
little experience beginners will soon learn the advantage of placing 
bees into their permanent hive at first, and without bother. Bees 
very often swarm upon a twig, and all the bee-keeper has to do is 
to detach it from the branch with a sha~p knife, and placing it upon, 
the ground with the hive over it ; the bees ascend in a few minutes 1 -. 
But the greatest difficulties arise when the bees take to places that 
a hive or box can neither be placed over nor under them. When 
the bee-keeper observes them taking to such places he should pre¬ 
vent their settling by smearing the place with crude carbolic acid. 
A few feathers tied to a light rod of sufficient length to reach the 
place saturated with the acid is all that is necessary to drive them 
from their would-be retreat, and a little smeared on the part will 
prevent their returning, and is almost certain to cause them to settle 
in a more convenient place. 
If at any time a swarm settles on a tree too high to reach from 
the ground or by the aid of an ordinary ladder, I use my hiving 
apparatus, upwards of thirty years old. It consists of a light 
wooden box, but may be made of cloth upon a frame of wire, the 
lighter the better, and a series of poles each about 4 feet G in length, 
and are held together by long tin ferrols, and may be extended to 
a great height. 
One of the poles, which (the upper one) has a revolving arm. 
and a pulley on the top back and front, which when a cord is passed 
over them, which reaches from the bottom at whatever the length 
of the poles may be, and suspends the hive at the top under the 
front pulley. 
To secure the swarm hoist the hive until it can be set right' 
above the cluster and the bees soon creep into it. To hasten their 
doing so apply the rod with the carbolicised feathers to the bottom 
of the cluster, and you will be delighted with the simple but 
effectual plan. When once the bees are mostly up slacken the cord, 
and let the hive down by its own weight, then transfer to their 
permanent hive without delay. 
There is still another way the hiver may be applied. It some¬ 
times happens that it is unsuitable to hive the bees in the manner 
described, and they have to be shaken into the box. An arrange¬ 
ment in the shape of two hooks near the top of the rod on which 
the hive is hung ; a small cord passes through a staple and is.- 
fastened to the light lid of the box, and is raised or lowered by the 
operator on the ground, who, if the bees are favourably suspended 
by a lateral movement of the hiver on the cluster, most of the 
bees with their queen will fall into it, and in a moment on slacking 
the cord the lid drops without killing a bee. If an assistant is 
present, and near the cluster, he can arrange the cord so that they, 
may be let down gently, as stated above. 
