SWARMING CONTROLLED.
How to control swarming is truly an important question. I believe the successful controlling of swarming is the key to success and profit in bee keeping. Now how shall we do it. I will tell you. But first a few preliminary words. If swarms are desired, we arrange in early spring to have them issue in the swarming season, and at such a time as will best suit our convenience. When no swarms are wanted, we turn the whole force of bees to storing surplus honey in small glass boxes, throughout the entire season, and have no swarms, yet have the same increase of bees that would be gained if they swarmed. Then all the bees work at storing honey in boxes, instead of swarming out; and to any one who has not tested the matter, it is surprising to see the amount of honey which a swarm of bees will store when not allowed to swarm, and fed judiciously; ample box room being provided, of easy access, so that all the bees have room to work; and by this plan, we are not constantly watching and waiting for swarms with uncertainty throughout the entire summer, for we know with certainty, when and where to look for swarms. In my plan, the swarming properties of bees are effectively controlled, without frequently disturbing or overhauling them, but by observing rules strictly in accordance with the habits and instincts of bees.[1]
[1] Here let me be clearly understood. I admit that bees will sometimes swarm, with abundant room for work in their boxes. Yet I claim that on my plan, all increase by swarming may be prevented without great trouble or perplexity, such as has heretofore attended all attempts to bring about this greatly to be desired object. If a person commences bee keeping, with a certain number of swarms in Controllable Hives, and in early spring gives the bees access to the side boxes, and later, after they commence work in them, gives the bees access to the top boxes, giving them otherwise ordinary care, (except to feed if desired,) but a small proportion will swarm on the average yearly. Much the larger portion will work in the boxes without swarming out, and give a handsome yield of surplus box honey, the yield of course being governed by the amount of feed given them, and the yield from flowers, etc. But if increase of stocks is preferred, rather than surplus honey—if the bees are not given access to the boxes, but confined in their labors to the brood section of the hive, being fed as directed, nearly every one will swarm, and swarm early. After long experience, however, I recommend putting on the boxes early, we shall thus, in most cases, get a greater profit than otherwise.
If you wish your bees in Controllable Hives to swarm, keep the partition in place at the sides of the brood section, and the honey board over the top; or in other words, keep the bees confined in their labors to the central or brood section of the hive. Now, if you wish them to swarm in any particular week of the swarming season, ten days before, remove the old queen. [It is well to keep her, and to do so take with her about a pint of bees, and put them in a small miniature hive, six or eight inches square, with moveable frames, like those in the central part of the Controllable Hive. Keep them shut in twenty-four hours; then give them their liberty, and they will work the same as a large swarm through the summer; but will not winter. If such queens are known to be very old, it is best to destroy them when we take them from the swarm. Keep only young, vigorous queens!] The bees in the hive from which you have taken the queen will in nearly every instance construct queen cells immediately to replace the loss of their queen. At the earliest possible moment, they seem to sense fully their loss, and to know that if they do not get another queen at once, their loss is irreparable. They usually will construct a number of cells, perhaps a half dozen or more. These will hatch in about ten days, and then swarms will issue.[2]
[2] Should any stock fall to swarm within two weeks from the time the queen is removed, at the end of that time, examine such stock, and if they have no queen, they must be furnished with one. About one stock in twenty, deprived of its queen as directed, will fail to rear queens.
If you wish to devote but little time to your bees, and are not particular as to the time of swarming, and wish to have but very few swarms, or perhaps none at all, early in the spring, as soon as the bees commence their work, put on the boxes (sides and top) and give the bees access to them; side boxes first, top boxes later. By this course, but a very small proportion of your stock will swarm, (if this plan is to be practiced each year, it will be necessary to replace the old queens with young ones, every three or four years: if this is not done, queens will die or become barren from old age, and consequently loss of stocks follow; keep this point in your mind; young, healthy, prolific queens are essential to success,) as they will have ample room in the boxes for their labor. Occasionally a hive treated in this way will swarm, and if you wish to have no increase of stocks whatever, if a swarm comes out, hive it in a light box, and as soon as this is done, go to the hive which they came from and smoke lightly, if the bees are cross, lift out the comb frames from the brood section with the bees adhering; examine each and every comb carefully, for queen cells, and cut off all but one. Success here depends on care and thoroughness, for if you leave more than one cell, your bees may swarm out again in a day or two.
After this is done, spread a sheet on the ground; set a light box, like the one in which you have the bees, near one side; raise the edge towards where you will shake the bees one inch or a little more, to give the bees a chance to enter the box. Shake the bees from the hive, by a quick, jerking motion, upon the sheet, the most of them some two or three feet from the box. With a large spoon or ladle, put a few up near the box, so they will enter, and disturb the others gently with a quill or light brush. When they commence to enter the box, they will set up a loud and continual humming or call, and the bees on the sheet if lightly disturbed with the quill or brush, will spread out and march toward the hive, while those on the wing will alight, and join them in the march. Now look closely for the queen and capture her. If she is not found before the bees get into the box, shake them out again, and go through the same process, till you find her. As soon as you have secured the queen, the bees in a few minutes, finding themselves destitute of a queen, and not having the means of raising another to take her place, will rise on the wing, and return to the old stock from which they came, and will not come out again, but will work in the boxes throughout the season. I will treat of this subject of swarming no further in this chapter. The merits of the Controllable Hive and New System of Bee Management will be fully shown further on in this work, and the most explicit instructions given for rearing bees with profit.
CHAPTER III.
PATENT AND NON-PATENT HIVES, BEE JOURNALS, ETC.
I HAVE learned from bitter experience, as has nearly every one who has kept bees for any length of time, the dishonesty, and utter disregard for truth, of a class of speculators who prey upon the unsuspecting bee-keeper. Patent Hives—the great majority of them—are a curse and a hindrance to successful and profitable bee-keeping. I have no time to describe the multitude of worthless patent hives, and the many tricks and swindles of the venders of the same, but I advise every bee-keeper to consult his own interests, and have nothing to do with them. Ninety-nine out of every hundred are a swindle. I have tested their merits and know whereof I affirm.
I am sorry to find that many of the bee journals and bee-keepers' associations are conducted on prejudiced and selfish motives, and in the interest of some individual, or company of men, for the sole purpose of making money from the sale of some particular hive or fixture, without regard to merit, or value to the practical bee-keeper. All honest discussion, with a view to bring out facts and figures to guide the inexperienced bee-keeper in his labors is suppressed. The bee journals should be the disseminators of useful knowledge among bee keepers. I am sorry to find the reverse true with many of them. After a thorough investigation, I feel it my duty to advise bee-keepers, and those contemplating bee-keeping, not to take all for granted that you read in the bee journals, for if you do, you will be very likely to soon find yourself robbed of your money, and your bees ruined.
Very many who write for the bee journals with high sounding words, claiming to be adepts in bee culture, have really no practical knowledge of the nature and habits of bees. We have supported a host of speculators in our business, for a long time; the object of this class has ever been, how best to secure our hard earnings, and with no desire or effort to aid in rendering bee-keeping more profitable and desirable. The country is full of this class, and they always combine to crush out real merit in anything pertaining to bee culture, brought before the public by individual bee-keepers, who are laboring to advance the cause by giving their experiences, gained from hard every-day labor among bees.
For many years I have written articles on bee culture for the leading agricultural journals and newspapers. I have thus given much of my experience in detail, with no thought of further reward than the satisfaction of having contributed to aid bee-keepers in raising bees with greater profit, believing if all would so contribute of their practical experience with bees, great mutual benefit might be gained, and rapid progress made in successful and profitable bee culture. In consequence of my course in spreading information with a view to aid the cause, the class referred to in this chapter, and their tools are boiling over with wrath towards me, lying, and slandering me through the public press, and by every other means which their depraved natures can invent; all because I have succeeded by hard study in perfecting a hive and a new system of bee management, which is fast coming into general use among bee-keepers; consequently the sale of their worthless trash is decreasing rapidly. But I am anxious to get through with this part of my work, and reach the practical part, where I have the greatest confidence in my ability to give such information as will render bee-keeping profitable and desirable.
CHAPTER IV.
FEEDING.
FEEDING bees when judiciously managed, is the stepping stone to large profits from them. Bee keepers who have heretofore attempted to feed bees have met with poor success.
A bee keeper of my acquaintance paid fifty dollars for a patent apparatus for feeding bees together in the open air. The result was, soon after being fed, they commenced fighting among themselves. The weaker stock first fell prey to the stronger, then the stronger in turn were attacked, and the final result was, nearly every stock was ruined, and the plan abandoned in disgust after the first season's trial.
Now it is plain to every intelligent person, that in order to receive the greatest possible profit from bees, they must be fed. There can be no question as to the great benefit to be derived from feeding bees. The only question is, how, when and what to feed. It is as much a necessity to feed bees, as to feed our domestic animals, cows, sheep, etc., or to apply manure to plants, or any crop the farmer cultivates, to stimulate growth and increase the product and consequent profit of the same. We should look upon that farmer as either a fool or a lunatic, who should furnish his domestic animals no food, except what they obtained by grazing in the pastures and fields, the year round. And do you think his cows, treated thus, would yield him a large product of butter, cheese and milk, and consequently a good profit in dollars and cents? Do you think he would find his cows, managed thus, so profitable as to induce him to keep cows to any great extent? Let a farmer manage thus—take his cows to the barn, milk them, then turn them out the year round to graze and provide for themselves, taking them up only to milk them, furnishing them with no food except what they procure by grazing—how long, think you, would such a farmer have cows to milk? Yet this is a parallel case with the bee keeper who furnishes his bees with no food except what they can procure by their own industry. And is it surprising that bees treated thus pay no profit?
Again, the farmer who should year after year plant his corn, potatoes, etc., apply no manure, furnish no cultivation, yet expect to succeed in farming, harvest large crops, and get a good yearly profit in dollars and cents, and grumble because he did not, and at last abandon the business, asserting that there was no profit in farming, furnishes another parallel case to the bee keeper who lets his bees shift for themselves, and then grumble because they pay no profit, and at last abandons the business, asserting that there is no money in bee keeping.
It being self-evident that it is profitable to feed bees, it now remains to show how to do it with the greatest possible profit.