Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee: A Bee Keeper's Manual

by L. L. Langstroth

The honey-bee would have been of comparatively little service to him, if instead of tarrying until he had sufficient time to establish them in a hive in which to labor for him, their instinct impelled them to decamp, without any delay, from the restraints of domestication. In this, as in many other things, we see that what on a superficial view, appeared to be a very obvious imperfection, proves, on closer examination, to be a special contrivance to answer important ends.

To return to our new swarm. The queen sometimes alights first, and sometimes joins the cluster after it has commenced forming. It is a very rare thing for the bees ever to cluster, unless the queen is with them; and when they do, and yet afterwards disperse, I believe that usually the queen, after first rising with them, has been lost by falling into some spot where she is unnoticed by the bees. In two instances, I performed the following interesting experiment.

Perceiving a hive in the very act of swarming, I contracted the entrance so as to secure the queen when she made her appearance. In each case, at least one third of the bees came out, before the queen presented herself to join them. When I perceived that the swarm had given up their search for her, and were beginning to return to the parent hive, I placed her, with her wings clipped, on the limb of a small evergreen tree: she crawled to the very top of the limb, as if for the purpose of making herself as conspicuous as possible. A few bees noticed her, and instead of alighting, darted rapidly away; in a few seconds, the whole colony were apprised of her presence, flew in a dense cloud to the spot, and commenced quietly clustering around her. I have often noticed the surprising rapidity with which bees communicate with each other, while on the wing. Telegraphic signals are hardly more instantaneous. (See Chapter on the [Loss of the Queen].)

That bees send out scouts to seek a suitable abode, it seems to me, can admit of no serious question. Swarms have been traced to their new home, either in their flight directly from their hive, or from the place where they have clustered; and it is evident, that in such instances, they have pursued the most direct course. Now such a precision of flight to a "terra incognita," an unknown home, would plainly be impossible, if some of their number had not previously selected the spot, so as to be competent to act as guides to the rest. The sight of the bees for distant objects, is wonderfully acute, and after rising to a sufficient elevation, they can see the prominent objects in the vicinity of their intended abode, even although they may be several miles distant. Whether the bees send out their scouts before or after swarming, may admit of more question. In cases where the colony flies without alighting, to its new home, they are unquestionably dispatched before swarming. If this were their usual course, then we should naturally expect all the colonies to take the same speedy departure. Or if, for the convenience of the queen over fatigued by the excitement of swarming, or for any other reason, they should see fit to cluster, then we should expect that only a transient tarrying would be allowed. Instead of this, they often remain until the next day, and instances of a more protracted delay are not unfrequent. The cases which occur, of bees stopping in their flight, and clustering again on any convenient object, are not inconsistent with this view of the subject; for if the weather is hot, and the sun shines directly upon them, they will often leave before they have found a suitable habitation; and even when they are on the way to their new home, the queen being heavy with eggs, and unaccustomed to fly, is sometimes from weariness, compelled to alight, and her colony clusters around her. Queens, under such circumstances, sometimes seem unwilling to entrust themselves again to their wings, and the poor bees attempt to lay the foundations of their colony, on fence rails, hay-stacks, or other most unsuitable places.

I have been informed by Mr. Henry M. Zollickoffer of Philadelphia, a very intelligent and reliable observer, that he knew a swarm to settle on a willow tree in that city, in a lot owned by the Pennsylvania Hospital; it remained there for sometime, and the boys pelted it with stones, to get possession of its comb and honey.

The absolute necessity for scouts or explorers, is evident from all the facts in the case, unless we admit that bees have the faculty of flying in an air-line to a hollow tree, or some suitable abode which they have never seen, though they cannot find their hive, if, in their absence, it is moved only a few rods from its former position.

These obvious considerations are abundantly confirmed by the repeated instances in which a few bees have been noticed prying very inquisitively into a hole in a hollow tree or the cornice of a building, and have been succeeded, before long, by a whole colony. The importance of these remarks will be more obvious, when I come to discuss the proper mode of hiving bees.

Having described the common method of procedure pursued by the new swarm, when left without interference to their natural instincts, it is time to return to the parent stock from which they emigrated.

In witnessing the immense number which have abandoned it, we might naturally suppose that it must be almost entirely depopulated. It is sometimes asserted that as bees swarm in the pleasantest part of the day, the population is replenished by the return of large numbers of workers that were absent in the fields; this, however, can seldom be the case, as it is rare for many bees to be absent from the hive at the time of swarming.

To those who limit the fertility of the queen to 200, or at most 400 eggs per day, the rapid replenishing of the hive after swarming, must ever be a problem incapable of solution; but to those who have ocular demonstration that she can lay from one to three thousand eggs a day, it is no mystery at all. A sufficient number of bees is always left behind, to carry on the domestic operations of the hive, and as the old queen departs only when the population of the hive is super-abundant; and when thousands of young bees are hatching daily, and often 30,000 or more, are rapidly maturing, in a short time the hive is almost as populous as it was before swarming. Those who assert that the new colony is composed of young bees which have been forced to emigrate by the older ones, have certainly failed to use their eyes to much advantage, or they would have seen, in hiving a new swarm, that it is composed of both young and old; some, having wings ragged from hard work, while others are evidently quite young. After the tumult of swarming is entirely over, not a bee that did not participate in it, seeks afterwards to join the new colony, and not one that did, seeks to return. What determines some to go, and others to stay, we have no certain means of knowing.