The following is the best plan for removing the wings from the queens. Every hive which contains a young queen, ought to be examined about a week after she has hatched, (see Chapter on [Loss of the Queen],) in order to ascertain that she has been impregnated, and has begun to lay eggs. Some of the central combs or those on which the bees are most thickly clustered, should be first lifted out, for she will almost always be found on one of them; the Apiarian when he has caught her, should remove the wings on one side with a pair of scissors taking care not to hurt her. On examining his hives next season, let him remove one of the two remaining wings from the queen. The third season, he may deprive her of her last wing. Bees always have four wings, a pair on each side. This plan saves him the trouble of marking his hives so as to know the age of the queens they contain.
As the fertility of the queen generally decreases after the second year, I prefer, just before the drones are destroyed, to kill all the old queens that have entered their third year. In this way, I guard against some of my stocks becoming queenless, in consequence of the queen dying of old age, when there is no worker-brood in the hive, from which they can rear another: or of having a worthless, drone-laying queen whose impregnation has been retarded. These old queens are removed at that period of the year when their colony is strong in numbers; and as the honey-harvest is by this time, nearly over, their removal is often a positive benefit, instead of a loss. The population is prevented from being over crowded at a time when the bees are consumers and not producers, and when the young queen, reared in the place of the old one matures, she will rapidly fill the cells with eggs, and raise a large number of bees to take advantage of the late honey-harvest, and to prepare the hive to winter most advantageously.
The certainty, rapidity and ease of making artificial swarms with my hives, will be such as to amaze those most who have had the greatest experience and success in the management of bees. Instead of weeks wasted in watching the Apiary, in addition to all the other vexations and embarrassments which are so often found to attend reliance on natural swarming, the Apiarian will find not only that he can create all his new colonies in a very short time, but that he can, if he chooses, entirely prevent the issue of all after-swarms. In order to do this, he ought to examine the stocks which are raising young queens, in season to cut out all the queen cells but one, before the larvæ come to maturity. If he gave them a sealed queen nearly mature, they will raise no others, and no swarming, for that season, will take place. If the Apiarian wishes to do more than to double his stocks in one season, and is favorably situated for practicing natural swarming, he can allow the stocks that raise young queens to swarm if they will, and he can strengthen the small swarms by giving to them comb with honey and maturing brood from other hives. Or he can, after an interval of about three weeks, make one swarm from every two good ones in his Apiary, in a way that will soon be described.
I do not know that I can find a better place in which to impress certain highly important principles upon the attention of the bee-keeper. I am afraid, that in spite of all that I can say, many persons as soon as they find themselves able to multiply colonies at pleasure, will so overdo the matter, as to run the risk of losing all their bees. If the Apiarian aims at obtaining a large quantity of honey in any one season, he cannot at the furthest, more than double the number of his stocks: nor can he do this, unless they are all strong, and the season favorable. The moment that he aims, in any one season, at a more rapid increase, he must not only renounce the idea of having any surplus honey, but must expect to purchase food for the support of his colonies, unless he is willing to see them all perish by starvation. The time, food, care and skill required to multiply stocks with very great rapidity, in our short and uncertain climate, are so great that not one Apiarian in a hundred can expect to make it profitable; while the great mass of those who attempt it, will be almost sure, at the close of the season, to find themselves in possession of stocks which have been so managed as to be of very little value.
Before explaining some other methods of artificial swarming, which I have employed to great advantage, I shall endeavor to impress upon the mind of the bee-keeper, the great importance of thoroughly understanding each season, the precise object at which he is aiming, before he enters on the work of increasing his colonies. If his object is, in any one season, to get the largest yield of surplus honey, he must at once make up his mind to be content with a very moderate increase of stocks. If, on the contrary, he desires to multiply his colonies, say, three or four fold, he must be prepared, not only to relinquish the expectation of obtaining any surplus honey, if the season should prove unfavorable, but to purchase food for the support of his bees. Rapid multiplication of colonies, and large harvests of surplus honey cannot, in the very nature of things, be secure in our climate, in any one season.
If the number of colonies is to be increased to a large extent, then the bees in the Apiary will be tasked to the utmost in building new comb, as well as in rearing brood. For these purposes, they must consume the supply of honey which, under other circumstances, they would have stored up, a part for their own use in the main hive, and the balance for their owner, in the spare honey-boxes.
To make this matter perfectly plain, let us suppose a colony to swarm. If the new hive, into which the swarm is put, holds, as it ought, about a bushel, it will require about two pounds of wax to fill it with comb, and at least forty pounds of honey will be used in its manufacture! If the season is favorable, and the swarm was large and early, they may gather, not only enough to build this comb and to store it with honey sufficient for their own use, but a number of pounds in addition, for the benefit of their owner. If the old stock does not swarm again, it will rapidly replenish its numbers, and as it has no new comb to build in the main hive which already contains much honey, it will be able to store up a generous allowance in the upper boxes. These favorable results are all on the supposition that the season was ordinarily productive in honey, and that the hive was so powerful in numbers as to be able to swarm early. If the season should prove to be very unfavorable, the first swarm cannot be expected to gather more than enough for its own use, while the parent stock will yield only a small return. The profits of the bee-keeper, in such an unfortunate season, will be mainly in the increase of his stocks. If the swarm was late, in consequence of the stock being weak in Spring, the early part of the honey-harvest will pass away, and the bees will be able to obtain from it, but a small share of honey. During all this time of comparative inactivity, the orchards may present
"One boundless blush, one white empurpled shower
Of mingled blossoms,"
and tens of thousands of bees from stronger stocks, may be engaged all day, in sipping the fragrant sweets, so that every gale which "fans its odoriferous wings" about their dwellings, dispenses
"Native perfumes, and whispers whence they stole[18]
Those balmy spoils."