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

by L. L. Langstroth

The transfer may be made of any healthy colony, and if they are strong in numbers, and the hive is well provisioned, and the weather is not too cool when the operation is attempted, they will scarcely feel the change. If the weather should be too chilly, it will be found almost impossible to make a colony leave its old hive, and if the combs are cut out, and the bees removed upon them, large numbers of them will take wing, and becoming chilled, will be unable to join their companions, and so will perish.

The process of transferring bees to my hives, is performed as follows. Let the old hive be shut up and well drummed[25] and the bees, if possible, be driven into an upper box. If they will not leave the hive of their own accord, they will fill themselves, and when it is ascertained that they are determined, if they can help it, not to be tenants at will, the upper box must be removed, and the bees gently sprinkled, so that they may all be sure to have nothing done to them on an empty stomach. If possible, an end of the old box parallel with the combs, must be pried off, so that they may be easily cut out. An old hive or box should stand upon a sheet, in place of the removed stock, and as fast as a comb is cut out, the bees should be shaken from it, upon the sheet; a wing or anything soft, will often be of service in brushing off the bees. Remember that they must not be hurt. If the weather is so pleasant that many bees from other hives, are on the wing, great care must be taken to prevent them from robbing. As fast therefore as the bees are shaken from the combs, these should be put into an empty hive or box, and covered with a cloth, or set in some place where they will not be disturbed. As soon as all the combs have been removed, the Apiarian should proceed to select and arrange them for his new hive. If the transfer is made late in the season, care must be taken, of course, to give the bees combs containing a generous allowance of honey for their winter supplies; together with such combs as have brood, or are best fitted for the rearing of workers. All coarse combs except such as contain the honey which they need, should be rejected. Lay a frame upon a piece of comb, and mark it so as to be able to cut it a trifle larger, so that it will just crowd into the frame, to remain in its place until the bees have time to attach it. If the size of the combs is such, that some of them cannot be cut so as to fit, then cut them to the best advantage, and after putting them into the frames, wind some thread around the upper and lower slats of the frame, so as to hold the combs in their place, until the bees can fasten them. If however, any of the combs which do not fit, have no honey in them, they may be fastened very easily, by dipping their upper edges into melted rosin. When the requisite number of combs are put into the frames, they should be placed in the new hive, and slightly fastened on the rabbets with a mere touch of paste, so as to hold them firmly in their places; this will be the more necessary if the transfer is made so late in the season that the bees cannot obtain the propolis necessary to fasten them, themselves.

As soon as the hive is thus prepared, let the temporary box into which the bees have been driven, be removed, and their new home put in its place. Shake out now the bees from the box, upon a sheet in front of this hive, and the work is done; bees, brood, honey, bee-bread, empty combs and all, have been nicely moved, and without any more serious loss than is often incurred by any other moving family, which has to mourn over some broken crockery, or other damage done in the necessary work of establishing themselves in a new home! If this operation is performed at a season of the year when there is much brood in the hive, and when the weather is cool, care must be taken not to expose the brood, so that it may become fatally chilled.

The best time for performing it, is late in the Fall, when there is but little brood in the hive; or about ten days after the voluntary or forced departure of a first swarm from the old stock. By this time, the brood left by the old queen, will all be sealed over, and old enough to bear exposure, especially as the weather, at swarming time, is usually quite warm. A temperature, not lower than 70°, will do them no harm, for if exposed to such a temperature, they will hatch, even if taken from the bees.

I have spoken of the best time for performing this operation. It may be done at any season of the year, when the bees can fly without any danger of being chilled, and I should not be afraid to attempt it, in mid-winter, if the weather was as warm as it sometimes is. Let me here earnestly caution all who keep bees, against meddling with them when the weather is cool. Irreparable mischief is often done to them at such times; they are tempted to fly, and thus perish from the cold, and frequently they become so much excited, that they cannot retain their fæces, but void them among the combs. If nothing worse ensues, they are disturbed when they ought to be in almost death-like repose, and are thus tempted to eat a much larger quantity of food than they would otherwise have needed. Let the Apiarian remember that not a single unnecessary motion should be required of a single bee: for all this, to say nothing else, involves a foolish waste of food. (See p. [116].)

In all operations involving the transferring of bees, it is exceedingly desirable that the new hives to which they are transferred should be put, as near as possible, where the old ones stood. If other colonies are in close proximity, the bees may be tempted to enter the wrong hives, if their position is changed only a little; they are almost sure to do this if the others resemble more closely than the new one, their former habitation. If will be often advisable, to transport to the distance of one or two miles, the stocks which are to be transferred; so that the operation may be performed to the best advantage. In a few weeks they may be brought back to the Apiary. In hiving swarms, and transferring stocks, care must be taken to prevent the bees from getting mixed with those of other colonies. If this precaution is neglected many bees will be lost by joining other stocks, where they may be kindly welcomed, or may at once be put to death. It is exceedingly difficult, to tell before hand, what kind of a reception strange bees will meet with, from a colony which they attempt to join. In the working season they are much more likely to be well received, than at any other time, especially if they come loaded with honey: still new swarms full of honey, that attempt to enter other hives, are often killed at once. If a colony which has an unimpregnated queen seeks to unite with another which has a fertile one, then almost as a matter of course they are destroyed! If by moving their hive, or in any other way, bees are made to enter a hive containing an unimpregnated queen, they will often destroy her, if they came from a family which was in possession of a fertile one! If any thing of this kind is ever attempted, the queen ought first to be confined in a queen cage. If while attempting a transfer of the bees to a new hive, I am apprehensive of robbers attacking the combs, or am pressed for want of time, I put only such combs as contain brood into the frames, and set the others in a safe place. The bees are now at once allowed to enter their new hive, and the other combs are given to them at a more convenient time. The whole process of transferal need not occupy more than an hour, and in some cases it can be done in fifteen minutes. If the weather is hot, the combs must not be exposed at all to the heat of the sun.

Until I had tested the feasibility of transferring bees from the old hives, by means of my frames, I felt strongly opposed to any attempt to dislodge them from their previous habitation. If they are transferred in the usual way, it must be done when the combs are filled with brood; for if delayed until late in the season, they will have no time to lay in a store of provision against the Winter. Who can look without disgust, upon the wanton destruction of thousands of their young, and the silly waste of comb, which can be replaced only by the consumption of large quantities of honey? In the great majority of such cases, the transfer, unless made about the swarming season, and previous to the issue of the first swarm, will be an entire failure, and if made before, at best only one colony is obtained, instead of the two, which are secured on my plan. I never advise the transfer of a colony into any hive, unless their combs can be transferred with them, nor do I advise any except practical Apiarians, to attempt to transfer them even to my hives. But what if a colony is so old that its combs can only breed dwarfs? When I find such a colony, I shall think it worth while to give specific directions as to how it should be managed. The truth is, that of all the many mistakes and impositions which have disgusted multitudes with the very sound of "patent hive," none has been more fatal than the notion that an old colony of bees could not be expected to prosper. Thousands of the very best stocks have been wantonly sacrificed to this Chimera; and so long as bee-keepers instead of studying the habits of the bee, prefer to listen to the interested statements of ignorant, or enthusiastic, or fraudulent persons, thousands more will suffer the same fate. As to old stocks, the prejudice against them is just as foolish as the silly notions of some who imagine that a woman is growing old, long before she has reached her prime. Many a man of mature years who has married a girl or a child, instead of a woman, has often had both time enough, and cause enough to lament his folly.

It cannot be too strongly urged upon all who keep bees, either for love or for money, to be exceedingly cautious in trying any new hive, or new system of management. If you are ever so well satisfied that it will answer all your expectations, enter upon it, at first, only on a small scale; then, if it fulfills all its promises, or if you can make it do so, you may safely adopt it: at all events, you will not have to mourn over large sums of money spent for nothing, and numerous powerful colonies entirely destroyed. "Let well enough alone," should, to a great extent, be the motto of every prudent bee-keeper. There is, however, a golden mean between that obstinate and stupid conservatism which tries nothing new, and, of course, learns nothing new, and that craving after mere novelty, and that rash experimenting on an extravagant scale, which is so characteristic of a large portion of our American people. It would be difficult to find a better maxim than that which is ascribed to David Crockett; "Be sure you're right, then go ahead."

What old bee-keeper has not had abundant proof that stocks eight or ten years old, or even older, are often among the very best, in his whole Apiary, always healthy and swarming with almost unfailing regularity! I have seen such hives, which for more than fifteen years, have scarcely failed, a single season, to throw a powerful swarm. I have one now ten years old, in admirable condition, which a few years ago, swarmed three times, and the first swarm sent off a colony the same season. All these swarms were so early that they gathered ample supplies of honey, and wintered without any assistance!

I have already spoken of old stocks flourishing for a long term of years in hives of the roughest possible construction; and I shall now in addition to my previous remarks assign a new reason for such unusual prosperity. Without a single exception, I have found one or both of two things to be true, of every such hive. Either it was a very large hive, or else if not of unusual size, it contained a large quantity of worker-comb. No hive which does not contain a good allowance of regular comb of a size adapted to the rearing of workers, can ever in the nature of things, prove a valuable stock hive. Many hives are so full of drone combs that they breed a cloud of useless consumers, instead of the thousands of industrious bees which ought to have occupied their places in the combs. It frequently happens that when bees are put into a new hive, the honey-harvest is at its height, and the bees finding it difficult to build worker comb fast enough to hold their gatherings, are tempted to construct long ranges of drone comb to receive their stores. In this way, a hive often contains so small an allowance of worker-comb, that it can never flourish, as the bees refuse to pull down, and build over any of their old combs. All this can be easily remedied by the use of the movable comb hive.