Of the unexplained wonders of the development of queens and drones, the mystery of the laying workers, and the other many and varied activities of the hive, we cannot tell much in detail here. Your own book on bee-keeping and larger books of reference will be mines of information. But there are undiscovered North Poles in the bee world, and the young bee-keepers of to-day may be the Greeleys and the Pearys and the Shackletons of this new-old science.
SWARMING
Did you ever wonder why bees swarm? They have no regular dates for doing things. Although they have been known to swarm in May, and even in April, you are not likely to get a swarm before June. Early swarms are the most valuable, therefore you should be ready, for bees are like time and tide. Have the hive fitted with frames and keep it in a cool place. Bees swarm to increase the number of colonies. The date of swarming depends on local conditions and nobody can tell but the bees themselves, and they won't, what these conditions are exactly. If there are too many bees, too much honey stored, thousands of workers hatching daily, many young queens ready to emerge, the bees are likely to swarm. The bee-keeper is on the lookout after he knows the signs and can guess pretty shrewdly whether the swarm will be out in a few days or later. He gets his apparatus together and his hives ready. Bees often "hang out" on the outside of the hive, and we used to think that was a "sure sign," but it often fails.
It is the old queen that leaves the hive, but the bees that go out with her are a mixture of young and old ones. No one knows how the decision is made as to who shall go and who shall stay behind, but there is never any indecision in the community that we can reckon with.
Some hot Sunday you will be roused from your book by the excited cry: "The bees! Look, there they go! The air's full of them. They're swarming. I'll bet they get away. No, they're settling." Meantime, if you are the boy who owns the bees, you are getting ready to hive your first swarm.
It's no joke, for thrills will be chasing up your spine, and if you didn't have so much to do you would be as excited as the rest. But success may depend on your keeping cool. You have probably already instructed the family in modern methods so that no one will be raising a din by beating an old wash boiler, etc. If you have a garden hose handy, let some one play a fine spray on the whirling bees. Nothing brings them to time more quickly. When the bees have settled, place the hive conveniently near them, with a sheet or hive cover in front. Cut the branch on which the bees are clustered and shake them off into or in front of the hive. If well disposed they will go in promptly.
If high trees and no shrubbery is the rule in the vicinity of your hives, you will probably need your long-handled swarm-catcher. Or you will very soon begin the practice of clipping the wings of your queens. When the clipped queen brings out a swarm she hops about near the hive. She may climb into a shrub if one is near by. Why not provide her with a still more convenient forked stick as some bee-keepers do? She climbs up this, calls her family together, and you do the rest. You may prefer to capture the queen in your little queen trap, and place her at the entrance to a new hive which you should place on the stand where the old hive was. The bees will return to their old location when they discover that the queen is not with them. The new hive will receive them and the queen when released will go in with her family. If the bees refuse to stay in the new hive, it may be because the hive is too hot. Prop up both hive and cover to allow extra ventilation.
MAKING APPARATUS
While I do not advise any amateur bee-keeper to try to construct his own hives and frames, I do think it is a fine idea to begin right away to study how to improve the appliances now in use. You will have to discard many of your own ideas as useless when you come to try to apply them to practical use. There are lots of patented appliances for sale that make an experienced bee-keeper smile. He undoubtedly knows a clever boy at home who can rig up a home-made contraption that will cost nothing at all, and do the work better than the expensive tool. A boy that keeps bees will find a knowledge of tools and wood-working of great advantage to him, and a girl's deft fingers will know how to put materials together that a professional would never think of.
In this connection I will here describe a swarm-catcher, devised by a practical bee-keeper many years ago and recommended by an expert in Apiculture of the United States Department of Agriculture. The construction is so simple that I believe I could make one myself! Though home-made, it is interesting to see how thoroughly scientific are the essential features of this device, all based on a knowledge of bee instincts.