HOW TO KEEP FROM KEEPING TOO MANY BEES
THE PROBLEM
“Aye, there’s the rub!” For the beginner who wishes to keep a few bees,
this is the most difficult problem to solve on the bee-keeper’s slate,
and it must finally be solved by each according to his own capacity and
method.
We confess frankly that we were once driven out of the bee business
because we were too successful. Caring for fifteen or twenty hives was
a delightful avocation. We kept our colonies strong, for we wished
to make comb-honey; consequently, splendid swarms came off, and we
had the fatal gift of seeing them when they came and of hiving them
successfully. Thus our avocation began to intrench upon our vocation in
a most alarming manner. While we enjoyed taking care of our bees, we
were nevertheless following the vocation which we had chosen, and which
we liked best; and the time came when we were obliged to decide whether
we would leave our regular business and become bee-keepers, or abjure
bee-keeping and attend to our regular business.
We gave away what swarms we could and we sold some; but selling bees
is a business quite as much as caring for them, so that was not
practicable. Philosophically, we argued that since we had enough bees
we would let the swarms that came off abscond and bid them God-speed;
but here we reckoned without properly considering the amount of human
nature which had fallen to our share. Although we knew that every swarm
in our apiary above twenty would be an embarrassment and a tribulation,
we could never rest content not to hive a swarm when it issued; and the
more unattainable the place where it clustered and the less we wanted
the bees, the more determined we were to secure that special swarm.
Such inconsistency brought its own punishment, and our only resource
was to sell out; and for many years the spot in our garden which our
apiary once occupied was never viewed without a sense of loneliness
and longing for its busy little tenants. During these years we thought
it over and finally came around to the right frame of mind, and firmly
concluded to keep bees for our own honey and our own happiness.
We limited our ambitions to ten hives; and last summer when our
best-tested Italian queen took us unawares and departed with a large
and enthusiastic following, we did not mourn; all we did was to venture
to hope that the young queen left in the hive had mated with one of our
own handsome drones, and not with a mad black prince from one of Mr.
Coggshall’s take-care-of-itself apiaries in our neighbourhood. As soon
as our new brood made us sure that our queen had made no _mésalliance_
we were entirely content.
Our lack of success in preventing swarming when trying to produce
comb-honey was a source of great chagrin to us until we read that so
eminent a bee-keeper as Mr. Hutchinson declared that “there is no way
of preventing first swarms profitable to the comb-honey producer,” and
then our feelings were salved. The following are in brief a few of the
more successful ways practised to prevent increase:
_By clipping the queen’s wings._—Almost all bee-keepers practise this
now, whatever their method of preventing increase or securing it. A
queen with clipped wings is necessarily a “stay-at-home body,” and
the swarm will not leave without her. However, when depending upon
this method it is very important to guard against the hatching of
new queens, and this can only be done by closely scrutinising the
brood-comb to discover and destroy the queen cells. The brood-frames
should be examined in each hive about once a week during the months of
June and July, if this method is to succeed. Many a time have we sat
smilingly by and watched a swarm come out of the hive with great pomp
and circumstance, only to sneak back when it was discovered that her
majesty was unfit for travel.
_By the use of a queen trap._—This is a device used by some instead of
clipping the wings of the queen. It is a box of perforated zinc placed
over the entrance of the hive, the slots in it large enough to allow
the workers to pass in and out, and small enough to hold back the
queen and drones. Although this method saves time, yet comparatively
few recommend it. The cost of the trap is one objection; but the
greater objection seems to be that it inconveniences the workers when
returning from the fields; and is, therefore, likely to affect the
amount of honey stored, since much time is lost and some annoyance
occasioned to the bees by being obliged to squeeze through; it also
scrapes the pollen off their legs. (Plate XVI.)
_By giving-room._—Supposing that our queen is clipped or confined,
which is the first step, the next is to give plenty of room in the
brood-chamber. Lack of room for brood and honey is one of the most
potent reasons for inducing swarming. So the first thing to do after
the disappointed swarm comes back to the hive is to tier up the supers.
It is also well to remove from the hive a frame or two of brood which
may be put in the hive of some weaker colony; in place of the removed
frame is substituted another containing a starter of foundation; and
the would-be swarm, finding that there is plenty to do, is content to
remain at home for a time.
_By extracting honey._—It will often pacify a colony to take the
frames from the brood-chamber and extract the honey from them. This
may be done when the brood is present, if care is taken not to run the
separator so rapidly as to throw out the larvæ, a performance quite as
distasteful to the young bees as to the consumer. However, this should
not be practised unless much honey is coming in, as otherwise the brood
may be starved.
_By using large hives._—Many bee-keepers of high standing have
practically solved the swarming problem by using large hives. The
Dadants, well known on two continents as successful apiarists, use the
large Quinby hives in their own apiaries, and have introduced them into
France and Switzerland. The Dadant-Quinby hive has about the capacity
of a twelve-frame Langstroth. The frames are both deep and large,
measuring 18½ by 11½ inches, and so give the queen plenty of room. The
Dadants have no trouble with swarming, as only enough swarms come off
to make good the winter losses in their apiaries.
There are three reasons why we have not used these large hives: first,
they are too heavy to handle well, being altogether too productive
of backaches. Second, they are necessarily much more expensive, as
wider pieces of perfect lumber are used in the making. Third, and most
important to us of all, we find it difficult to produce comb-honey in
a large hive; when the bees have so much room in the brood-chamber,
they discover no reason for carrying honey up into the supers. If we
made extracted honey, as do the Dadants and the European apiarists,
we would certainly use the larger hives, simply to be rid of this
nuisance of constant swarming. The colonies grow to be so much stronger
in the larger hives that they are much better able to withstand the
vicissitudes of winter than are smaller colonies, which is a great
advantage.
_By the brushing or shaking-out method._—When the bees at the
beginning of the honey-flow seem to be getting ready to swarm,
the hive is moved to one side of the stand and on the exact site
is placed another just like it, which contains frames set with
foundation-starters. As gently as possible the bees are shaken or
brushed from the frames of the old hive upon the threshold of the new,
great care being taken to include the queen. The supers from the old
hive are then placed upon the new hive with a queen-excluder between.
The old hive may stand beside the new one until the brood has emerged,
when all of the inhabitants of the old tenement are shaken in front
of the new habitation. This shaking of a colony into a new hive so
surprises and confounds the bees that they get the impression that they
have already swarmed, and go to work with all diligence in their new
quarters. The partly filled supers from the old hive encourage them
mightily in the ways of well-doing.
_By dividing swarms._—This method we have practised with quite
satisfactory results. The troublous question is just when to divide.
If we divide too soon we weaken the colonies, and decrease the
honey harvest. If we wait until too late, the bees do the dividing
themselves. The process is as follows: The queen’s wings are clipped
before the new queen is to emerge, and she is placed in a new hive
furnished with brood-frames containing foundation-starters; enough of
the bees are taken to the hive with her to start a good colony, and the
deed is done. However, the fact remains that in this way the number of
colonies is increased as much as if the swarm had come off naturally.
_By removing the queen._—Some apiarists remove the queen during the
honey-harvest and cut out all the queen cells. They give the queen a
nucleus if they wish more brood; meanwhile the colony will not swarm
without her. Whether queenless bees are as easy in their minds and,
therefore, as ready and enthusiastic in the task of gathering honey,
is a mooted question. Bees, like people, work to the best advantage
when they have fewest worries. One difficulty with this method is that
before we are aware of it a queen may be reared despite our careful and
onerous labours in hunting for queen cells. Another difficulty with
this practice is the encouragement of the egg-laying workers, which is
a most demoralising influence to introduce into a hive.
AFTER-SWARMS
An after-swarm is one that is led by a virgin queen and may come off
within sixteen days after the first natural swarm departs; usually it
occurs within a week. Most bee-keepers consider the after-swarm as a
manifestation of “pure cussedness” on the part of a colony; but it is
only a poorly adjusted method practised by the bees for getting rid of
superfluous princesses. After the old queen decamps with her followers,
there are usually several queens ready to emerge from their cells; the
ordinary story, as told in books, is that the first queen that emerges
hastens to slay her yet helpless sisters, or battles with them singly
until but one queen is left in the hive; and this actually does occur
often. However, there are differences between bee-colonies, as there
are between individual people, and every young queen does not seem
blood-thirsty; or perhaps in some instances the citizens restrain her
from carrying out her murderous intent, and try to get rid of her by
sending her forth with as many followers as can well be spared from the
parent colony. Other queens may issue, and if this charitable instinct
still persists, another and still another swarm may be sent out. This
misguided kindness to young queens is as demoralising to the colony as
unwise giving of alms is in the human world, and finally a swarm may be
sent off so small that a teacup would hold it. Of course, this means
certain death to all of its members. Finally the limit of endurance is
reached, and with the last possible swarm are sent out all the young
queens left in the hive save the one retained as queen mother. Whether
the workers send out these burdensome members of royalty as a measure
of good riddance, or whether in their excitement they fail to guard
the queen cells and so let them out and they voluntarily join the
procession, is not as yet surely ascertained. One of the formalities
of the after-swarm is that before it occurs the queen sounds her
pibroch, a tune which probably excites her listening subjects to rash
departure. The bee-keeper gets to know this sound very well, and when
he hears it, he knows that an after-swarm will issue very soon unless
he does something immediately to prevent it. One thing particularly
exasperating about the after-swarm is that the virgin queen, being
lighter bodied and lighter minded than the old queen, may take the
occasion of swarming to get married, and go on her wedding journey;
and thus is likely to lead her followers a mad chase and leave her
proprietor so far in the rear that he loses the swarm entirely.
For the real reason of after-swarming we must look upon the colony
as an individual; and as nature is wasteful in the production of
individuals, these weak after-swarms are analogous to the weaklings
among animals or plants, which must be sacrificed for some inscrutable
reason on the altar of the preservation of the species.
PREVENTION OF AFTER-SWARMS
Mr. Hutchinson practises the following method: When the first swarm
comes off he places it in a new hive like the old one, and puts the new
hive on the exact site of the old one, while the latter is moved away
just a little and faces in a different direction than before. The new
hive has four or five frames with foundation-starters, and on it is
placed the super with partially filled sections from the old hive, with
a queen-excluding board between the two; thus the new swarm, having no
brood ready, will store in the supers until the brood-comb is built.
Most of the bees from the old hive, returning from the field, will
enter the new hive because the entrance to the old hive is turned away.
The old hive is then turned a little each day, until its entrance,
which should be contracted, is parallel to the entrance of the new
hive, and very close to it. If, on the seventh day after the first
swarm issued, the old hive be removed to some new location, its numbers
will have been so depleted that there will be no attempt to send off
after-swarms.
HOW TO UNITE COLONIES
If two colonies are weak late in the season, it is often best to unite
them. This may be done by moving the hives nearer to each other, a
little each day, until they are side by side. The queen of one colony
is killed, the best frames from each hive are alternated with each
other in one hive, and the bees shaken into this; the other hive
removed, and the one remaining placed midway between where the two
stood. Sweetened water flavoured with peppermint may be sprayed over
both colonies just before uniting, so that they will all be scented
alike. The above is the method advised by Professor Cook.