Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee Part 12

If the bees settle too high to be easily reached, the basket should be fastened to a pole, and raised directly under the swarm; a quick motion of the basket will cause the ma.s.s of the bees to fall into it, when it may be carried to the hive, and the bees poured out from it on the sheet.

If the bees light on the trunk of a tree, or any thing from which they cannot easily be gathered in a basket, place a leafy bough over them, (it may be fastened with a gimlet,) and if they do not mount it of their own accord, a little smoke will compel them to do so. If the place is inaccessible, and this is about the worst case that occurs, they will enter a basket well shaded by cotton cloth fastened around it, and elevated so as to rest with its open top sideways to the ma.s.s of the bees. When small trees, or limbs fastened into the ground, are placed near the hives, and there are no large trees near, there will seldom be found any difficulty in hiving swarms. If two swarms light together, I advise that they should be put into one hive, and abundant room at once be given them, for storing surplus honey. This can always be readily done in my hives. Large quant.i.ties of honey are generally obtained from such stocks, if the season is favorable, and they have issued early. If it is desired to separate them, place in each of the hives which is to receive them, a comb containing brood and eggs, from which, in case of necessity, a new queen may be raised. Shake a portion of the bees in front of each hive, sprinkling them thoroughly, both before and after they are shaken out from the basket, so that they will not take wing to unite again. If possible, secure the queens, so that one may be given to each hive. If this cannot be done, the hives should be examined the next day, and if the two queens entered the same hive, one will have killed the other, and the queenless hive will be found building royal cells. It should be supplied with a sealed queen nearly mature, taken from another hive, not only to save time, but to prevent them from filling their hive with comb unfit for the rearing of workers. (See Artificial Swarming.) Of course, this cannot be done with the common hives, and if the Apiarian does not succeed in getting a queen for each hive, the queenless one will refuse to stay, and will go back to the old stock.

The old-fashioned way of hiving bees, by mounting trees, cutting and lowering down large limbs, (often to the injury of valuable trees,) and placing the hive over the bees, frequently crushing large numbers, and endangering the life of the queen, should be entirely abandoned. A swarm may be hived in the proper way with far less risk and trouble, and in much less time. In large Apiaries managed on the swarming plan, where a number of swarms come out on the same day, and there is constant danger of their mixing,[16] the speedy hiving of swarms is an object of great importance. If the new hive does not stand where it is to remain for the season, it should be removed to its permanent stand as soon as the bees have entered; for if allowed to remain to be removed in the evening, or early next morning, the scouts which have left the cl.u.s.ter, in search of a hollow tree, will find the bees when they return, and will often entice them from the hive. There is the greater danger of this, if the bees have remained on the tree, a considerable time before they were hived. I have invariably found that swarms which abandon a suitable hive for the woods, have been hived near the spot where they cl.u.s.tered, and allowed to remain to be moved in the evening. If the bees swarm early in the day, they will generally begin to work in a few hours (or in less time, if they have empty comb,) and many more may be lost by returning next day to the place where they were hived, than would be lost, by removing them as soon as they have entered; in this latter case, the few that are on the wing, will generally be able to find the hive if it is slowly moved to its permanent stand.

If the Apiarian wishes to secure the queen, the bees should be shaken from the hiving basket, about a foot from the entrance to the hive, and if a careful look-out is kept, she will generally be seen as she pa.s.ses over the sheet, to the entrance. Care must be taken to brush the bees back from the entrance when they press forward in such dense ma.s.ses that the queen is likely to enter unnoticed. An experienced eye readily catches a glance of her peculiar form and color. She may be taken up without danger, as she never stings, unless engaged in combat with another queen. As it will sometimes happen, even to careful bee-keepers, that swarms will come off when no suitable hives are in readiness to receive them, I shall show what may be done in such an emergency. Take any old hive, box, cask, or measure, and hive the bees in it, placing them with suitable protection against the sun, where their new hive is to stand; when this is ready, they may, by a quick jerking motion, be easily shaken out on a sheet, and hived in it, just as though they were shaken from the hiving basket. If they are to remain in the temporary hive over the second day, they ought to be shaken out on a sheet, and after their comb is taken from them, allowed to enter it again, or else there will be danger of crushing the queen by the weight of the comb.

I have endeavored, even at the risk of being tedious, to give such specific directions as will qualify the novice to hive a swarm of bees, under almost any circ.u.mstances; for I know the necessity of such directions and how seldom they are to be met with, even in large treatises on Bee-Keeping. Vague or imperfect directions always fail, just at the moment that the inexperienced attempt to put them into practice.

Before leaving this subject, I will add to the directions for hiving already given, a method which I have practiced with good success.

When the situation of the bees does not admit of the basket being easily elevated to them, the bee-keeper may carry it with him to the cl.u.s.ter, and then after shaking the bees into it, may lower it down by a string, to an a.s.sistant standing below.

That Natural Swarming may, with suitable hives, be made highly profitable, I cannot for a moment question. As it is the most simple and obvious way of multiplying colonies, and the one which requires the least amount of knowledge or skill, it will undoubtedly, for many years at least, be the favorite method with a large number of bee-keepers. I have therefore, been careful to furnish suitable directions for its successful practice; and before I discuss the question of Artificial Increase, I shall show how it may be more profitably conducted than ever before; many of the most embarra.s.sing difficulties in the way of its successful management being readily obviated by the use of my hives.

1. The common hives fail to furnish adequate protection in Winter, against cold, and those sudden changes to unseasonable warmth, by which bees are tempted to come out and perish in large numbers on the snow; and the colonies are thus prevented from breeding on a large scale, as early as they otherwise would. Under such circ.u.mstances, they can make no profitable use of the early honey-harvest; and they will swarm so late, if they swarm at all, as to have but little opportunity for laying up surplus honey, while often they do not gather enough even for their own use, and their owner closes the season by purchasing honey to preserve them from starvation. The way in which I give the bees that amount of protection in Winter, which conduces most powerfully to early swarming, has already been described in the Chapter on Protection.

2. Another serious objection to all the ordinary swarming hives, is the vexatious fact that if the bees swarm at all, they are liable to swarm so often as to destroy the value of both the parent stock and the after-swarms. Experienced bee-keepers obviate this difficulty, by uniting second swarms, so as to make one good colony out of two; and they return to the parent stock all swarms after the second, and even this if the season is far advanced. Such operations consume much time, and often give much more trouble than they are worth. By removing all the queen cells but one, after the first swarm has left, second swarming in my hives will always be prevented; and by removing all but two, provision may be made for the issue of second swarms, and yet all after-swarming be prevented. The process of returning after-swarms is not only objectionable, on account of the time it requires, having often to be repeated again and again before one queen is allowed to destroy the others; but it also causes a large portion of the gathering season to be wasted; for the bees seem unwilling to work with energy, so long as the pretensions of several rival queens are unsettled.

3. Another very serious objection to Natural Swarming, as practiced with the common hives, is the inability of the Apiarian who wishes rapidly to multiply his colonies, to aid his late and small swarms, so as to build them up into vigorous stocks. The time and money which are ordinarily spent upon small colonies, are almost always thrown away; by far the larger portion of them never survive the Winter, and the majority of those that do, are so enfeebled, as to be of little or no value. If they escape being robbed by stronger stocks, or destroyed by the moth, they seldom recruit in season to swarm, and very often the feeding must be repeated, the second Fall, or they will at last perish. I doubt not that many of my readers will, from their own experience, endorse every word of these remarks, as true to the very letter. All who have ever attempted to multiply colonies by nursing and feeding small swarms, on the ordinary plans, have found it attended with nothing but loss and vexation. The more a man has of such stocks, the poorer he is: for by their weakness, they are constantly tempting his strong swarms to evil courses; so that at last, they prefer to live as far as they can, by stealing, rather than by habits of honest industry; and if the feeble colonies escape being plundered, they often become mere nurseries for raising a plentiful supply of moths, to ravage his whole Apiary.

I have already shown, in what way by the use of my hives, the smallest swarms that ever issue, may be so managed as to become powerful stocks.

In the same way the Apiarian can easily strengthen all his colonies which are feeble in Spring.

4. As the loss of the young queens in the parent stock after it has swarmed, and in the after-swarms, is a very common occurrence, a hive which like mine, furnishes the means of easily remedying this misfortune, will greatly promote the success of those who practice natural swarming. A very intelligent bee-keeper once a.s.sured me, that he must use at least one such hive in his Apiary, for this purpose, even if in other respects it possessed no superior merits.

5. Bees, as is well known, often refuse to swarm at all, and most of the swarming hives are so constructed, that proper accommodations for storing honey, cannot be furnished to the super-abundant population.

Under such circ.u.mstances, they often hang for several months, in black ma.s.ses on the outside of the hive; and are worse than useless, as they consume the honey which the others have gathered. In my hives, an abundance of room for storing honey can always be given them, _not all at once_, so as to prevent them from swarming, but by degrees, as their necessities require: so that if they are indisposed, for any reason to swarm, they may have suitable receptacles easily accessible, and furnished with guide comb to make them more attractive, in which to store up any amount of honey that they can possibly collect.

6. In the common hives, but little can be done to dislodge the bee-moth, when once it has gained the mastery of the bees; whereas in mine, it can be most effectually rooted out when it has made a lodgment. (See Remarks on Bee-Moth.)

7. In the common hives, nothing can be done except with great difficulty, to remove the old queen when her fertility is impaired; whereas in my hives, (as will be shown in the Chapter on Artificial Swarming,) this can easily be effected, so that an Apiary may constantly contain a stock of young queens, in the full vigor of their re-productive powers.

I trust that these remarks will convince intelligent Apiarians, that I have not spoken boastfully or at random, in a.s.serting that natural swarming can be carried on with much greater certainty and success, by the use of my hives, than in any other way; and that they will see that many of the most perplexing embarra.s.sments and mortifying discouragements under which they have hitherto prosecuted it, may be effectually remedied.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] Dr. Scudamore, an English physician who has written a small tract on the formation of artificial swarms, says that he once knew "as many as ten swarms go forth at once, and settle and mingle together, forming literally a monster meeting!" Instances are on record of a much larger number of swarms cl.u.s.tering together. A venerable clergyman, in Western Ma.s.sachusetts, related to me the following remarkable occurrence. In the Apiary of one of his parishioners, five swarms lit in one ma.s.s. As there was no hive which would hold them, a very large box was roughly nailed together, and the bees were hived in it. They were taken up by sulphur in the Fall, when it was perfectly evident that the five swarms had occupied the same box as independent colonies. Four of them had commenced their works, each one near a corner, and the fifth one in the middle, and there was a distinct interval separating the works of the different colonies. In Cotton's "My Bee Book," there is a cut ill.u.s.trating a hive in which two colonies had built in the same manner.

CHAPTER X.

ARTIFICIAL SWARMING.

The numerous efforts which have been made for the last fifty years or more, to dispense with natural swarming, plainly indicate the anxiety of Apiarians to find some better mode of increasing their colonies.

Although I am able to propagate bees by natural swarming, with a rapidity and certainty unattainable except by the complete control of all the combs in the hive, still there are difficulties in this mode of increase, inherent to the system itself, and therefore entirely incapable of being removed by any kind of hive. Before describing the various methods which I employ to increase colonies by artificial means, I shall first enumerate these difficulties, in order that each individual bee-keeper may decide for himself, in which way he can most advantageously propagate his bees.

1. The large number of swarms lost every year, is a powerful argument against natural swarming.

An eminent Apiarian has estimated that one fourth of the best swarms are lost every season! This estimate can hardly be considered too high, if all who keep bees are taken into account. While some bee-keepers are so careful that they seldom lose a swarm, the majority, either from the grossest negligence, or from necessary hindrances during the swarming season, are constantly incurring serious losses, by the flight of their bees to the woods. It is next to impossible, entirely to prevent such occurrences, if bees are allowed to swarm at all.

2. The great amount of time and labor required by natural swarming, has always been regarded as a decided objection to this mode of increase.

As soon as the swarming season begins, the Apiary must be closely watched almost every day, or some of the new swarms will be lost. If this business is entrusted to thoughtless children, or careless adults, many swarms will be lost by their neglect. It is very evident that but few persons who keep bees, can always be on hand to watch them and to hive the new swarms. But, in the height of the swarming season, if any considerable number of colonies is kept, the Apiarian, to guard against serious losses, should either be always on the spot himself, or have some one who can be entrusted with the care of his bees. Even the Sabbath cannot be observed as a day of rest; and often, instead of being able to go to the House of G.o.d, the bee-keeper is compelled to labor among his bees, as hard as on other days, or even harder. That he is as justifiable in hiving his bees on the Sabbath, as in taking care of his stock, can admit of no serious doubt; but the very liability of being called to do so, is with many, a sufficient objection against Apiarian pursuits.

The merchant, mechanic and professional man, are often so situated that they would take great interest in bees, if they were not deterred from their cultivation by inability to take care of them, during the swarming season; and they are thus debarred from a pursuit, which is intensely fascinating, not merely to the lover of Nature, but to every one possessed of an inquiring mind. No man who spends some of his leisure hours in studying the wonderful habits and instincts of bees, will ever complain that he can find nothing to fill up his time out of the range of his business, or the gratification of his appet.i.tes. Bees may be kept with great advantage, even in large cities, and those who are debarred from every other rural pursuit, may still listen to the soothing hum of the industrious bee, and harvest annually its delicious nectar.

If the Apiarian could always be on hand during the swarming season, it would still, in many instances, be exceedingly inconvenient for him to attend to his bees. How often is the farmer interrupted in the business of hay-making, by the cry that his bees are swarming; and by the time he has hived them, perhaps a shower comes up, and his hay is injured more than his swarm is worth. In this way, the keeping of a few bees, instead of a source of profit, often becomes rather an expensive luxury; and if a very large stock is kept, the difficulties and embarra.s.sments are often most seriously increased. If the weather becomes pleasant after a succession of days unfavorable for swarming, it often happens that several swarms rise at once, and cl.u.s.ter together, to the great annoyance of the Apiarian; and not unfrequently, in the noise and confusion, other swarms fly off, and are entirely lost. I have seen the Apiarian so perplexed and exhausted under such circ.u.mstances, as to be almost ready to wish that he had never seen a bee.

3. The managing of bees by natural swarming, must, in our country, almost entirely prevent the establishment of large Apiaries.

Even if it were possible, in this way, to multiply bees with certainty and rapidity, and without any of the perplexities which I have just described, how few persons are so situated as to be able to give almost the whole of their time in the busiest part of the year, to the management of their bees. The swarming season is with the farmer, the very busiest part of the whole year, and if he purposes to keep a large number of swarming hives, he must not only devote nearly the whole of his time, for a number of weeks, to their supervision, but at a season when labor commands the highest price, he will often be compelled to hire additional a.s.sistance.

I have long been convinced that, as a general rule, the keeping of a few colonies in swarming hives, costs more than they are worth, and that the keeping of a very large number is entirely out of the question, unless with those who are so situated that they can afford to devote their time, for about two months every year, almost entirely to their bees.

The number of persons who can afford to do this must be very small; and I have seldom heard of a bee-keeper, in our country, who has an Apiary on a scale extensive enough to make bee-keeping anything more than a subordinate pursuit. Mult.i.tudes have tried to make it a large and remunerating business, but hitherto, I believe that they have nearly all been disappointed in their expectations. In such countries as Poland and Russia where labor is deplorably cheap, it may be done to great advantage; but never to any considerable extent in our own.

4. A serious objection to natural swarming, is the discouraging fact that the bees often refuse to swarm at all, and the Apiarian finds it impossible to multiply his colonies with any certainty or rapidity, even although he may find himself in all respects favorably situated for the cultivation of bees, and may be exceedingly anxious to engage in the business on a much more extensive scale.

I am acquainted with many careful bee-keepers who have managed their bees according to the most reliable information they could obtain, never destroying any of their colonies, and endeavoring to multiply them to the best of their ability, who yet have not as many stocks as they had ten years ago. Most of them would abandon the pursuit, if they looked upon bee-keeping simply in the light of dollars and cents, rather than as a source of pleasant recreation; and some do not hesitate to say that much more money has been spent, by the ma.s.s of those who have used patent hives, than they have ever realized from their bees.

It is a very simple matter to make calculations on paper, which shall seem to point out a road to wealth, almost as flattering, as a tour to the gold mines of Australia or California. Only purchase a patent bee-hive, and if it fulfills all or even a part of the promises of its sanguine inventor, a fortune must, in the course of a few years, be certainly realized; but such are the disappointments resulting from the bees refusing often to swarm at all, that if the hive could remedy all the other difficulties in the way of bee-keeping, it would still fail to answer the reasonable wishes of the experienced Apiarian. If every swarm of bees could be made to yield a profit of 20 dollars a year, and if the Apiarian could be sure of selling his new swarms at the most extravagant prices, he could not, like the growers of mulberry trees, or the breeders of fancy fowls, multiply his stocks so as to meet the demand, however extensive; but would be entirely dependent upon the whims and caprices of his bees; or rather, upon the natural laws which control their swarming.

Every practical bee-keeper is well aware of the utter uncertainty of natural swarming. Under no circ.u.mstances, can its occurrence be confidently relied on. While some stocks swarm regularly and repeatedly, others, strong in numbers and rich in stores, although the season may, in all respects, be propitious, refuse to swarm at all. Such colonies, on examination, will often be found to have taken no steps for raising young queens. In some cases, the wings of the old mother will be found defective, while in others, she is abundantly able to fly, but seems to prefer the riches of the old hive, to the risks attending the formation of a new colony. It frequently happens, in our uncertain climate, that when all the necessary preparations have been made for swarming, the weather proves unpropitious for so long a time, that the young queens coming to maturity before the old one can leave, are all destroyed. This is a very frequent occurrence, and under such circ.u.mstances, swarming is almost certain to be prevented, for that season. The young queens are frequently destroyed, even although the weather is pleasant, in consequence of some sudden and perhaps only temporary suspension of the honey-harvest; for bees seldom colonize even if all their preparations are completed, unless the flowers are yielding an abundant supply of honey.

From these and other causes which my limits will not permit me to notice, it has. .h.i.therto been found impossible, in the uncertain climate of our Northern States, to multiply colonies very rapidly, by natural swarming; and bee-keeping, on this plan, offers very poor inducements to those who are aware how little has been accomplished, even by the most enthusiastic, experienced and energetic Apiarians.

The numerous perplexities which have ever attended natural swarming, have for ages, directed the attention of practical cultivators, to the importance of devising some more reliable method of increasing their colonies. Columella, who lived about the middle of the first century of the Christian Era, and who wrote twelve books on husbandry (De re rustica,) has given directions for making artificial colonies. He says, "you must examine the hive, and view what honey-combs it has; then afterwards from the wax which contains the seeds of the young bees, you must cut away that part wherein the offspring of the royal brood is animated: for this is easy to be seen; because at the very end of the wax-works there appears, as it were, a thimble-like process (somewhat similar to an acorn,) rising higher, and having a wider cavity, than the rest of the holes, wherein the young bees of vulgar note are contained."

Hyginus, who flourished before Columella, had evidently noticed the royal jelly; for he speaks of cells larger than those of the common bees, "filled as it were with a solid substance of a _red color_, out of which the winged king is at first formed." This ancient observer must undoubtedly have seen the quince-like jelly, a portion of which is always found at the base of the royal cells, after the queens have emerged. The ancients generally called the queen a king, although Aristotle says that some in his time called her the mother. Swammerdam was the first to prove by dissection that the queen is a perfect female, and the only one in the hive, and that the drone is the male.

For reasons which I shall shortly mention, the ancient methods of artificial increase appear to have met with but small success. Towards the close of the last century, a new impulse was given to the artificial production of swarms, by the discovery of Schirach, a German clergyman, that bees are able to rear a queen from worker-brood. For want, however, of a more thorough knowledge of some important principles in the economy of the bee, these efforts met with slender encouragement.

Huber, after his splendid discoveries in the physiology of the bee, perceived at once, the importance of multiplying colonies by some method more reliable than that of natural swarming. His leaf or book hive consisted of 12 frames, each an inch and a half in width; any one of which could be opened at pleasure. He recommends forming artificial swarms, by dividing one of these hives into two parts; adding to each part six empty frames. After using a Huber hive for a number of years, I became perfectly convinced that it could only be made servicable, by an adroit, experienced and fearless Apiarian. The bees fasten the frames in such a manner, with their propolis, that they cannot, except with extreme care, be opened without jarring the bees, and exciting their anger; nor can they be shut without constant danger of crushing them.

Huber nowhere speaks of having multiplied colonies extensively by such hives, and although they have been in use more than sixty years, they have never been successfully employed for such a purpose. If Huber had only contrived a plan for suspending his frames, instead of folding them together like the leaves of a book, I believe that the cause of Apiarian science would have been fifty years in advance of what it now is.

Dividing hives of various kinds have been used in this country. After giving some of the best of them a thorough trial, and inventing others which somewhat resembled the Huber hive, I found that they could not possibly be made to answer any valuable end in securing artificial swarms. For a long time I felt that the plan _ought_ to succeed, and it was not until I had made numerous experiments with my hive substantially as now constructed, that I ascertained the precise causes of failure.

It may be regarded as one of the laws of the bee-hive, that bees, when not in possession of a mature queen, seldom build any comb except such as being designed merely for storing honey, is _too coa.r.s.e for the rearing of workers_. Until I became acquainted with the discoveries of Dzierzon, I supposed myself to be the only observer who had noticed this remarkable fact, and who had been led by it, to modify the whole system of artificial swarming. The perusal of Mr. Wagner's ma.n.u.script translation of that author, showed me that he had arrived at precisely similar results.

It may seem at first, very unaccountable that bees should go on to fill their hives with comb unfit for breeding, when the young queen will so soon require worker-cells for her eggs; but it must be borne in mind, that bees, under such circ.u.mstances, are always in an _unnatural_ state.

They are attempting to rear a new queen in a hive which is only partially filled with comb; whereas, if left to follow their own instincts, they never construct royal cells except in hives which are well filled with comb, for it is only in such hives that they make any preparations for swarming. It must be confessed that they do not show their ordinary sagacity in filling a hive with unsuitable comb; but if it were not for a few instances of this kind of bad management, we should perhaps, form too exalted an idea of their intelligence, and should almost fail to notice the marked distinction between reason in man, and even the most refined instincts of some of the animals by which he is surrounded.

The determination of bees, when they have no mature queen, if they build any comb at all, to build such as is suited only for storing honey, and unfit for breeding, will show at once, the folly of attempting to multiply colonies by the dividing-hives. Even if the Apiarian has been perfectly successful in dividing a colony, and the part without a queen takes the necessary steps to supply her loss, if the bees are sufficiently numerous to build a large quant.i.ty of new comb, (and they ought to be in order to make the artificial colony of any value,) they will build this comb in such a manner that it will answer only for storing honey, while they will use the half of the hive with the old comb, for the purposes of breeding. The next year, if an attempt is made to divide this hive, one half will contain nearly all the brood and mature bees, while the other, having most of the honey, in combs unfit for breeding, the new colony formed from it will be a complete failure.