BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
When the queenless part proceeds to supply her loss, if it has bees enough to build new comb, it will build such as is designed only for storing honey. The next year, if this hive is divided, one-half will contain nearly all the brood, while the other, having most of its combs fit only for storing honey, or raising drones, will be a complete failure.
So uniformly do bees with an unhatehed queen build coarse, or drone-eomb, that often a glance at the combs of a new colony, will show either that it is queenless, or that, having been so, it has just reared a new queen.
**172**. Some Apiarists have attempted to multiply their colonies, by removing, when thousands of its innates are ranging the fields, a strong stuck to a new stand, and setting in its place an empty hive, with a frame of brood-comb, suitable for raising a queen. This method is still worse than the one just described. One-half of the dividing-hive was filled with breeding comb, while this empty hive having next to none, all that is built before the queen hatehes, will be of a size unsuitable for rearing workers. The queenless part of the divided hive might also have contained a young queen almost mature, so that the building of large combs would have quickly ceased; for it is not always necessary that a queen should have e.
**173**. One _strong forced swarm,_ can be obtained in any style of live, including box-hives, by the driving process (**574** to **577**) as follows: When it is time to form artificial colonies, we mean a few days before swarming time, or as soon as the hives are about full of bees,\(-\)drum a strong stock --which call \(A-\)so as to secure _all_ its bees.
They may be driven either into a foreing-box, or into the upper story of a movable frame live, and lived like a new swarm, when, if placed on their old stand, they will work as vigorously as a natural swarm. If they were driven, at first, into a live which will suit the Apiarist, it may be returned to their old location, without disturbing the bees.
If any bees are abroad when this is done, they will join this new colony. Remove to a new stand in the apiary a second stock\(-\)which call \(B-\)and put \(A\) in its place.
Thousands of the bees that belong to \(B\), as they return from the fields, will enter \(A\), which thus secures enough to develop the brood, and rear a new queen. In fact, this colony often becomes so strong, by the help of the field workers of \(B\), as well as through its own constantly hatching bees, that there is some danger of its casting off a swarm when the first young queen hatches, unless again divided at that time.
**17.1**. It is quite amusing to observe the actions of the bees that return to their old stand, when their homes have been exchanged as above.
If the strange hive is like their own in size and outward appearance, they go in as though all was right, but soon rush out in violent agitation, imagining that by some unacountable mistake, they have entered the wrong place. Taking wing to correct their blunder, they find, to their increasing surprise, that they had directed their flight to the proper spot; again they enter, and again they tumble out, in bewilder crowds, until at length, if they find a queen or the means of raising one, they make up their minds that if the strange hive is not home, it looks like it, stands where it ought to be, and is, at all events, the only home they are likely to get. No doubt they often feel that a very hard bargain has been imposed upon them, but they are generally wise enough to make the best of it. They will be altogether too much disconcerted to quarrel with any bees that were left in the hive when it was forced, and these on their part give them a welcome reception, especially if they come in with a heavy load.
This method of artificial swarming will not weaken either of the mother-colonies. If \(B\) had been first forced, and then removed, it would have been seriously injured: but as it loses fewer bees than if it had swarmed, and retains its queen, it will soon become almost as powerful as before it was removed.
* The reader will notice that the treatment above recommended for the making of artificial swarms produces exactly the same result as the method mentioned at **46S**_bis_ for natural swarms. It secured one swarm from two colonies. The Apiarist, by treating a natural swarm as he has been directed to treat a forced one, can secure an increase of one colony from two; and of all the methods of conducting natural swarming, in regions where rapid increase is not profitable, this is the best, provided the colonies do not stand too close together, and the lives used in the process are somewhat similar in shape and color.
* **475.**_Therever the bee-keeper learns how to handle the movable-frames safely he must dispense with the forcing-box, and make his swarms by lifting out the frames from the parent-stock, and shaking the bees from them, by a quick jerking motion, upon a sheet, directly in front of the new hive._ If the hive contains much fresh honey, which is usually very thin, the bees must be brushed off, for shaking them off would also shake out a large amount of nectar (**219**). As soon as a eomb is deprived of its bees, it should be returned to the parent-stoek. If one or two eombs containing brood, eggs, and stores, are given to the forced swarm, it will be much encouraged, and will need no feeding (**605**) if the weather should be unfavorable. In removing the frames, the bee-keeper should look for the queen, and give the eomb she is on, to the forced swarm, without shaking off the bees. If he does not see her on the eombs, he will seldom after a little praetice, fail to notice her, as she is shaken on the sheet, and crawls towards the new hive. The queen is seldom left on a frame after it has been shaken so that most of the bees fall off (**139**).
* **476.** The more eombs with brood are taken from _A,_ the less chance it will have to send forth a natural swarm with its first hatehed queen. If it is desirable to make a large number of swarms, and the parent colony is strong in hatching bees, only a few of the combs need be shaken in front of the new live containing the queen, and the parent colony, with the adhering young bees, may be set in a new place.
By this method, one swarm is made from each of the hives set apart for increase, and although the colonies thus divided are not so strong as when one swarm is made from two hives; yet, in ordinary localities and seasons, they become strong enough for all purposes, long before the season is over, especially if young queens are introduced (**533**) in the colonies made queenless, and comb-foundation is used in full sheets in the frames (**67**-**4**).
This method of making artificial swarms may be varied ad-infinitum. It is currently known among practical Apiarists under the name of "shook-swarming."
**477**. If the mother-colony has not been supplied with a fertile queen, it cannot for a long time part with another swarm, without being seriously weakened.
Second-swarming, as is well known, often very much injures the parent-colony, although its queens are rapidly maturing; but the forced mother-colony may have to start them almost from the entire. By giving it a fertile queen, and retaining enough adhering bees to develop the brood, another swarm may be taken away in ten or twelve days in a good season, and the mother-colony left in a far better condition than if it had parted with two natural swarms. In favorable seasons and localities, this process may be repeated two or three times, at intervals of ten days, and if no combs are removed, the mother-colony will still be well supplied with brood and mature bees. Indeed, the judicious removal of bees, at proper intervals, often leaves it, at the close of the Summer, better supplied than non-swarming colonies with maturing brood; the latter having--in the expressive language of an old writer--"waxed over fat."
We have had colonies which, after parting with four swarms in the way above described, have stored their lives with Fall honey, besides yielding a surplus in the supers.
This method of artificial increase, which resembles natural swarming, in not taking away the combs of the mother-colony, is not only superior to it, in leaving a fertile queen, but obviates almost entirely all risk of after-swarming; for the forced swarm, containing the old queen, seldom attempts to send forth a new colony, and the parent hive, in which the young queen is placed, is too destitute of field-workers to swarm soon. The young queen herself is equally content--except in very warm climates, or in extraordinary seasons--to stay where she is put. Even if the old queen is allowed to remain in the mother-colony, she will seldom leave, if sufficient room is given for storing surplus honey; and it makes no difference--as far as liability of swarming is coneerned--where the young one is put.
**478**. Artificial increase may be also made, by simply giving several frames of hatching bees to a nucleus (**520**) containing a fertile queen, and placing the colony thus built up on the stand of a strong hive, removing the latter to a new location.
If, from some cause, the parent-colony could not be moved, the forced swarm might be made to adhere to a new location as follows: Secure their queen, when the bees are shaken out of the hive; and when they show that they miss her, confine them to their hive, until their agitation has reached its height. Then open the hive, and as the bees begin to take wing, present their queen to them. When they have clustered around her, _they may be treated like a natural swarm_. To do this with every forced swarm would take too much time; but it would answer well when the forced swarm is to be moved a short distance.
**479**. If no queens have been raised previously (**511**), by taking a few forced swarms, from select colonies (**513**), nine days before the time in which the most are to be made, there will be an abundance of sealed queens, almost mature, so that every parent-colony may have one. If the forced swarms were made a short time before natural swarming would have taken place, some of the parent-colonies will contain a number of maturing queens, which may be removed, a few days before hatching, and given to such as have started none. But it is far better to rear the queens first, as they can be bred from choice stock (**513**).
However, as queen-rearing, by the Alley or Doolittle methods (**528**, **530**), has now become a special business in the South, Apiarists may find it profitable to buy their queens from some reliable breeder in a southern state, where they can be reared more cheaply, early in the season (**601**)..
**4S0**. A nucleus (**520**) may be built up after its queen has commenced laying, by helping it with a comb of brood and young bees, from a full colony, adding, at proper intervals, a third, and, a fourth, until they are strong enough to take care of themselves. This mode of increase is laborious, and requires skill and judgment; for, the bee-keeper should be very careful never to give a weak colony more brood than its bees can cover, remembering that, should the temperature become colder, the brood might be chilled and perish.
As a number of nuclei are to be simultaneously strengthened the Apiarist cannot complete his artificial processes by a single operation, and must always be on hand, or incur the risk of ending the season with a number of starving colonies. For these and other reasons, we nueh prefer the other methods, above given, dispensing with so much opening of lives and handling of combs. If, however, any of the new colonies are weak enough to need it, they must be helped to combs from stronger ones.
**4S1**. _Thatever method of artificial increase is pursued by the Apiarist, he should never reduce the strength of his mother-colonies, so as seriously to cripple the reproductive power of their queens._ This principle should be to him as "the law of the Medes and Versians, which altreeth not;" for, while a queen, with an abundance of worker-comb and bees, may, in a single season, become the parent of a number of prosperons families, if her colony, at the beginning of the swarm ing season, is divided into three or four parts, not one of them will ordinarily acquire stores enough to survive the Winter.
The practical bee-keeper should remember that no drone-comb is built when the queen is with the builders (**229**), and that the less increase he takes, from the colonies on which he relies for surplus-honey, the better.
**4S2**. With the movable-frame hive, and the improved system, the Apiarist, by raising his queens or queen-eclis (**511**) previously (_and this is very important_) can take the increase that he wishes to make, _from colonies that would have produced little, if any, surplus, and preserve his best colonies for honey production._ Let it not be understood by this, that we advise taking the increase from weak colonies, in every apiary, there are some colonies, which, though of fair strength, do not become populous in time to harvest more than their supply. Sueh colonies can furnish good swarms, with but little help, owing to the fact that the greater number of their bees raised during the harvest, instead of before it, are too young to go to the field (**162**).
If our method is followed, the colonies, which have been kept for honey production, can furnish help, if necessary, towards the end of the season, for those of the artificial swarms that need it.
To the prudent 'apiarist, they are as a reserve body of seleet troops to the skillful general, a timely help, in an emergeney.
Remember that populous colonies, that are raising queen-ecells, during the early part of a good honey harvest, are strongly inclined to swarm when the young queens hatch (**465**).
**4S3**. _The colonies that are raising young queens, either from worker-broad or from queen-ecells given them, must be well supplied with honey, must have enough young bees to keep the brood warm and to take care of it, and no combbuilding to do._
One artificial swarm made at the opening of the honey harvest, when the hive is full of brood, is better than two swarms made at its close.
When new colonies are made by purchasing queens (**601**) with nuclei (**520**), shipped from a distance (**5*****?**), they should be hived on as many combs of brood, take\({}_{11}\) from other hives, as they can well cover. If full frames of foundation (**67*****1**) are added, from time to time, strong colonies may be built out of them, quite readily.
If the colonies are gathering much honey, when artificial swarms are made, but little smoke (**38*****2**) will be needed in the operations. The frequent use of smoke makes the queen leave the combs, for greater security. This often causes great delay in the formation of artificial swarms by removing the frames, and in operations where it is desirable to catch the queen, or to examine her upon the comb.
**181**. _Artificial operations of all kinds are most successful with bee-forage is abundant;_ when it is scarce, they are quite precarious, even if the colonies are well supplied with food.
When bees are not busy in honey-gathering, they have leisure to ascertain the condition of weak colonies, which are almost certain to be rubcd, if they are ineautiously opened. When forage is scarce, the Apiarist who does not guard against robbing (**66*****1**) will seriously impair the value of his colonies, and entail upon himself much useless and vexatious labor. _Because of demoralizing bees, by tempting them to rob one another._
**485**. _During a good honey flow, bees from different hives may be mixed without quarrolling,_ owing to their more peaceable disposition, when full of honey, hence all manipulations become much easier. But at other times, great caution is requisite not only in giving a hive a strange queen, but in all attempts to _mix bees belonging to different colonies._ Bees having a fertile queen will often quarrel with those having an unimpregnated one.
Members of different colonies recognize their hive-companions especially by the sense of smell, and if there should be a thousand lives in the apiary, any one will readily detect a strange bee; just as each mother in a large flock of sheep is able, by the same sense, in the darkest night, to distinguish her own lamb from all the others. Colonies might be safely uningled, by sprinkling them with sugar-water, scented with peppermint or any other strong odor, which would make them all smell alike.
Bees also recognize strangers by their _actions,_ even when they have the same scent; for a _frightcned bee curls herself up with a couced look_, which unmistakably proclaims that she is conscious of being an intruder. If, therefore, the bees of one colony are left on their _own stand,_ and the others are suddenly introduced, in a time of scarcity, the latter, even when boih colonies have the same smell, are often so frightened that they are discovered to be strangers, and are instantly killed. If, however, _both_ colonies are removed to a _not stand,_ and shaken out together on a sheet, they will peaceably mingle, when scented alike. We find substantially the same thing recommended, in 1778, by Thomas Wildman (page 230 of the 3d edition of his valuable work on Bees), who says, that bees will "unite while in fear and distress, without fighting, as they would be apt to do, if strange bees were added to a hive in possession of its honey."
**4S6**. The forcing of a swarm ought not to be attempted when the weather is cool, nor after dark. Bees are always much more irascible when their lives are disturbed after it is dark, and as they cannot see where to fly, they will alight on the person of the bee-keeper, who is almost sure to be stung. It is seldom that night work is attempted upon bees, without making the operator repeat his folly.
**4S7**. We would strongly dissuade any but the most experienced Apiarists, from attempting, at the furthest, to do more than double their colonies in one year. It would take another book to furnish directions for rapid multiplication, sufficiently full and explicit for the inexperienced; and even then, most who should undertake it, would be sure, at first,to fail. With ten strong colonies of bees, in movable-comb halves, in one propitious season, we could so increase then, in a favorable location, as to have, on the approach of Winter, one hundred good colonies; but we should expect to purchase queens, foundation, and perhaps hundreds of pounds of honey, devoting much of our time to their management, and bringing to the work the experience of many years, and the judgment acquired by numerous lamentable failures.
In one season, being called from home after our colonies had been greatly multiplied, the honey harvest was suddenly cut short by a drought, and we found, on our return, that most of our stocks were ruined by starvation.
The time, care, skill, and found required in our uncertain climate for the rapid increase of colonies, are so great, that not one bee-keeper in a hundred* can make it _profitable;_ while most who attempt it, will be almost sure, at the close of the season, to find themselves in possession of colonies which have been _mangest to death_.
Footnote *: Many a person who reads this will probably imagine that he is the one in a hundred.
+ The following calculation of _possible_ profits from bee-culture, taken from "Sydserrf's Treatise on Bees," published in England, in 1792, is a perfect gem of its kiud:
"Suppose a swarm of bees at the first to cost 10s. 6d., and neither them nor the swarms to he taken, but to do well, and swarm once every year"bees must be naughty, indeed, if they dare to do otherwise!"what will be the product for fourteen years, and what the profit, if each have is sold at 10s. 6d.?
Years, Hives, Profile, * s. d.
1. 1. 0 0 0 0 2 2 1 1 0 3 4 2 2 0 4 8 1 4 0 * * * * 14 8192 4 200 10 9 "N. B.--Deduct 110s. 6d., what the first five cost, and the remainder
who uses them, will experiment, at least, on a small scale. In this way, we may hope that those points in the natural history of the bee still involved in doubt, will, are long, be satisfactorily explained.
There is a large class of bee-keepers--not "bee-masters"--while desire a live which will give them, however ignorant or careless, a large yield of honey from their bees. They are easily captivated by the shallowest devices, and spend their money and destroy their bees, to fill the purses of unprincipled men. There never will be a "royal road" to profitable beceeping. Like all other branches of rural economy, it demands care and experience; and those who are conscious of a strong disposition to procrastinate and neglect, will do well to let bees alone, unless they hope, by the study of their systematic industry, to reform evil habits which are well high inevitable.
## Chapter 7.2 Queen Rearing.
**489.** We have shown (**109**) that when a colony is deprived of its queen, the bees soon raise another, if they have worker eggs or young larvae.
In general, they select, first, some of the oldest among those whose milky "pap" has not yet been changed for coarser food (**107**). Such a selection is wise, for the older the larva is, the sooner the colony will recover a queen.
**490.** But some Apiarists fear that the bees will secure poorer queens, if they use larvae, for they suppose that the food given to these during the first three days, may be different from the food given to the queen-larve, although it looks the same, and for this reason, they prefer to raise their queens from the egg.
**491.** A learned bee-keeper, of Switzerland, Mr. De Planta, has made comparative chemical experiments, on the milky food which is first given to the larvae of drones, queens, and workers, and has ascertained that this food is composed of the same substances for all, albumen, fat, sugar, and water, and that the only difference is in the proportions of these substances. Yet he coneludes that these variations are but accessory, and not premeditated by the bees.
We think that these conclusions are right, for Mr. De Planta, to get a sufficient quantity of this food, had to take it from different hives, and at different seasons of the year; and as this milky food is apparently the product of glands (**64**), as is the milk of our cows, the proportions of substances in the "milk" of bees, may vary, as they do in the milk of cows, which contains more or less caseine, fat, sugar, or water, according to the race, the age, and the food eaten.
**492**. Other bee-keepers suppose that the newly-hatched larva, intended by the bees to be raised as queens, are more plentifully fed from the first, than worker-larvae. But we have always noticed, that, except during a scarcity, the latter have as much of this pap as they can eat, during the first three days, since they float on the milky food (**166**). The wise bee-keeper can ward against the rearing of poor queens, by feeling his bees abundantly, if necessary, a few days in advance, and during the queen-breeding.
**493**. Lastly, some bee-keepers think that bees sometimes use larvae more than three days old, and which consequently, have already received curser food. One of our leaders in bee-culture writes that one of his colonies must have used a larva four and one-half days old, since this colony hatched a queen in eight and one-half days, instead of about ten, as usually (**110**). (Cook's Guide.) But we cannot admit that the nurses were guilty of such blunder, especially since they would have had the trouble of replacing with better food, the coarse pap already given. Most likely, some already constructed queen-cell had passed unnoticed. Every one of us, old bee-keepers, has made similar errors, some queen cells being deceptive (**519**).