BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
I may remark in passing, that these queenless colonies will produce queen-cells not excelled by those of a swarming colony, and not surpassed in excellence by those produced by any of the best plans used by queen-breeders. In short, I do not belive it is possible to have better. It must be remembered, however, that all of them are not of equal excellence. For the bees will continue to start cells for several days, and the last ones started will be from larvae too old to make good queens. You may be able to distinguish these cells by their poorer look, or, if you give the bees several cells, among them at least one or two of the finest looking, they will make no mistake in making the proper selection.
working of queenless bees.
It may be objected that this keeping bees queenless for ten days makes them work with less vigor. I am not sure but it ought, but I must confess I have had no strong proof of it come directly under my own observation. So far as I could tell, these lees seemed to work just as hard when their queen was taken away as before. In the spring of 1885 one colony was, by some means, left entirely away from the proper rows--some three rods from any other colony.
I took it away, put it in proper line, and left to catch the returning stragglers a hive containing one comb, this comb having no brood and very little if any honey. This colony having been a very weak one, very few bees returned to the old spot, but these few surprised me by filling a good stock of honey in empty comb, before they were put with the rest of the colony.
Swarms treated on this "puting up" plan often swarmed again, but if they did they were put up again.
An objection to the plan was that these "put-ups" were in the way and had to be lifted down when anything was done with supers. Still, for anyone who allows the bees to swarm, and who does not object to the lifting, the plan is a good one.
## giving nucleus to swarm.
A plan that has seemed to be as satisfactory as any other, although it is not always convenient to use it, is upon the issuing of a swarm to pick up the queen so as to have her out of the way, remove the old hive from the stand and place on the stand a nucleus in a regular hive. The supers are put upon this hive, and the swarm is left to return at its leisure. This takes little time and trouble, and there is no danger of further swarming. I have seen it stated that when the swarm returns the queen of the nucleus may be killed, but that does not occur "in this locality."
I don't quite like that heading. It may be understood to mean that I am entirely successful in profitably preventing swarming, and I am not certain that I have yet attained to that. I say _profitably_ preventing it, for there might be such a thing as preventing it in a way that would hardly pay. If a colony disposed to swarm should be blown up with dynamite, it would probably not swarm again, but its usefulness as a honey-gathering institution would be somewhat impaired. Swarming might also be prevented by means of such character as to involve an amount of trouble that would make it unprofitable ; or it might be prevented in such a way as to have a very unprofitable effect upon the honey-crop. The thing I am after is _profitable_ prevention,
## no delight in swarms.
I have read of the great delight felt by the bee-keeper at the sight of an issuing swarm, the bees whirling and swirling in delirious joy, but such things do not appeal to me. I do not like swarming. I never did. I don't think I ever shall. In my many years of bee-keeping experience. I think I never looked upon the issuing of a swarm with feelings other than those akin to pain, unless it might be the first swarm I ever had.
## 8. Bad manners of swarms.
I am not an expert at living swarms. They don't act nicely for me. After I have climbed a tree with laborious pains and shaken down a swarm with a live under it at just the right place, the swarm instead of entering in a well-mannered sort of style will just as like as not keep flying back every time it is shaken down, unless it should take it into its head to give me more exercise by taking another tree. I got a Manum swarm-catcher, but I do not remember that I ever used it with success. One day when I was trying to use it, J. T. Calvert, the energetic business man of the \(\Lambda\). I, Root Co., was here. He helped me. He made a catcher of his hands and put the bees in the catcher by main strength. But they wouldn't stay "catched," and they didn't. So I don't like swarming, even if I didn't think it interfered with the honey crop.
## 9.1. Who bees swarm?
Upon no other subject connected with bee-keeping have I studied so much, tried so many plans, or made so many failures, as with regard to prevention of swarming. If I knew all about just what makes a colony swarm, I would be in better shape to use preventive measures; but I don't know all about it. Of course I know that want of room and want of ventilation may hasten swarming, and possibly some other things of that kind; but after all there is a good deal of mystery about the whole affair.
I think it is of some use to take pains to see that the bees are never really cramped for room. I believe that raising the hive on blocks \(3\!\!/4\) of an inch or more is a good thing. It is also a good thing to rear queens from stock that has shown little inclination to swarming. Indeed, with room enough and ventilation enough it is possible that bees would never swarm. Some one will say to me that bees may swarm with a hogshead of room. Yes, but the combs may be in such condition that the queen will be cramped for room, even in a hogshead.
## Non-swarming piles.
For a good many years I have been in the habit of having in each apiary one or more colonies whose hives were kept as a sort of store-house where extra frames of brood or honey could be put, to be drawn from as occasion required, but often there has been no drawing, and these "piles" have grown to be four or five stories high with an immense force of bees. I never knew one of them to swarm. But the ventilation was as immense as the force of bees, for each story had an entrance of good size, and perhaps the super-abundance of ventilation was the secret of their not swarming.
## young queens and swarming.
It was said that colonies with queens of the current year's rearing would not swarm, and one year I supplied all the colonies of one apiary with young queens about the beginning of the honey harvest. It didn't work.
Once when a colony swarmed and returned to its hive, I removed its queen and gave it a queen that I think had not been laying more than two or three days. Within three days that queen came out with the swarm. It seems the condition of the colony has more to do with the case than the condition of the queen. C. J. H. Gravenhorst, late editor of _Deutche Illustric Bicenczitung_, gives what I think is the truth about young queens and swarming: A given colony will not swarm with a queen of this year if the queen was reared _in this colony_; if reared elsewhere it may swarm. Why that difference he did not know. But some have claimed exceptions to this rule.
## taking two frames of brood weekly.
One season I kept eight brood-combs in the hive, and every week or ten days took out two of the central combs, replacing them with foundation or empty combs. This was to give the queen so much room that there should be no desire to swarm. It was successful in most cases, but there were too many exceptions to make the plan reliable.
Afterward I carried the same thing to its extreme limit in a good many cases, taking away all the brood. One frame of brood, however, was left for two or three days, perhaps a week, for fear the bees would be discouraged and desert an entirely empty live. This one frame of brood was then taken away because it was the common thing for the bees to start queen-cells on it. Yet it is just possible that no swarming would have taken place, in spite of the queen-cells.
## forced swarming.
This plan has come into great prominence lately under the name of _forced, shaken_, or _brushed_ swarms. Gravenhorst, the great German authority, practiced and advocated it in the seventies of the last century. L. Stachehlausen was earnest in his advocacy of the plan in this country, and E. R. Root, editor of Gleanings in Bee-Culture, took it up with great enthusiasm. Probably a good many had done more or less at it independently, for it would naturally suggest itself that taking away all the brood would leave a colony in much the same condition as if they had swarmed; and in actual practice most of those who had tried the plan have found bees no more inclined to swarm after it than after natural swarming.
Many have found the plan a material advance over natural swarming. One very great advantage is sufficient to commend it; the bee-keeper is master of the situation, and is not dependent upon the whims of the bees as to when they shall swarm--an inestimable boon to those who have out-apiaries, and indeed to any one who does not wish the trouble of watching for swarms.
It also gives the bee-keeper control over the number of bees that shall remain with the swarm. In natural swarming there may be too few bees go with the swarm for best results in storing, while there may still be not enough for any hope of good work in the parent colony, with a possibility of this latter force being still further divided by after-swarms.
In the case of a forced swarm, all the bees may be allowed to remain on the old stand except merely enough to care for the brood which is taken away. This brood may then be put on a new stand, and with the addition of a queen or a queen-cell allowed to start out on its career as an independent colony.
## shaking off all bees.
Or, the forced swarm may be made still stronger, by giving it _all_ the bees, and distributing the brood to nuclei,weak colonies, or wherever it will do most good. In no case, however, would it be a prudent thing in this locality to follow the recommendation of some, by putting the brood on a new stand without any bees, trusting to the warmth of the weather to hatch out young bees fast enough to care for the brood. If such a colony--if you can call it a colony--should not fall a prey to the robbers, there would in most cases be a serious loss of brood from starvation and chilling.
No forced swarming till queen-cells started.
In no case did I practice this forced swarming till I found by the presence of queen-cells that the bees were thinking of swarming. There would be less labor in the long run (supposing that all were to be swarmed sooner or later), to do up the whole business at a suitable time, without waiting for the bees to take the initiative. Indeed, conditions may be such in some localities that there might be a loss to wait for queen-cells.
But the harvests here are such that it is usually better to have swarming delayed. Moreover, a good many of my colonies, if let alone, will go through the entire season without attempting to swarm, and such colonies are the very ones that give the best yields, and forced swarming would be practiced upon them only at a loss.
########## ISAadvantage of forced swarming.
With all the advantage forced swarming has over natural swarming, it still leaves something to be desired. As already said, those colonies which hold their force intact throughout the entire season are the ones that give the best results. It is true that in forced swarming the entire force of bees may be left on the old stand, but there are thousands of prospective bees in the brood taken away. If you take away that brood to-day, you are taking away the bees of to-morrow, and of twenty more days to come.
"But the bees that emerge to-morrow do not emerge as field-bees, and will not be field-bees till they are sixteen days old. If the harvest closes in sixteen days the additional force will only be a lot of useless consumers." While the first part of your statement may be true enough, I cannot say as much for the second.
## 8.10.20.20.
While the bees that emerge to-morrow may do no field-work for sixteen days, they begin housework at a very tender age--housework that would have to be continued by older bees if this brood were taken away. As fast as one of these young bees is ready to begin housework, it takes the place of an older bee, which can now go afield. I know that, as a general rule, the different departments of work are done by bees of certain ages, but I also know that bees accommodate themselves to circumstances. I have seen bees at five days old carrying in pollen because there were no older bees in the hive to preform that duty, and we all know that in early spring nursing and housework are done by bees several months old.
So it is reasonable to believe that at least to a certain extent the necessities of the case rather than the matter of absolute age decides what duties a bee shall preform; and the logical conclusion from that is that the larger force of bees we have in a hive the more storing we shall have even if a good many of the bees be quite young.
Without, perhaps, giving any satisfactory reason for it. I am also quite of the opinion that better work is generally done when bees are allowed to go right along rearing brood at their own sweet will; for toward the close of the harvest they, of their own accord, curtail work in that direction.
## 8.11. Non-swarming preferred to forced.
While I yield to no one in my appreciation of the advantages of forced swarming over natural swarming,I believe that the advantages of no swarming whatever over forced swarming are as great as the advantages of forced over natural swarming.
So you will hardly blame me if instead of resting content with forced swarming I continue to pursue that will-o-the wisp--in the opinion of many--non-swarming.
_Fig. 5g--Folding Sections._
keeping colonies queenless.
The next season after practicing the removal of two frames of brood, I settled upon a plan which I felt pretty sure would prevent the possibility of swarming. It was a no less radical measure than to keep the colony queenless. I reasoned that as I had never had a queen hatched inside of eleven days from the time the queen was taken away, or from the time the bees started queen-cells, the colony was safe from swarming if once in ten days I took away their brood and gave them fresh ; also, that it was only bees over two weeks old that worked in the field ; add to this the three weeks that it took from the egg to the full-fledged worker, and it was five weeks or more from the time the egg was laid till the bee became a gatherer. Clearly, then, only such bees as came from eggs laid five weeks or more before the close of the honey harvest were available as gatherers. Why not have the colony quenceless during this five weeks? So I took away the queen, leaving in the live three combs, one of which contained eggs and brood in all stages, the other two containing nothing from which queen-cells could be started.
Once in ten days the comb of young brood with its queen-cells was taken away and a fresh one given them, and at the close of the five weeks, which was about the close of the harvest, the queen was returned.
## Not a success.
As a preventive of swarming, it was a complete success. Not one colony thus treated swarmed; how could they? As a means of securing a large crop, I think it was an egregious failure; although I can hardly tell with great definiteness, the season itself being a failure. Possibly the absence of the queen itself had something to do with lessening their stores, but I doubt it. But when all combs of brood but one were taken away, a large force of prospective bees were taken away that would have hatched out in the next twenty-one days.
If I had allowed four or five frames of brood, changing every ten days, the result might have been quite different. Moreover, the one frame they did have was, for the most part, filled with brood so young, that little or none of it hatched while in the live. If I should try anything in the same line again, I should keep four or five frames in the live, and this should be mainly brood well advanced so that much of it would hatch out to replenish the wasting numbers.
## keeping queens caged.
Stecess was reported by others with the plan of keeping queens caged in the live during part or the whole of the harvest, and although I tried it on a large scale there was no case of success with me.
fastening young queens in.
The good old-fashioned way of managing afterswarms was to return them as fast as they came out. This gave the young queens a chance to fight it out till only one was left, and when only one was left there would be no more swarming. So I planned to let the young queens fight it out without the trouble of returning swarms. I put a queen-exeluder between the bottom-board of the hive, so that no queen could get out. As no queen could get out no swarm could leave. When the young queens emerged they could settle their little differences to suit themselves till only one queen was left. I would keep track*of what was going on inside the lives sufficiently to take away the excluder after all but one queen had been put out of the way, so the young queen could go out on her wedding-trip. The thing was so certain to work that I spent $37.50 for queen-excluders to put the plan in practice.
## swarming galore.
In due time when queen-cells were sealed the swarms began to issue. Then they returned. Then they came out next day. Then they returned again. After doing more or less of this, the time came when the young queens began to emerge. Business became lively. Swarming once a day did not always satisfy them. The number of issues in a day became such that several swarms would be out at a time, and they were not at all particular to keep separate. Neither were they as methodical as prime swarms about returning to their own lives. Almost any hive seemed to suit them providing there was a good deal of noise at the entrance, and when swarming got well under way for the day there were plenty of hives with noise at the entrance. Whether the excluders leaked queens, or whatever may have been the reason, there were some cases of young queens being out, and when there was a young queen in a swarm there was no telling how many swarms would unite with it.
## abnormal behavior.
After a swarm had been balked in its efforts a number of times there seemed to be a reckless disregard in a good many cases as to the propriety of returning when they had had plenty of time to discover that no young queen had come out with them, and sometimes they would settle and remain clustered for half a day, perhaps several swarms in the cluster. Nothing so very bad about that, if I had only been entirely sure that some time they would return; but when I stood gazing on a bunch of bees as big as my body when I'm in best condition, and meditated upon the chance of there being a young queen in the bunch to incite them to sail off into the ethereal blue--well, it was not the sort of meditation most conducive to composure of mind.
Inside of the hive the program as laid down was pretty generally carried out; at the proper time the excluder was removed, and in due time the young queen was laying. The plan is a good one if one could only induce the bees to refrain from swarming out until only one young queen is left in the hive. I could not induce them to do that.
_Fig. 50--Brood of Laying Workers._
rearing queen in "put-up."
It is not necessary to tell of all the plans that were tried. One was finally hit upon that proved to be quite satisfactory, so far as tried. When the presence of well-advanced queen-cells showed that a colony was. bent on swarming, all but one or two frames of brood were taken from the hive and put in another hive that was "put-up" on top, of course having no communication with the bees below. In the old live below the old queen was sometimes left, and sometimes the bees were left without any queen ; but in either case care was taken that no queen-cell was left below, and ten days later search was made for queen-cells below, or else the brood was exchanged for brood from a colony where there was no danger of queen-cells, and the old queen was removed. To the "put-up" was given, at the time of putting up, a virgin queen or a ripe queen-cell, and as soon as the young queen was laying the old live was taken away and the "put-up" live was put down in its place. Thus the whole force of the colony was kept together, there was a young queen of the current year's rearing, practically reared in the live, and that colony was past the anxiety for the season. Some, however, say that such a queen will swarm with them.
## getting bees to destroy cells.
I said the brood was put up, but said nothing about the bees or the queen-cells. No attention was paid to the queen-cells, and about half the bees were shaken off the combs--perhaps more than half. Just how many bees to leave in the "put-up" live was not an easy matter to gauge. If too few there would be chilled brood. If too many the young queen would leave with a swarm. Of course the latter danger could be avoided by destroying all queen-cells in the "put-up," but that would make more work, and if there are few enough bees all superfluous cells will be destroyed by the bees themselves, and there will be no danger of swarming.
## nucleus to prevent swarming.
A modification of the plan somtimes used was to take a nucleus from somewhere else and put in the place of the colony. But in this case the colony was made queenless two or three days in advance. Either plan left the colony without any diminution of its forces, and with no very great check to its work. Before speaking of this, however, it will be well to speak of the preliminary work, which is the same for all colonies, whether the after treatment be on the "put-up" plan or some other plan. Then I struck upon a plan that seemed equally effective but quite a little easier.
_Fig. 60.--Top and Bottom Starters in Section._
## preliminary work.
As soon as colonies become strong and are working busily, we begin to be on the lookout for queen-cells. This generally will not be till the bees are at work on clover bloom, although it may happen in some seasons that preparation for swarming begins during the last of fruit-bloom. Of late years dandelion has become so important that there is a possibility it may start swarming. Whetler it be in apple or clover bloom, we begin to examine some of the strongest colonies to see if any preparations for swarming are made. If we find none in the strongest colonies it is hardly worth while to look through the rest. When, however, we find one or more queen-cells with an egg in each, then it is time to begin a systematic canvas of _all_ colonies, and to keep it up in all so long as we continue to find queen-cells in any, except in a case where a colony has already been treated or has treated itself in such way that it need not be expected to swarm.
## colonies that do not need watching.
In struggling with the swarming problem, there are a few things that may be relied upon with some degree of certainty. A swarm that has been lived in an empty live this season will not send forth a swarm this year, with rare exceptions. Equally safe from swarming is a colony whose queen has been removed and the colony allowed to rear a new queen, provided only one queen is allowed to mature. Also a colony kept queenless about 10 days and then given a laying queen of the current year's rearing. Colonies that do not come under either of these heads will need watching until the time comes when bees have given up starting cells in all colonies.
## looking for queen-cells.
We plan to go through each colony about once in ten days to look for queen-cells. I say _about_ once in ten days, for it is not always possible to be exact. It may happen that one or two days in succession will be rainy, and then the ten days become eleven or twelve. Or, it may be that on account of some interference with our work that we can see in advance, we may think it best to shorten the ten days to nine or less.