BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
**420**. Should you give the scouts time to return, you would first see a few bees flying around the cluster. Slowly their number would increase, till the whole swarm took wing, and it would be almost useless to try to stop it or to follow it. When a swarm thus takes flight, it knows no bounds. Hedges, fences, woods, walls, ditches, rivers, are barriers only to the breathless and disappointed owner. The only thing that we ever have known to stop a departing swarm is throwing water among them. Flashing the sun's rays on them by the use of a looking-glass is advised by some. We tried it, but did not succeed in a single instance.
**121.** As a matter of course, we suppose that the Apaira-rist has an empty hive in readiness, clean and cool. Bees, when they swann, being unnaturally heated, often refuse to enter hives that have been standing in the sun, or at best are slow in taking possession of them. The temperature of the parent-stock, at the moment of swarning, rises very suddenly, and many bees are often so drenched with perspiration that they cannot take wing to join the emigrating colony. To attempt to make swarming bees enter a heated hive in a blazing sun is, therefore, as irrational as it would be to force a panting crowd of human beings into the suffocating atmosphere of a close garret. If the process of hiving cannot be conducted in the shade, the hive should be covered with a sheet or with leafy boughs.
**122.** In the movable-frame hive, every good piece of worker-comb, if large enough to be attached to a frame, should be used, both for its intrinsic value and because bees are so pleased when they find such unexpected treasure in a hive, that they will seldom forsake it. A new swarm often takes possession of a deserted hive, well stored with comb; whilst, if dozens of empty ones stand in the Apiary, the bees very seldom enter them of their -own accord.
"The bee-keepers of Greece used to attract the swarms into their hives by rubbing the entrance and the inside of their cmpty hives with bees-wax and propolis. But such practice was often the cause of contests between neighbors, for their bees did not inquire about the ownership of the hive selected.' - (Della Rocca, 1790.)
But when a few combs only are given to a swarm, as the queen will not follow the builders (**229**), too much drone comb (**221**) will be built. Then, in hiving a swarm, the Apairast had better dispense with giving any, unless he fills the hive (**231**).
_Broken-combs_ (**221**) _should never be put up in frames,_ or the bees may follow the pattern, and build comb suitable only for breeding a horde of useless consumers.
**423.** Frames containing worker combs, from colonies that have died in the previous Winter are very good, if the comb is dry and clean. Combs of honey will do if the swarm is bived on a propitious day, otherwise they will attract robbers (**664**) and the presence of the latter will prevent the swarm from entering the live. For this reason, combs containing honey should not be given to the swarm until the following evening.
**424.** In the absence of combs or comb-foundation starters (**674**), the triangular comb-guide will greatly help to secure straight combs, in the frames, but it cannot be depended upon, in every case. (comb-foundation in full sheets or in strips is so far superior, and is now in such general use, that the triangular comb-guide (**319**, **324**) is discarded by most Apiarists. By the use of comb-foundation, crooked combs,**-the bane of the apiary**-**are no longer found, and every comb hangs in its frame, as straight as a board.
**425.** It is held by some writers that the giving of a live full of drawn combs to a natural swarm is more injurious than beneficial, because the bees fill these combs at once with honey; the queen having no room to lay, the swarm declines in strength. Mr. W. Z. Hutchinson in his most excellent book, "Advanced Bee-culture," says: "Oecasionally I have lived a swarm upon drawn combs, but the loss has always been so great that it seems folly to repeat it.". Sueh an oceurrence happens in a very good season with small hives. During a heavy flow, the bees can fill the entire hive-body with honey in less time than it would take them to build the combs and the queen is thus deprived of room to lay. This same colony, if hived upon empty frames would harvest just enough honey in that length of time to build the combs and keep the brood nourished. The profitable saving thus turns out as a loss, since this extra amount of honey is in the way of the queen. This does not prove the uselessness of combs, as some personswould infer, but on the contrary it evidences the fact that it costs the bees a great deal of honey to produce the comb, since they can save enough to fill the combs in the same time that it would take them to build those combs. In localities where this condition proves to be common, it is best to use the built combs only in making artificial (**169**) increase, or with weak swarms. A very small quantity of bees with a good queen and built combs will soon make a powerful colony. But in poor honey seasons, when it is difficult for swarms to harvest enough to build their combs, a hive full of combs proves a great boon to them, even if the swarm is large.
**126.** It is very important that the frames should hang true in the hive, and at the proper distance apart (**316**). If the hive has to be removed, they should be previously fastened in their places, by the use of small wire nails only partly driven, and removed later. If, however, a frame spacer is used (fig. 76) this will not be necessary. The cloth (**353**) and mat (**353**) should be carefully placed over the frames, or the swarm would build and raise brood in the upper story, intended only for surplus honey.
**127.** When the hive is thus prepared and placed in a convenient position, the entrance should be opened as wide as possible. If it has a movable-bottom-board, it should be raised from it in front (**3-11**), and the entrance-blocks inserted under its edges, so as to leave a larger passage for the swarm, that the bees may get in as soon as possible; and a well-stretched sheet, or coarse cloth, should be securely fastened to the alirhting-board, to keep them from becoming separated, or soiled by dirt; for, if separated, they are a long time in entering; and a bee covered with dust or dirt is very apt to perish. Bees are much obstructed in their travel, by any _corner,_ or great inequality of surface; and if the sheet is not smoothly stretched, they are often so confused, that it takes them a long time to find the entrance to the hive.
**128.** If the bees have alighted on a small limb, which can be cut with sharp pruning-shears, without jarring the swarm, or damaging the value of the tree, they may be gently carried on it to the living-sheet, in front of their new home. If they seem at all reluctant to enter it, gently scoop up a few of them with a large spoon, or a leaf'y twig, or even with the fingers (**72**), and shake them close to its entrance. As they go in with fanning wings, they will raise a peculiar note, which communicates to their companions the joyful news that they have found a home; and in a short time the whole swarm will enter, without injury to a single bee.
When bees are ouce shaken down on the sheet, they are quite unwilling to take wing again; for, being loaded with honey, they desire, like heavily-armed troops, to march slowly and sedately to their placee of eneampment.
**129**. When they alight on a high limb, which cannot be reached, or when the limb is too valuable to be sacrificed, the swarm can be hired by using a light box or swarm-sack, at the end of a pole of proper length. This swarm-sack (fig. 96) is made of strong nuslin, about two feet deep, fastened around a wire hoop, about one foot in diameter, and is similar to a butterfly net. A piece of braid is sewed at the bottom, inside and outside, to help in emptying it. When the sack is placed under the swarm, the bees are suddenly shaken into it by a single tap on the limb. Hold the sack firmly, as the sudden weight will draw it down in a most unexpected manner. To prevent the bees from escaping, hold the handle perpendicularly, as this will close the opening of the bag instantly.
**130**. In bringing it to the hive, and turning it inside out, by holding the braid with the fingers, some care must be exercised, as this unceremonious imprisoning of the bees is apt to cause some to be angry. A little smoke (**382**) should be used,or a few seconds should be allowed to elapse before they are gently liberated in front of the hive.
**431.** The sack is preferable to a box or a basket, as the latter do not close readily, and a number of the bees are apt to fly back to the clustering spot, befo-e they are emptied in front of their intended abode.
If this happens, the process of living must be repeated, unless the queen has been secured, when they will quickiy form a line of communication with those on the sheet. If the queen has not been secured, the bees will either refuse to enter the hive, or will speedily come out and take wing, to join her again. This happens oftenest with after-swarms, whose young queens, instead of exhibiting the gravity of an old matron, are apt to be frisking in the air.
It is a mistake to suppose that a swarm will not enter a hive unless the queen is with them. If some start for it, the others will speedily follow, all seening to take it for granted that the queen is somewhere among them. Even after they begin to disperse in search of her, they may often be induced to return, by pouring out a fresh lot of bees, which, by entering the hive with fanning wings, cause the others to believe that the queen is coming at last.
When the swarm is clustered so high that the sack cannot be raised to it on a pole, it may be carried up to the cluster, and the bee-keeper, after shaking the bees into it, may gently lower it, by a string, to an assistant below.
**432.** When a colony alights on the trunk of a tree, or on anything from which the bees cannot easily be gathered in a basket, or in the sack, faster a leafy bunch, or a comb over them, and with a little smoke, compre them to ascend it. If the place is inaccessible, they will enter a well-shaded basket, inverted, and elevated just above the clustered mass. We once lived a neighbor's swarm, which settled in a thicket, on the inaccessible body of a tree, by throwing water upon the bees, so as to compel then gradually to ascend the tree, and enter an elevated box. If proper alighting places are not furnished,the trouble of living a swarm will often be greater than its value.
**133.** If the swarm is noticed, when it begins to issue from the parent hive, the practical bee-keeper often harvests it without trouble, by catching the queen (**100**). Provided with a queen cage (**336**) he watches for her exit, and as she comes out, he seizes her and places her in the cage. He then removes the old hive, and places the new one, ready for the swarm, on its stand, with the eaged queen on the platform. The swarm may alight, but as soon as the bees notice their loss, they will return, and will cluster around her; and the hiving of the swarm takes but a few minutes. In a circumstance of this kind, it is well to return the parent colony to its stand, after the swarm is lived, for, if entirely removed, it would lose all the bees that were in the field, when the swarm left, and would be too much weakened.
**134.** To prevent primary swarms from escaping, some bee-keepers clip one of the wings of their queens previous to the swarming season.
Virgil speaks of clipping the wings of queens, to prevent them from escaping with a swarm. Mr. Langstroth had devised a way of doing this, so as to designate _the age of the queens:-_ With a pair of scissors, let the wings, on one side, of a young queen be carefully cut off; when the hives are examined next year, let one of her two remaining wings be removed, and the last one the third year.
As an old queen leaves the hive only with a new swarm the loss of her wings in no way interferes with her usefulness or the attachment of the bees. If, in spite of her inability to fly, she is bent on emigrating, though she has a "will," she can find "no way." but helplessly falls to the ground, instead of easily mounting into the air. If the bees find her, they cluster around her, and may be easily secured by the Apiarist; if she is not found, they return to the parent-stoek, to await the maturity of the young queens.
This method will do, provided the apiary ground is bare, and the so that the queen runs no risk of getting lost in the grass. We abandoned it, after having tried it, for several years. But some very good Apiarists hold that clipping the queens' wings is desirable. Doetor C. C. Miller, one of America's most practical and successful Apiarists, in his "Forty Years Among the Bees," already mentioned by us, says:
"Although nowadays the practice of clipping has become quite general, there are a few who doubt its advisability. I would not dispense with clipping if I kept only one apiary and were on hand all the time and with out-apiaries and no one to watch them it seems a necessity. If a colony swarms with a clipped queen, it cannot go off. True, the queen may possibly get lost, but it is better to lose the queen than to lose both bees and queen. If there were no other reason for it, I should want my queens clipped for the sake of keeping a proper record of them. A colony, for example, distinguishes itself by storing more than any other colony. I want to breed next spring from the queen of that colony. But she may be superseded in the fall after that big harvest, and if she is not clipped there is no way for me to tell in the following season whether she has been superseded or not. Indeed I can hardly see how it is possible to keep proper track of a queen without having her clipped."
**435**. Where a great many colonies are kept, several swarms may issue at the same time, and unite in a single cluster.
If two swarms cluster together, they may be advantageously kept together, if abundant room for storing surplus honey can be given them. Large quantities of honey are generally obtained from such colonies, if they issue early, and the season is favorable.
"When more than two swarms have clustered together, it is better to divide them. Let us suppose that three have unitroll. After putting three hives near each other, so as to form a triangle, the sack (+29 ) or box, in which the bees have been captured, is shaken on a cloth just between the three. If most of the bees seem to go into the same hive, this should be re
found in separate clusters, and might easily be put into different hives.
If the A\({}_{l}\)'iarist fears that another swarm will issue, to unite with the one he is living, he may cover the latter from the sight of other swarms, with a sheet.
**438**. If, while living a swarm, he wishes to secure the queen, the bees should be shaken from the living-basket or sack, a foot or more from the hive, when a quick eye will generally see her as she passes over the sheet. If the bees are reluctant to go in, a few must be directed to the entrance, and care be taken to brush them baek, when they press forward in such dense masses that the queen is likely to enter unobserved. An experienced eye readily detects her peculiar color and form (**100**).
It is interesting to witness how speedily a queen passes into the hive, as soon as she recognizes the joyful note (**76**) announcing that her colony has found a home. She quickly follows in the direction of the moving mass, and her long legs enable her easily to outstrip, in the race for possession, all who attempt to follow her. Other bees linger around the entrance, or fly into the air, or collect in listless knots on the sheet; but a fertile mother, with an air of conscious importance, marches straight forward, and looking neither to the right hand nor to the left, glides into the hive with the same dispatchful haste that characterizes a bee returning fully laden from the nectar-bearing fields.
**139**. Swarms sometimes cone off when no suitable hives are in readiness to receive them. In such an emergency, hive them in any old box, cask, or measure, and place 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 before it, on a hiving-sheet.
Persons unaeeustomed to bees may think that we speak about "scooping them up," and "shaking them out," almost as only as though giving directions to measure so many bushels of wheat; experience will soon convince them that the ease with which they may be managed (**72**) is not at all exaggerated.
**4.40.** Bees which swarm early in the day will generally begin to range the fields in a few hours after they are lived, or even in a few minutes, if they have empty comb; and the fewest bees will be lost when the hive is removed to its permanent stand, as soon as the bees have entered it. If it is desirable, for any reason, to remove the hive before all the bees have gone in, the sheet, on which the bees are lying, may be so folded that the colony can be easily carried to their new stand, where the bees may enter at their leisure.
While the hive should be set so as to ineline slightly from rear to front (**327**), to shed the rain, there ought not to be the least pitch from _side to side,_ or it will prevent the frames from hanging plumb, and compel the bees to build crooked combs.
**4.41**. If several rainy days, or a dearth of honey, should oceur immediately after the hiving of bees, it is well to feed (**606**) them a little to keep them from starving, till there is honey in the blossons.
**442**. The Apiarist has already been informed of the importance of securing straight worker combs for his hives (**223**). To a stock-hive, such combs are like cash capital'to a business man; and so long as they are fit for use, they'should never be destroyed.
Mr. S. Wagner had a colony over 21 years old, whose young bees appeared to be as large as any others in his apiary. Mr. J. F. Raeine, an old settler of Wallen, Indiana, lost a colony in the Winter of 1884-5 which he had had ever since 1855, without changing the combs. He considered it one of the best in his apiary.
We have ourselves kept colonies of bees without changing any but the very blackest combs, for thirty years or more. As long as a queen will utilize combs by laying eggs in them, they may be considered as good as any.
Those who have plenty of good worker-comb, will unquestionably find it to their advantage to use it in the place of comb-foundation. If a swarm is small, it ought to be confined, by a movable partition (**349**), to such a space in the hive as it can occupy with comb, as well for its encouragement, as to economize its animal beat. Yarro, who flourished before the Christian Era, says (Liber III, 'ap. xviii), that bees become dispirited, when placed in hives that are too large.
Primary Swarm with a Young Queen.
**413.** We have already stated (**157**) that queens die of old age, when about four years old. If the preparations for queen rearing (**159**) are begun during the swarming season, from this cause, or by her death through accident, or because she has been removed by the Apiarist, it very often happens that bees prevent the first hatehel queen from destroying her rivals (**112**), and the result is that a swarm leaves the hive with her. These primary swarms with young queens, are cast as unexpectedly, and may be as strong as those that are accompanied by the old queen. They have that in common with secondary swarm, that they behave like then, both in their exit and afterwards.
Secondary or After-Swarms.
**414.** Having described the method commonly pursued for hiving a new swarm, we return to the parent-colony from which they emigrated.
From the immense number which have abandoned it, we should naturally infer that it must be nearly depopulated. To those who limited the fertility of the queen to four hundred eggs a day, the rapid replenishing of a hive, after swarming, must have been inexplicable; but to those who have seen her lay from one to four thousand eggs a day, it is no mystery at all (**40**). Enough bees remain to carry on the domestic operations of the live; and as the old queen departs only when there is a teenning population, and when thousands of young are daily hatching, and tens of thousands rapidly maturing, the hive, in a short time, is almost as populous as it was before swarming.
Those who suppose that the new colony consists wholly of young bees, forced to enigmate by the older ones, if they closely examine a new swarm, will find that while some have the ragged wings of age, others are so young as to be barely able to fly.
After the tumult of swarming is over, not a bee that did not participate in it, attempts to join the new colony, and not one that did, seeks to return. What determines some to go, and others to stay, we have no certain means of knowing. How wonderful must be the impression made upon an insect, to cause it in a few minutes so completely to lose its strong affetion for the old home, that when established in a hive only a few feet distant, it pays not the slightest attention to is former abode!
**445**. It has already been stated that, if the weather is favorable, the old queen usually leaves near the time that the young queens are sealed over to be changed into nymphs. In about a week, one of them hatehes; and the question must be decided whether or not, any more colonies shall be formed that season. If the hive is well filled with bees, and the season is in all respects promising, it is generally decided in the affirmative; although, under such circumstances, some very strong colonies refuse to swarm more than once.
If the bees of the parent-colony decide to prevent the first hatehed queen from killing the others, a strong guard is kept over their cells, and as often as she approaches them with murderous intent, she is bitten, or given to understand by other most uneourtier-like demonstrations, that even a queen cannot, in all things, do just as she pleases.
**446**. About a week after first swarming, should the Apia-rist place his ear against the hive, in the morning or evening,when the bees are still, if the queens are "piping," he will readily recognize their peculiar sounds (**115**). The young queens are all mature, at the latest, in sixteen days from the departure of the first swarm, even if it left as soon as the royal cells were begun.
The second swarm usually issues on the first or second day after piping is heard : though the bees sometimes delay coming out until the fifth day, in consequence of an unfavorable state of the weather. Occasionally, the weather is so very unfavorable that they permit the oldest queen to kill the others, and refuse to swarm again. This is a rare occurrence, as young queens are not so particular about the weather as oid ones, and sometimes venture out, not merely when it is cloudy, but when rain is falling. On this account, if a very close watch is not kept, they are often lost. As piping ordinarily commenes about a week after first-swarming, the second swarm usually issues eight or nine days after the first; although it has been known to issue as early as the third, and as late as the seventeenth ; but such cases are very rare.
**447**. It frequently happens, in the agitation of swarming, that the usual guard over the queen-cells is withdrawn, and several hatch at the same time, and accompany the colony; in which case the bees often alight in two or more separate clusters. In our observing-hives, we have repeatedly seen young queens thrust out their tongues from a hole in their cell, to be fed by the bees. If allowed to issue at will, they are pale and weak, like other young bees, and for some time unable to fly; but if confined the usual time, they come forth fully colored, and ready for all emergencies. We have seen them issue in this state, while the excitement caused by removing the combs from a live has driven the guard from their cells.