Volume 17 — How to Separate Swarms. BRAY & SEACORD.

An experience of 20 years with bees has taught me to wait upon them and not to have them wait upon me; in other words, always have your work ahead of time. Next, to have your bees in strong condition at the time of the first flow of honey. The great mistake of beginners is to aim at too large an increase, either by division or natural swarming. If the season is good, an increase of 3 from each colony is a plenty; if a medium season an increase of one from each colony is enough.

The brood chamber is the mainspring to work upon for a good yield of honey. We allow no queen to live over 3 years, and if not a prolific queen she only lives one year. We allow no brood comb to remain over 3 years in the centre of the hive; by this plan we get fine developed bees, and of longer life.

Our plan of separating swarms of 2 or more, when they come out and cluster together, may be of benefit to some. It is as follows: Make a box 3 feet long (or any size that will fit the frames of your hive), make one entrance to the box for the bees to pass in and out; make a tight cover to fit the box, with cleats on 2 sides, no end cleats; make 3 or 4 division boards; then the box is ready for hiving the bees.

Now take the box and hive the cluster of 2 or more swarms, and as soon as all the bees are in the box, put it in a shady place, and let it remain there until the next morning; then push the box cover lengthwise of the box and you will observe each queen with her colony clustered by themselves; now place the division board between each cluster, push the cover back again over the cluster and hive at pleasure.

The present season is fully 6 weeks ahead of last season; drones were in the air on the 28th of Feb. We keep our colonies in a condition so that the queen can breed up to her full capacity. The Italian queens we received from the Bee Journal apiary last fall, wintered well, and we now have several nuclei started for queen-rearing, as we mean to Italianize all of our bees by the end of the present season. The prospects were never better than now for a booming good year.

At some future time we will give our experience in wintering bees in a cold climate on 4 lbs. 2 ounces of honey per colony, before chaff packing was invented.

If a Syrian queen cross with the black drone, would not this cross produce the Italian bee? Success to the Bee Journal.

Warthan, Cal. March 15, 1881.

[If the Italian bee is a hybrid, and originally produced by mating the black drone with the Syrian queen, then, of course, a like cause will again produce a like effect; but if the Italian bee is a distinct race, then no crossing of other races will produce it as a fixed type.—Ed.]

For the American Bee Journal.