. American bee journal. Bee culture; Bees. AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 399. Manapffleiit at Swarming Time. Written for the American Bee Journal BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. A letter recently to hand, reads as follows: " Is the plan of giving each colony a laying queen, immediately after swarm- ing, a good one ? Please answer through the American Bee ; As I do not consider the plan a good one, I will try to give my reasons for so thinking, as requested. Years ago we were told that no colony should go without a laying queen for a single day, if it were possible to give them one, and plans of
. American bee journal. Bee culture; Bees. AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 399. Manapffleiit at Swarming Time. Written for the American Bee Journal BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. A letter recently to hand, reads as follows: " Is the plan of giving each colony a laying queen, immediately after swarm- ing, a good one ? Please answer through the American Bee ; As I do not consider the plan a good one, I will try to give my reasons for so thinking, as requested. Years ago we were told that no colony should go without a laying queen for a single day, if it were possible to give them one, and plans of introducing queens which required that the hive should be queenless a few days previous, have been severely criticised. We have also been told many times, that the bee-keeper who wished to secure the best results from his bees should have a laying queen ready to give each colony as soon as they swarmed, as the time lost to them, by rearing a queen is equivalent to a swarm of bees. Being eager to know for my- self all the pltins which would give the best results, I have experimented largely, and the truth of the statement, that the time lost to the bees in rearing a queen in natural swarming was equivalent to a swarm of bees, is the first reason that the plan has not been a success with me. If it were bees that I was after, the case would be different. With us, white clover yields enough honey to keep the bees breeding nicely, and prepares them so that they mainly swarm from June 20th to July 1st. Our honey harvest is principally from bass- wood, which blooms from July 10th to 16th. Now, all who are familiar with natural swarming know that the bees are comparatively few in numbers in the spring, and increase by the rapidly increasing brood produced by the queen, which, in due time, hatch into bees, un- til a swarm is the result. By giving a laying queen to a colony immediately after it has cast a swarm, we bring about the same result (swarming) as be- fore, or we place the bees
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, booksubjectbees, bookyear1861
