3. Another very serious objection to Natural Swarming, as practiced with
the common hives, is the inability of the Apiarian who wishes rapidly to
multiply his colonies, to aid his late and small swarms, so as to build
them up into vigorous stocks. The time and money which are ordinarily
spent upon small colonies, are almost always thrown away; by far the
larger portion of them never survive the Winter, and the majority of
those that do, are so enfeebled, as to be of little or no value. If they
escape being robbed by stronger stocks, or destroyed by the moth, they
seldom recruit in season to swarm, and very often the feeding must be
repeated, the second Fall, or they will at last perish. I doubt not that
many of my readers will, from their own experience, endorse every word
of these remarks, as true to the very letter. All who have ever
attempted to multiply colonies by nursing and feeding small swarms, on
the ordinary plans, have found it attended with nothing but loss and
vexation. The more a man has of such stocks, the poorer he is: for by
their weakness, they are constantly tempting his strong swarms to evil
courses; so that at last, they prefer to live as far as they can, by
stealing, rather than by habits of honest industry; and if the feeble
colonies escape being plundered, they often become mere nurseries for
raising a plentiful supply of moths, to ravage his whole Apiary.
I have already shown, in what way by the use of my hives, the smallest
swarms that ever issue, may be so managed as to become powerful stocks.
In the same way the Apiarian can easily strengthen all his colonies
which are feeble in Spring.
4. As the loss of the young queens in the parent stock after it has
swarmed, and in the after-swarms, is a very common occurrence, a hive
which like mine, furnishes the means of easily remedying this
misfortune, will greatly promote the success of those who practice
natural swarming. A very intelligent bee-keeper once assured me, that he
must use at least one such hive in his Apiary, for this purpose, even if
in other respects it possessed no superior merits.
5. Bees, as is well known, often refuse to swarm at all, and most of the
swarming hives are so constructed, that proper accommodations for
storing honey, cannot be furnished to the super-abundant population.
Under such circumstances, they often hang for several months, in black
masses on the outside of the hive; and are worse than useless, as they
consume the honey which the others have gathered. In my hives, an
abundance of room for storing honey can always be given them, _not all
at once_, so as to prevent them from swarming, but by degrees, as their
necessities require: so that if they are indisposed, for any reason to
swarm, they may have suitable receptacles easily accessible, and
furnished with guide comb to make them more attractive, in which to
store up any amount of honey that they can possibly collect.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account