My hive may be used as a non-swarmer, and may be made more effectually
to prevent swarming, than any with which I am acquainted: as in the
Spring, (See No. 34. p. 104,) ample accommodations may be given to the
bees, below their main works, and when this is seasonably done, swarming
will _never_ take place.
There are certain objections however, which must always prevent the
non-swarming plan from being the most successful mode of managing bees.
To say nothing of the loss to the bee-keeper, who has, after some years,
only one stock, when if the natural mode of increase had been allowed,
he ought to have a number, it is usually found that after bees have been
kept in a non-swarming hive for several seasons, they seem to work with
much less vigor than usual. Of this, any one may convince himself, who
will compare the industrious working of a new swarm, with that of a much
more powerful stock in a non-swarming hive. The former will work with
such astonishing zeal, that to one unacquainted with the facts, it would
be taken to be by far the more powerful stock.
As the fertility of the queen decreases by age, the disadvantage of
using non-swarming hives of the ordinary construction, will be obvious.
This objection to the system can be remedied in my hive, as the old
queen can be easily caught and removed; but when hives are used in which
this cannot be done, the Apiary, instead of containing a race of young
queens in the full vigor of their reproductive powers, will contain many
that have passed their prime, and these old queens may die when there
are no eggs in the hive to enable the bees to replace them, and thus the
whole colony will perish.
If the bee-keeper wishes to winter only a certain number of stocks, I
will, in another place, show him a way in which this can be done, so as
to obtain more honey from them, than from an equal number kept on the
non-swarming plan, while at the same time, they may all be maintained in
a state of the highest health and vigor.
I shall now describe a method of artificial swarming, which may be
successfully practiced with almost any hive, by those who have
sufficient experience in the management of bees.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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