I shall now give a novel mode of creating nuclei, which I have devised,
and which I find to be attended with great success. Hive a new swarm in
the usual manner, in an old box, and as soon as the bees have entered
it, shut them up and carry them down into the cellar. About an hour
before sunset, take combs suitable to form as many nuclei as you judge
best, say five or six, or even eight or ten if the swarm was large, and
you need as many. Bring up the new swarm and shake it out upon a sheet,
sprinkling it gently with sugar-water. With a large tumbler or saucer,
scoop up without hurting any of the bees, a pint or more of them, and
place them before the mouth of one of the hives containing a brood comb;
repeat the process, until each nucleus has, say, a quart of bees. If you
see the queen, you may give the hive in which you put her, three or four
times as many bees as any other; and the next day it may be strengthened
with a few combs containing brood, just ready to mature. If you did not
find her, at the time of forming the nuclei, when you afterwards examine
them, the one which contains her may be properly reinforced with bees
and comb, so as to enable it to work to the best advantage.
If this plan of forming nuclei, were attempted earlier in the afternoon
it would be difficult to prevent the bees from communicating on the
wing, and all going to the hive which contained their queen. If however,
the bees when first shaken out of the temporary hive, are so thoroughly
sprinkled, as not to be able to take wing and unite together, this mode
of forming colonies may be practiced at any hour of the day; and an
experienced Apiarian may prefer to do it, as soon as he has fairly hived
the new swarm. When the bees are shaken out in front of a hive which has
a sealed queen, or eggs from which they can raise one, having a whole
night in which to accustom themselves to their new situation, they will
be found, the next day, to adhere to the place where they were put, with
as much tenacity as a natural swarm does to their new hive. How
wonderful that the act of swarming should so thoroughly impress upon the
bees, an absolute indisposition to return to the parent stock. If this
were a fixed and invariable unwillingness, a sort of blind, unreasoning
instinct, it would not be so surprising, but we have already seen that
in case the bees lose their queen, they return in a very short time to
the stock from which they issued! If the nuclei formed in the manner
just described, found in their new hive, no means of obtaining a queen,
they would all return, next morning, to the parent stock.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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