t bread in the drawer. If
the swarm is so large as to be unable to work in the drawer, there is no
danger of letting them in. At the same time there may be danger if they
are prevented from entering, because they sometimes go off for want of
room in the lower apartment. I therefore, recommend letting the bees into
the drawers at the time of hiving them, in all cases, except when the
swarms are small, then the rule should be strictly adhered to.
Notwithstanding I have hived hundreds of swarms in eight years last past,
and have not lost a single swarm by flight to the woods, yet I frequently
hear of losses of this kind, which appears to render these remarks
necessary. My practice in hiving, is to get the bees into the hive as quick
as possible, hang on the bottom board, fasten the same forward by means of
the button so as to prevent the escape of any of the bees, except through
the mouth of the hive; place the hive immediately where I intend it shall
stand through the season. Let the bottom board down 3/8ths of an inch, on
the third day after swarming.

REMARKS ON RULE 10.--Small swarms should have the Queens taken from them
and the bees returned to the parent stock, so as to keep the old hive well
replenished with bees during the moth season; likewise to avoid the loss
of the old stock by freezing in the winter. Too much swarming frequently
occasions the loss of the old stock the winter following, because their
numbers are so reduced that the necessary animal heat cannot be kept up to
prevent them from perishing by cold. There may be more than one queen in
all swarms after the first[1], as in all cases when bees make one queen
they make a plurality of them, and if more than one is hatched at the time
of swarming, in the confusion which takes place in the hive, during
swarming, all the queens which are hatched will sally forth with the
swarm; hence, in taking away queens, the bee master should look for them
until the bees begin to return to the parent stock. Cut off a limb and
shake the bees on a table to find the queens.

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[1] Large colonies sometimes loose their queen and have been
known to make more, in which case, in order to avoid the
conflict of the queens, they have been known to swarm out
several bushels of Bees.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Manual or an Easy Method of Managing
Bees, by John M. Weeks

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK METHOD OF MANAGING BEES