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Returning A Part To The Old Stock

Categories: SWARMING.
Bee Keeping: Mysteries Of Bee-keeping Explained

Separate one-third or more of the two swarms, being sure there is no

queen with this part, (by the test given of setting them at a distance)

and then return them to one of the old stocks; they will immediately

enter without contention, and issue again in about nine days, or as

soon as a young queen is matured to go with them. There may be an

exception to this, of one in twenty. I would have recommended this

course in a
l cases of the kind, but there will be a loss of time for

the bees in the old stock; because they are apt to be rather idle, even

when they might labor in the boxes; and here there is a loss of some

eight or ten days. The collections of a good swarm may be estimated at

least one pound a day, (often two or three.) A swarm that just fills

the hive, would make at least ten pounds box-honey, if it could have

been located ten days earlier. Still another method may be adopted when

you have a very small swarm, one that is not likely to fill the hive,

and has not been hived more than two or three days. A third of your two

swarms may be put in with that; taking care, as before, not to let your

only queen go with them.



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