628 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



move the peg to the right of the entrance and add one peg for each 

 examination made thereafter until fall. Then if no disease shows remove 

 all pegs. 



Previous to the honey flow (clover) I keep going the "rounds" of the 

 yards looking for their needs, spreading their brood nests as their con- 

 dition and the condition of the weather will permit, adding super room 

 fro]ji time to time as needed. Equalizing by the exchange of brood 

 frames until about eighteen or twenty days before the expected end of 

 the honey flow. By this time the most of the colonies are fairly "boil- 

 ing over" with bees, and where there are any drone cells to be found, they 

 are filled with brood. Some of the most forward colonies are building 

 queen cells, and now, it is time to begin the dethroneing operation. 

 With a boy to handle the smoker and another man to help look for the 

 queens, we start in on the yard, killing all the queens that are two years 

 old and all of the others except what are needed to fill out what hives 

 are empty from winter loss or be increased if others are wanted. Per- 

 haps a colony may be in such a condition that it may be run through 

 the season with little chance of swarming. These are given more room 

 if needed and passed by. 



With this system of handling the swarming problem, it is necessary 

 to have some easy method of record to keep account of what has been 

 done from time to time in the yard. Book records do not appeal to 

 me, and for that reason I use the following: In the first place I secure 

 three wood pegs for each hive. These are about five inches in length, 

 and are sharpened at one end and used as follows: As we kill the 

 queens, if we find one that we do not wish to kill, we stick one, two or 

 three pegs on the left side of the hive, this means a laying queen. One 

 peg means a fair queen, two pegs a good queen and three pegs a choice 

 one. The last are usually used for breeding if needed for that purpose. 

 If the queen is killed, one, two or three pegs are stuck behind the hive 

 to designate the standing of the queen killed. Nine or. ten days later, 

 at the time of cutting the cells, leaving a grafted cell or one of its own 

 kind, one peg is stuck in the ground at the right of the hive, this means 

 a cell. At the next examination which is made a week or ten days 

 later, they are examined for queen or eggs, if only a queen is found, two 

 pegs are stuck at the right of the hive, if eggs are found, three pegs 

 appear. These pegs remain in this position all summer and the record 

 is marked on the hive before they are removed to winter quarters. This 

 record is made with pencil on the side of the hives. By these records, 

 a glace at the hive in the yards will enable me to tell the exact condition 

 of each stand at any time. 



A yard of seventy-five or eighty colonies can be gone over by two men 

 and a boy in a day. That is, they have ample time to either kill queens 

 or cut cells. 



The next thing is to go over the yards again in nine or ten days and 

 cut out all the cells but one in each colony. Saving all of the choice 

 cells from the best breeding queens and destroying all of the poorer 

 stock. A number of nuclei are started from the surplus cells to supply 



