FOURTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IX. 637 



about May 10th. Honey gathered from any of these blooms is not very 

 desirable for market or home consumption, but is excellent for building 

 up colonies and making new swa,rms and to prepare for the main honey 

 flow that usually opens about June 5th. By the close of the first honey 

 flow, about May 10th, if the weather has been favorable I have my bees 

 very populous and working in supers and beginning to cast natural 

 swarms. 



There is nothing much in bloom now for four weeks until the white 

 clover opens about June 5th. If colonies have prepared to swarm and 

 have queen cells they will destroy them and many will get in starving 

 condition and often destroy much of their brood. At the opening of the 

 white clover they are in very poor condition to harvest honey and store 

 surplus. Now right here the apiarist must step in and help run the 

 thing. At about the close of the honey flow I examine, and all that have 

 made preparation for swarming begin feeding before the check in the 

 honey flow affects the bees. The others prepare to divide, and there is no 

 other time in the season that it is more profitable to make your increase, 

 and bees are in natural condition to swarm at this time. But I do not 

 wish to be understood that all colonies in an apiary will be in swarming 

 condition. All colonies that have brood in seven and eight frames and 

 are hanging out or working in super are only fit to divide. There are 

 many advantages in increasing at this time. You get your idle bees 

 employed; to rear young bees you get your queens to lay out by the 

 time white clover opens, and the swarming fever is kept down. The 

 eggs that are laid during these four weeks will mature the bees that 

 will gather the white clover crop. By feeding I stimulate the queen to 

 lay at her highest 'capacity, and I get young bees of the proper age to 

 gather the honey harvest. 



I make my increase just at the close of the first honey flow. All the 

 colonies that have not cast natural swarms I divide by taking two combs 

 of brood with the adhering bees and the old queen and place them on the 

 old stand and move the old colony away to a new place and give them 

 a caged young laying queen. I move the combs together and leave the 

 space on each side vacant. The new hive I give four empty brood combs, 

 this having six combs also. Now I proceed until I have made as much in- 

 crease as I want. In twenty-four hours I make a close examination. If 

 more bees have left the old colony so that the brood cannot be cared for 

 I take some more combs out and give it to the new colony. Now for three 

 days these divisions need good attention and by this time they become 

 well established. After the third day I fill in the two combs at the side 

 with full sheet of foundation. I now place on my feeder and feed half 

 pound of honey every day in the evening. I use a feeder especially made 

 for this purpose. 



At the beginning of the white clover harvest I have my colones in 

 prime condition with young healthy bees. The queens have about finished 

 their spring season of laying and the swarming fever is about over and 

 the bees have settled down to business. I use the eight-frame hives and a 

 loose hanging frame. Now I want to draw your attention to these two 

 outside frames of foundation. When the bees have built in these combs 



