SPANISH NEEDLE. 



402 



SPREADING BROOD. 



\ 



asked for a reason, he stated, "My children ent 

 it up too fast." I am now running a peddling-wag-- 

 on, and my salesman states he can sell more honey 

 going- over territory he has previously canvassed 

 than to hunt up new routes. This certainly speaks 

 well for this kind of honey. I have sold over 4.i(Xi 

 lbs. in my home market this season, and the de- 

 mand seems to be on the increase; and I believe if 

 apiarists will locate their bees so as to get the bene- 

 fit of these large areas of coreopsis they will nut 

 only confer a boon on their fellow-man but reap a 

 financial reward for themselves. Another word in 

 favor of coreopsis honey : It is less inclined to gran- 

 ulate; and at this date there is but little sign of 

 granulation, while my two barrels of linden honey 

 is as hard as New Orleans sugar. 



J. M. Hambauoh. 

 Spring, Brown Co., 111., Jan. 31, 1889. 



In 1891 Mr. Ilambaugh wrote another ar- 

 ticle on the subject, from which we make 

 the following extract : 



The "golden coreopsis," or Spanish needle, stands 

 at the head of all the honey-producing plants with 

 whicli I have had any experience. It is not only the 

 richest in nectar, but the quality is par excellence, 

 and sells in my home market equal to, if uot better 

 than, clover honey. Its weight is fully 12 lbs. to 

 the gallon, and it seems to need little if any curing 

 by the bees when gathered. I have never yet seen 

 any crude or unripe Spanish-needle honey, notwith- 

 standing I have extracted it from the same supers 

 three times in two weeks, and on one occasion twice 

 in five and six days. One colony netted 73 lbs. in .5 

 days, and the apiary of 43 producing colonies in 8 

 days produced 2033 lbs., being upward of 47 lbs. per 

 colony; and this is not true of that particular year 

 only, but it has proven the surest honey-producing 

 plant we have in this locality. Nothing short of cold 

 rainy weather spoils the harvest from this plant. 



SPRAYING mUIT- TREES. See 



FKUIT-BLOSSO^rS. 



SPRAYING DESTRUCTIVE TO THE 



BROOD See Fruit-blossoms. 



SPREADING BROOD. As is very well 

 known, queens are inclined to lay their eggs 

 in circles in the comb, the circle being larg- 

 er in the center combs and smaller in the 

 outside ones. The wiiole bulk of eggs and 

 brood in several combs thus forms practic- 

 ally a sphere which the bees are able to 

 cover and keep warm. When the queen 

 has formed this sphere of brood and eggs 

 she curtails her egg-laying for the time be- 

 ing until enough brood is hatched out to in- 

 crease the size of the cluster; and then she 

 will gradually enlarge the circles of brood 

 to keep pace with the enlarged ball of bees. 

 Yet the queen very often is overcareful— 

 that is, she errs on the safe side, so that when 

 warm weather has fully set in she some- 

 times lays fewer eggs than she should in 

 the judgment of the apiarist, and accord- 

 ingly he Inserts a frame of empty comb in 



the center of the brood-nest. In this comb 

 the queen will commence laying at once to 

 unite, as it were, the two halves of brood; 

 and when she has filled this with eggs the 

 apiarist may insert another empty comb. If 

 the queen has filled I he first one given she 

 will be likely, if the weather is not cold, to 

 go iuto the second comb and fill it with eggs 

 on both sides ; for nice clean empty cells are 

 very tempting to her. In a word, this ope- 

 ration of inserting empty combs in the cen- 

 ter of the brood-nest is called " spreading 

 brood,'' its object being to increase the 

 amount of Ijrood, and thus insure a larger 

 force of workers for the prospective hai-vest. 

 While this spreading of the brood may 

 be done by practical and experienced bee- 

 keepers, because it stimulates the queen to 

 greater egg-laying capacity, yet when prac- 

 ticed by beginners and the inexperienced it 

 generally results in much more harm than 

 good. An ABC scholar without previous 

 experience might, on a warm day in early 

 spring, think it high time to putempty comb 

 in the center of the bood-nest. The queen, 

 we shall say, immediately occupies it, filling 

 it with eggs. This, of course, requires a 

 large force of nurse-bees to take care of the 

 young bees and hatching larvae. A cool spell 

 of weather is almost sure to come on, with 

 the result that the cluster of bees is contract- 

 ed, leaving the brood that was forced out- 

 side by inserting the empty comb, out in the 

 cold, where it chills and dies. The outside 

 edge of the cluster, in its effort to take care 

 of this brood, is likewise chilled, with the 

 result that the colony suffers a check and 

 setback far worse than had it been left to its 

 own devices. 



Ordinarily we may say that the spreading 

 of l)rood can be practiced safely only after 

 settled warm weather has arrived. The 

 beginner, w^ho desires to give extra combs 

 for egg-laying, especially in early spring, 

 would do well to put those extra combs at 

 the outside ; but after settled warm weather 

 has come, when the temperature does not go 

 below 40 degrees Fahrenheit at night at any 

 time, he may insert a frame of empty comb 

 at the center of the brood-nest. 



It should be borne in mind that the prac- 

 tice of spreading brood has been largely 

 abandoned, even by experienced bee-keep- 

 ers. Where the queen has plenty of room 

 somewhere in the brood-nest (and that 

 " somewhere " should be outside the brood- 

 cluster), both bees and queen will ordinarily 

 rear as much brood as they can safely and 

 I profitably care for. 



