ILLJNOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



141 



it is necessary in our locality to feed, 

 and it would not pay to neglect it. 



President Miller — ^I believe the 

 gentlemen are right on that point, pro- 

 vided the hive is short of stores. If 

 they have plenty of stores I do not 

 think they will stop breeding between 

 fruit bloom and clover. 



Mr. Bull — I think that was brought 

 out in the Michigan convention pretty 

 strongly. What do you feed? You 

 probably mean sugar syrup. 



Mr. Wilcox — ^I feed honey. I keep 

 honey enough for that purpose, and I 

 keep it in comb so that there is noth- 

 ing to do but to hang it in the hive. 



Mr. Stewart — Do you feed out of 

 doors or in doors? 



Mr. Wilcox — ^Feed it in hives. 



Mr. Bull — Do you uncap that honey? 



Mr. Wilcox — No, put it close enough 

 to them so they can warm it. 



Mr. Bull — In feeding in the fall and 

 not in the spring of the year, I believe 

 as Mr. Doolittle said: Give the colony 

 enough honey in the fall to last them 

 until clover, and then give them ten 

 pounds more in the fall and it will be 

 just right. If you have a fall flow and 

 you take that honey away from those 

 bees, there is not one colony in one 

 thousand that will have enough honey. 

 That brood chamber will be filled with 

 brood. 



Leave that super of honey on for 

 three weeks after the honey flow and 

 you. will then see there will be no 

 honey there but will be in the brood 

 chamber where it belongs. 



Mr. Stewart — After fruit bloom your 

 hive is chock full of bees and brood; 

 there is very little honey in that brood 

 chamber and there are two or three 

 weeks that those young bees have got 

 to be fed; honey is not there. 



Mr. Bull — Instead of putting honey 

 in, you have that hive full of honey 

 in the fall; they are not going to eat 

 it up during the winter. What are 

 they going to do with that honey? 

 Put on super before fruit bloom; if 

 they need the room they will put that 

 honey in the super; they will use it 

 when they want it. 



President Miller — I make a practice 

 of saving a number of brood combs 

 full of honey; save about one comb 

 in every hive. I use what I need in 

 the fall. If I find empty hives I take 

 them out and put in a full one; it is 

 the easiest way and I think it is the 



best way. Slip out an empty comb 

 and put in a full one; it will not be 

 necessary to do very much outside 

 feeding. 



Mr. Stewart — ^I prefer outside feed- 

 ing. 



Mr. Wilcox — On another point in 

 that paper of Mr. Stewart: 



He says it does not pay him to buy 

 queens. 



Queen rearing is a branch of bee- 

 keeping itself. I have kept bees for 

 forty or fifty years and I cannot rear 

 queens yet; I prefer now to buy my 

 queens. 



With the making of hives: I have 

 always made my own because I can, 

 but there are a great many others 

 who are carpenters who have material 

 and machinery, who can make their 

 own, and there are a great many who 

 cannot and they better buy them, 



Mr. Stewart-^Mr. Wilcox, I claim 

 that any man who has ten hives of 

 bees, one in that ten is as good to 

 gather honey as any he can buy. You 

 can get enough out of that one hive 

 as good as you can buy, and can raise 

 your queens from that. 



Mr. Bull — That is not the point we 

 are talking about — whether it is best 

 to rear queens. When you want 

 queens is during the honey flow in 

 June. The honey producer who is 

 trying to produce honey has no time 

 to fool rearing queens. It will cost 

 you three times as much to rear them 

 as to buy. 



Mr. Stewart — The cheapest thing I 

 have on the place is rearing queens. 



President Miller — I find I can raise 

 better queens than I can buy; I do 

 not know about being cheaper. 



Mr. Wilcox — I cannot raise them as 

 early as I want them in the spring. 



President Miller — There is an ad- 

 vantage in having early queens — there 

 is a disadvantage in having poor 

 queens. 



A great many queen breeders are 

 not careful in the selection of their 

 stock. If you get hold of first class 

 stock, you better raise some queens, 

 anyway. 



Mr. Bull — 1 have bought queens a 

 good many years now. A year ago 

 last summer were really the first good 

 queens I ever bought. I had twenty 

 of those queens this last spring, and 

 I could pick oQt each and every one 

 of those aueens by examining my 



