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ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



149 



would like to get some information 

 about bringing the colony up as was 

 stated by Dr. Miller — 



Have the super filled with eighteen 

 or twenty combs of brood for the sea- 

 son. Which is the best way to get 

 that? 



Do you add another super and let the 

 bees have their own sweet will of going 

 up stairs and raising their brood or is 

 it better to take brood, except one 

 frame of brood with queen, and place 

 them down stairs and have the other 

 on top? 



Mr. Dadant — That is all Greek to me 

 because we do not use the Langstroth 

 hive. We use a large hive; the ca- 

 pacity is equal to about two eight 

 frame Langstroth hive, but Dr. Miller 

 uses that method. 



As I understand it, he simply adds 

 the second body and lets the queen go 

 up into it if she pleases and fill it 

 and she pleases in nearly every case 

 if she is any good at all. 



And then he takes, when the honey 

 crop starts — crowds all the good in the 

 lower story and adds supers to replace 

 that second story. 



Mr. Roehrs — Does he use a queen ex- 

 cluder? 



Mr. Dadant — I could not tell you 

 that; we do not use queen excluders. 



A member — I know Dr. Miller does 

 not use an excluder. 



Mr. Roehrs — We talked last night 

 about using a queen excluder as very 

 important. We are running for ex- 

 tracted honey. 



Mr. Dadant — If you are running for 

 extracted honey with ten franie Lang- 

 stroth hive you pretty nearly have to 

 use queen excluders or your queen will 

 go up. 



Mr. Roehrs — To build up the colony, 

 would you use any queen excluder at 

 all? 



Mr. Dadant — I do not think so. I 

 think the usual method is to give them 

 the two stories without any excluder 

 whatever, and let them fill that with 

 brood until the honey crop actually 

 starts, and then simply crowd back to 

 one brood chamber and add your 

 supers with queen excluders between. 



Mr. Wheeler — I have been watching 

 this question for several years. 



Mr. Dadant advocated the same 

 treatment for the prevention of swarm- 



ing long years ago when we had the 

 National in Chicago. 



I have tried everything in that line 

 to prevent swarming except one or two 

 things. 



I have tried ventilating below ; I have 

 tried the addition of brood chambers, 

 early. I did all that but r have been a 

 persistent user of nothing but starters 

 in my brood frames and in that way I 

 have reared a good many drones. ■ , 



I believe that the question of drones 

 has more to do with it than anything 

 else unless it is the size of the hives 

 that Mr. Dadant uses. He has used 

 that large size hives for many years. 



The size of the hive and the amount 

 of drone I think cuts more figure than 

 the amount of room for the queen 

 breeding, because I have tried the ad- 

 dition of supers, but of course they 

 were Heddin brood nests — but that 

 does not stop swarming with me. 



And I have never been able to stop 

 it. This year it has been worse than 

 ever. I do, though, raise lots of drones. 



Another thing I notice: Dearth of 

 honey just before the honey flow when 

 drones were killed off in order to get 

 rid of the surplus eaters; that would 

 seem to diminish the swarming. 



The hive has considerable to do with 

 it — and the amount of live, husky 

 drones that were flying in and out. 



President Miller — Would it be dearth 

 of drones or nectar coming in that 

 would produce swarming? 



Mr. Wheeler — This year I had left 

 over a lot of extracted combs and put 

 them underneath and kept them going 

 through May and up into June, and 

 they kept their drones and when they 

 got white clover they began to swarm. 



They kept their drones and did not 

 kill them. Other years I had them 

 killed because I was short of honey, and 

 those years I did not have trouble 

 swarming. 



Mr. Dadant's neighborhood I believe 

 has something do with it. I do not be- 

 lieve he could do the same in Illinois. 



Mr. Dadant— I do not believe that 

 has anything to do with it. 



Years back we bought Langstroth 

 hives and tried to give them the same 

 treatment as we did our large hives. 

 Sixty per cent of them swarmed — while 

 only ten per cent of ours swarmed. 



The size of the hive and everything 



