126 



FIFTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



• and there is where one gets his idea 

 of price; he puts his honey in tin and 

 sells it for eight cents. 



There is an opportunity to do some 

 real good work. Go after these bee- 

 keepers and hammer it into them that 

 they are knocking us by not telling 

 the people the retail prices of honey. 

 Ninety per cent is sold at retail and 

 there is nothing printed showing what 

 that 90 per cent of the crop ought to 

 be sold for. 



Question: What constitutes a strong 

 colony of bees in spring, in summer 

 and in the late fall? 



Can any one answer that? What 

 constitutes a strong colony of bees in 

 the spring, in the summer and in the 

 late fall? 



President France — If you have an 

 old queen, and, in another hive, a 

 young queen, you will very soon de- 

 cide which is the stronger. 



I am not satisfied when dandelion 

 bloom comes but what I have eight or 

 nine combs nearly full of worker brood 

 with lots of hatched bees, and I want 

 two hive bodies full when white clover 

 comes. 



Mr. Stewart — Eight or ten frame 

 hives? 



President France — Ten frame hives. 

 Eight is too small for extracting hives 

 for me. 



Mr. Miller — It would be interesting 

 to tell us how you get two hive bodies 

 full of brood by that time. 



President France — Primarily, a young 

 queen; a statement I made more than 

 twenty years ago. How much honey 

 do you consider necessary to winter a 

 swarm of bees? A little too much in 

 the fall of the best you have is 

 just right next spring; don't be afraid 

 to have too much. If we have any- 

 thing that is a miser on economy, it is 

 the little honeybee. 



Mr. Allen, -Treasurer of our State 

 Association, questioned me. I said, 

 "Mr. Allen, when 5'ou go home, take 

 one of those combs that is full of 

 honey, out." He said: "I have hives 

 heavy with honey and still I can't 

 make them do as you say." 



"Uncap a little of that they have in 

 store, if you please, unlock the door. 

 They would rather keep it as a bank 

 dposit than to go and get it You un- 

 cap it and see if they don't use it for 

 brood rearing." 



He came back in another year. He 

 said he took the comb sealed, capped 

 honey, and uncapped it in the form of 

 making my initials, N. E. F.; there is 

 an illustration of how miserly my bees 

 were. Every cell I uncapped, the bees 

 took honey out for brood rearing, here 

 are the rest not touched. 



Feed them; keep them warm; keep 

 them out of windy places. 



We have lots of bee owners whose 

 bees are out in windy places. 



If you take Doctor Phillips's paper 

 and digest that fully on the proposi- 

 tion of wintering, and keep that pack- 

 ing on as he says until warm weather 

 has settled, all will be well. 



My old style hives had packing on, 

 the year round. 



I want a hive that, if it were to 

 swarm at the beginning of the clover 

 bloom, I would have bees good enough 

 for a good half bushel full. 



Mr. Miller — Do you use queen ex- 

 cluder between the two? 



No, I don't want anything to hin- 

 der the queen going into both hive 

 bodies. I do everything I can to en- 

 courage brood rearing. 



You go into the poultry line — (you 

 say there is no comparison). You 

 take early hatched chickens, crowd 

 those chickens, and get winter layers, 

 you have to develop in advance. 



If you have crowded your queen to 

 that extent you have a good big 

 swarm of bees — you have over-crowd- 

 ed; her workers are there that are to 

 do the field work for you and she has 

 served her mission and her daughter 

 or some young queen has to suc- 

 ceed her. 



Now then: Young Queen. That young 

 queen that takes her place, full of the 

 same kind of vim and ambition, does 

 not care to swarm; there is no need 

 of any swarming. 



How do we run these outyards? We 

 go out and do what is necessary. In 

 all our yards we had four natural 

 swarms this summer. 



I cannot afford to have my bees 

 hanging out in clusters in front of the 

 hive getting ready for swarming. I 

 want them to work. 



Question — What is stimulative feed- 

 ing. Does it pay? 



President France — I will say one 

 thing, I have made my artificial pollen 

 in the form of flour early. The bees 

 will carry home lots of it, but every 



