ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS ASSOCIAXION. 



75 



The President — Those who favor the old 

 colony with plenty of combs and no swarm- 

 ing will please rise. Thirteen — unlucky 

 number. 



Those that would favor killing the old 

 queen and letting the bees swarm, and 

 hiving them on starters, please rise. 

 Thirteen to one. 



Mr. W. H. Stewart — When you get be- 

 yond that, which will come out ahead, if 

 each one stands on its own merits, in five 

 years, which will give you the best results? 



Mr. Haan — The conditions on something 

 like that would vary so greatly that you 

 would never hay^ the same figures twice. 



Mr. Coppin — Mr. President, the way I 

 understand that question was, at the end of 

 five years, the man that would leave them 

 to swarm, wouldn't have bees enough to 

 last five years. That old one swarms so 

 much that it would die and the young 

 colonies would all be dead, so you would be 

 so many colonies short ever>- year, the 

 way I look at it. 



Mr. Stewart — Well, I guess you fellows 

 haven't studied that over very much. 



The President — Here is a question. 

 What would be a good system of manage- 

 ment of an apiary of less than one hundred 

 colonies? That is a pretty broad question, 



Mr. Haan — Mr. President, I am the one 

 that asked that question; There are so 

 many members here, older in the business 

 than I am, and I would like to hear from 

 them the different ways of running the 

 number of colonies of bees that they have, 

 and I imagine that there are no two people 

 who run an apiary alike. Of course, it 

 would be interesting, I guess, to all, if 

 we could get hold of systems, the way 

 different people run their different apiaries. 



The President — You have iii mind run- 

 ning the apiary through the swarming 

 season? 



Mr. Haan — Yes, through the summer 

 season, to get the best results. 



The President — I have been studying 

 this question for a good many years.* I 

 ch^ge a little every year, and I think I 

 iSake my system a little better every year. 

 I think, at our last meeting here, and the 

 meeting the year before, I gave something 

 of my mode of management of colonies 

 through the summer. I find, that if one 

 wishes to get along with the least labor to 

 get the maximum results', a very good plan 

 is to place a second hive body upon the 

 first hive body, along about the time fruit 

 blooms. Now, of course the bee-keeper 

 will have his queens clipped, not so much 

 urpose of preventing swarming as 

 for the Purpose of identification later, 

 for the p 



At the outside of the second hive bodj* 

 I would use combKS of honey kept over from 

 last year's extracting. It is well to save 

 over a considerable number of these combs. 

 I think two full combs filled vvith sealed 

 honey for each colonj' wintered, is about 

 right. In the middle I would place, if I 

 have them, about two empty drawn 

 combs. The remaining part of the second 

 jhive body, that is, ihe one on the top, 

 would be filled with full sheets of founda- 

 tion. When the bees .start to work, they 

 will begin to draw the foundation down to 

 the bottom bar. Those two empty drawn 

 combs in the middle will help to get the 

 queen started upwards. 



The tendency of the queen is to work 

 toward the top and if the bees get started 

 above too soon, the bottom or lower hive 

 may not have any brood left before the 

 season is over, in many cases; so start the 

 queej below, and give her plenty of room 

 so she can work upward. By using twentj' 

 frames in which she can deposit eggs there 

 will be verj' little tendency towards swarm- 

 ing. 



If you are working for extracted honey, 

 along about the time clover begins to yield, 

 place on the top of the second hive body 

 a queen excluder, and then a super, using 

 eight frames in the ten-frame super. Now, 

 if you are getting a good flow you can keep 

 on adding supers, as many as are necessary, 

 and your work from then on till fall will 

 be to remove honey and add supers. This 

 is a scheme for extracted honey. If you 

 raise queens, then you will have to modify 

 this plan to a considerable extent. 



In the latter part of August, I would re- 

 duce the brood chamber to one story. 

 You can shake the bees out of the upper 

 story and give them sufficient honey and 

 brood below, so that they will have 

 enough to last them through the winter, 

 and then above the first story you place 

 the excluder and add supers on top on 

 that. The extra brood taken away can 

 be used for strengthening the weak col- 

 onies and in building up nuclei. 



If there is an August flow, this second 

 manipulation should be done early, about 

 the time the flow begin?. 



In going through them, prepare them 

 for winter and see that they have plenty of 

 bees, plenty of stores and a good queen. 

 If there are queenless colonies, place them 

 upon another hive, with an excluder and 

 a newspaper between. 



You will note by this process that there 

 is a minimum amount of labor and verj- 

 few of them will swarm. In exceptional 

 cases a few will swarm in spite of any- 

 thing, but this system is usually effective. 



