566 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Aug. 18, 1904. 



inches in depth, the super itself being: 655 inches deep. We 

 have also a larger hive than the ordinary Langstroth 10- 

 frame hive, our size of frame being l"s inches longer than 

 the regular Langstroth. So our supers have ample room 

 for from 50 to 65 pounds of honey, and are more than one- 

 "half larger in capacity than the small supers referred to. 

 We very often use two or three of them, adding them as 

 necessity requires, but always before the bees have all the 

 combs filled, so that they may never feel short of room. 



That is how we have succeeded in almost abolishing' 

 swarming in our apiaries. We know that bees have the 

 greatest incentive to swarm when the hive is getting 

 crowded, or when, in a very good honey-yield, they find 

 themselves short of empty combs, although with a notable 

 empty space still unoccupied by combs at all. I have known 

 colonies to swarm many times when the supers were entirely 

 empty, but rarely have seen swarms issue from hives that 

 had been supplied with a large quantity of empty combs in 

 good time, or before they began to feel the urgent need of 

 them. 



QUBBN-BXCLUDING HONEY-BOARDS. 



I wish also to make a few remarks upon the use 

 of the queen-excluding honey-board, of which several 

 have spoken as an indispensable implement for extracting. 

 Mr. Hasty has even gone so far as to say that the use of a 

 queen-excluder ought to be compelled by law. 



The experience on which my critics have based them- 

 selves to assure us of the absolute need of excluding honey- 

 boards is certainly dissimilar from mine. As the reader 

 knows, the Dadauts have been the champions of extracting 

 and extracting-supers for 30 years or more, and in all my 

 experience I have seen but very few seasons in which there 

 was brood reared in the supers. 



But the reader must remember that not only are our 

 supers large, but our hives also are larger than the average. 

 There is ample room in the lower story to accommodate a 

 very prolific queen, and she rarely finds it necessary to go 

 up into the upper stories. The only instances when I have 

 found the queen in upper stories were when the season had 

 been very long and irregular, some days being good for 

 production while a number of days were unfavorable, so 

 that the bees consumed, during a part of the time, what had 

 been harvested during the preceding days. The queen has 

 also occasionally gone into the supers when in search of 

 drone-combs, for we aim to remove all drone-comb fi;om the 

 brood-chamber as regularly as possible. Queens sometimes 

 prefer drone-combs to lay in, probably when a long season 

 of breeding has caused them a certain fatigue. It would 

 seem as if laying drone-eggs rested them. If there happens 

 to be a patch of drone-comb in the super, the queen, when 

 in this condition, is likely to find it and lay eggs in it. But 

 I would not think of resorting to the queen-excluder to pre- 

 vent that. I would much prefer doing the same thing with 

 the supers as with the hive-body— remove all drone-comb, 

 wherever found, and replace it with worker-comb. 



My main objection to the queen-excluder is its being 

 glued so fast to either the super or the brood apartment, or 

 both, as to become a nuisance to remove. It may be that 

 our location is a better one for propolis than many others. 

 Be this as it may, I find that after a few weeks such imple- 

 ments become so glued to the other parts of the hive that 

 you have to damage them to remove them. Then, an ex- 

 cluder is always more or less in the way of the bees. I 

 would much rather put up with the little inconvenience of 

 an occasional patch of brood in the super than with the 

 annoyance of an implement which is difficult to handle. 



- When Mr. Hasty spoke of wanting a law to compel 

 those who produce honey to use queen-excluders, I under- 

 stood that he meant this as a question of hygiene, probably 



under the idea that brood found in the extracting-combs 

 would be thrown out by the extractor and create a nuisance, 

 spoiling the honey by the dead larva;. This is a matter 

 that has never given us any concern, and for several rea- 

 sons : 



In the first place, the honey can usually be extracted 

 out of brood-combs without throwing out larvn;, it one is a 

 little careful. 



Secondly, we rarely find unsealed brood in the supers 

 at the end of the crop, when the honey is ripe and fit to ex- 

 tract, because at that time the breeding has already 

 decreased. Sealed brood can not be thrown out, and will 

 not be killed or injured in any way by extracting the 

 honey, though it may cause the chrysalis to be a little dizzy 

 while the whirling is going on. 



Thirdly, it generally happens that the combs that con- 

 tain brood have little else in them, and they are not usually 

 put into the extractor at all. 



We are the only ones who do not use queen-excluders 

 between the stories. In the replies to the questions asked 

 about this matter, I noticed that Mr. France, who is a very 

 practical man, and a very large producer of first-class 

 honey, emphatically sustained the non-use of the excluding 

 honey-board for extracting. If I am not mistaken, Mr. 

 France uses what the Europeans call a horizontal hive, a 

 hive in which the surplus honey is harvested from brood- 

 combs at the side of the brood-nest, and this hive is not 

 adapted to queen-excluders. 



A little care in the management of extractor-combs 

 will remedy all the possible evils feared from the non-use 

 of the excluder. 



In the production of comb honey the conditions are en- 

 tirely different. The laying of eggs and rearing of brood 

 in sections will change the color of the comb and render 

 the honey unfit to be classed as first quality, no matter of 

 what quality it may be in reality. Breeding in extracting- 

 combs will leave them rather better for the extractor, after 

 the bees have hatched out, for those combs are less brittle, 

 and more safely handled. Hancock Co., 111. 





Convention Proceedings 



inSs J 



Report of the Fourth Annual Meeting of the 



Texas State Bee-Keepers' Association, 



Held at College Station, Tex., July 



5 to 8, 1904. 



REPORTED BY LOUIS H. SCHOU,. 



The meeting was called to order by the Secretary, 

 Louis H. Scholl, in the absence of the President and the 

 Vice-President, at 2 o'clock Tuesday afternoon, July 5. 



Mr. F. L. Aten was appointed temporary chairman of 

 the meeting, whereupon the Secretary gave his annual 

 report. 



The election of officers resulted as follows : W. H. Laws, 

 president ; W. H. White, vice-president ; Louis H. Scholl, 

 re-elected secretary-treasurer ; and H. H. Hyde, assistant 

 secretary. 



ESSENTIAL QUALITIES OF A SUCCESSFUL BEE- 

 KEEPER. 



"What are the essential qualities for making a success- 

 ful bee-keeper ?" L. Stachelhausen spoke as follows : 



I am on the program to answer this question. If some- 

 body had asked me to do so I would have chosen another 



