AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



Jan. 3, 1901. 



and say it is g-iven to stimulate the bees for brood-rearing, 

 to store for winter food, and give none of them to under- 

 stand it is to be converted into honey for any purpose. 



Mr. Abbott — I was writing a resolution, and I don't 

 know as I just understood what was said, but I infer that 

 you meant to say unless the bees invert it or ripen it, it 

 would go back into sugar ; that syrup couldn't be made to 

 do it — wouldn't go back into sugar without the bees did 

 something to it. I feed my bees sugar-syrup to winter 

 them; they eat sugar-syrup, and live on sugar-syrup in- 

 stead of honey ; it is sugar-syrup when I feed, and when a 

 bee eats it it is never anything else but sugar-syrup, and I 

 don't see any reason for calling it anything else. 



Pres. Root — It is not chemically the same as it was be- 

 fore. 



Mr. Abbott — It is absolutely the same as it was before, 

 chemically ; I can demonstrate clearly that it is so. 



Pres. Root — I am only stating it as have Cowan, and 

 Cheshire, and Dr. Headdon of the Colorado Experiment 

 Station, and other scientists — thej' called it "inverted." 



A. F. Morley — I have been reading that when bees are 

 fed sugar-syrup they will fly out into the air and manu- 

 facture it over to some extent before they store it. 



Mr. Fixter — If you allow the bees to store 25 or 30 

 pounds of syrup in the brood-chamber, aren't they going 

 to carry that into the sections in the spring ? How are you 

 going to separate the sugar-syrup from the honey ? 



Pres. Root — Not very liable to after that length of time. 



SUPERSEDING OUEBNS. 



Why should a colony refuse to kill the old queen when 

 she has stopt laying, and a young queen has emerged, the 

 colony finally swarming with the old queen that was dipt, 

 there being no eggs or uncapt brood, and but little capt 

 brood in the cells ? 



Mr. Aikin — For my part, I think there is a mistake 

 somewhere ; such things do not occur except as a freak, in 

 all my experience. 



Mr. Green — They occur pretty frequently. 



Dr. Mason — You must be in a freak country ; localities 

 differ. 



Will a colony superseding a queen swarm with the old 

 queen after the j'oung one is hatcht and in the hive ? 



Mr. Aikin — It is possible that the jfresence of two 

 queens in the hive, the old and the young, might cause a 

 disturbance ; but where the colony would come out I should 

 most certainly expect them to come with the young queen 

 rather than with the old one. 



REARING QUEENS. 



How often would j'ou put queen-cells in the same hive ? 



Mr. Aikin — I suppose this is intended for queen-breed- 

 ers ; I can't answer it. 



Mr. Hutchinson — I put in queen-cells as often as I take 

 out a queen. 



Mr. Holdren — That isn't the idea; I want to know, 

 when j'ou are rearing queens, how often you would put cells 

 in the same hive to rear queens for sale ? 



Mr. Aikin — Isn't your thought this : How many cells 

 would you cause one colony to rear ? 



Mr. Holdren — Yes, sir ; without giving them a rest. 



Mr. Hutchinson — Perhaps two or three — somewhere in 

 that neighborhood. They will rearonfe batch of cells in ten 

 days. 



NUMBER OF COMB SPACES WITH BEES FOR WINTER. 



Taking the Langstroth frame for a standard, how many 

 spaces between combs should be occupied by the bees for 

 good wintering on examination Oct. 15th ? 



Mr. Aikin — I don't know the number of spaces ; that 

 will depend upon the temperature, largely, and it varies so 

 much the first of October that probably six or eight spaces 

 would be right. 



Mr. Benton — Five in sharp weather. 



Mr. Abbott — I believe that would be pretty close. 



Dr. Mason — Six makes a good, solid colony. 



FORMING LATE NUCLEI. 



How late can a nucleus be formed in northern Illinois, 

 using a virgin queen, and build up strong enough to last 

 until spring ? 



Mr. Aikin — That is out of my territory. I should sa3' it 

 depended largely upon the weather and the honey-flow — 

 principally those two things — and the man who is handling 

 them. 



Continued next week.) 



i Contributed Articles. | 



No. 2.— Extracted Honey Production. 



Size of Hives— Plenty of Stores and Ho'w They 



Become Effective— Larg-er Hives Needed 



Than in Comb Honey Production, Etc. 



BY R. C. AIKIN. 



Some months ago I was writing a series of articles for 

 this journal. I concluded the series so far as comb honey 

 production was concerned, and in the issue of June 21, 1900, 

 page 387, I gave the first article on extracted honey produc- 

 tion. Just about that time I found myself so occupied with 

 other work I could not continue the articles, hence this 

 lapse or break in the series. In order to get the connection 

 and refresh our memories, I shall have to sum up or repeat 

 a little of the ideas in the former articles. 



In the comb-honey articles I taught the great importance 

 of having very strong colonies while section honey was be- 

 ing stored. When entering on the description of extracted 

 honey production, I still advocated strong colonies. I also 

 pointed out that comb honey stock would pack brood-combs 

 very closely with honey, but when extracted was produced, 

 especially with abundance of store-comb, the brood-combs 

 were left very lank or thin. I urged that the apiarist note 

 this difference in the amount of stores found in the brood- 

 chambers, that run for extracted, having brood-combs so 

 very scantily stored as to cause death of colonies from star- 

 vation when comb-honey colonies in like hives had stores 

 in plenty. 



There is also another cause for starvation of extracted 

 stock, the very fact that the latter stores the honey in the 

 extra, leaving plent.v of brood-room, leads to the develop- 

 ment of much more brood. The two colonies may not seem 

 very different in strength during the flow, but since the 

 comb-honey colony has its combs with much honey and lit- 

 tle brood, while the extracted honey colony has just the 

 reverse, this causes the latter to have a great force of bees 

 rt/7f;- the flow is over. This host of bees produces quite a 

 different condition of affairs from the other. 



The great amount of brood and bees with the extracted- 

 honey stock a//er the flow, may, under certain conditions, 

 be a benefit. Should there be a later flow that these bees 

 can forage upon, they may prove to be just what we want ; 

 but if there is a dearth of nectar, and they are in enforced 

 idleness, they may be of little use. If we know perfectly 

 our field we will know just what to do, but it is not always 

 possible to know. However, most apiarists know fairly 

 well whether they are to have any nectar yielding late to 

 employ the bees, and if there is none then it follows that 

 there "should be provision made for the conditions. I am 

 using for extracting, 9-frame American hives. This frame 

 being about 12 inches deep, it would be inclined to catch 

 more honey than a shallower frame, yet I find these hives 

 run for extracted honey to contain less honey at the end of 

 the flow than do Langstroth frame hives of the same ca- 

 pacity when run for comb. 



I have no late flow, hence the condition on the hive as 

 to stores at the close of the summer flow is the condition 

 practically for winter. As it takes 30 to 40 pounds of honey 

 to carry a colony thru in this field, I am compelled to do 

 more spring feeding of the extracted-honey stock, or else 

 use a larger hive for them. I have before given my experi- 

 ence in this matter, but it will do no harm to state it again. 

 For several years I lost heavily of my extracted-honey stock 

 from starvation and general poor condition in spring, 

 caused by shortage of stores. Since then I have given 

 larger brood-chambers, and, when so, this stock winters 

 and springs as well as comb-honey stock, if not better. 



Note that the comb-honey stock well provision the 

 brood-chambers, this very fact reducing the amount of bees 

 going into winter. We might reason as many have done in 

 the past, that we do not want a big force of bees to go into 

 winter, that it takes so much to feed them. That argument 

 is very good if the bees are cellared, but for outdoor winter- 

 ing I believe the big colony the better. It does consume 

 more honey, but then they winter more safely. I have win- 

 tered a great many colonies in two-story American hives 



