AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



rit;ht along- with one-story ones, and the two-story hives 

 have rousing- big colonies when the June flow comes, plenty 

 of honej' and far more bees than the one-story ones. The 

 bii,^ two-story colonies will be storing surplus when the oth- 

 ers are barely readj' to enter supers. This testimony will 

 give comfort to the Dadants, and I am sure that for outdoor 

 wintering they are right, that the big hive is the better. I 

 believe the net results to be better from such. 



In producing comb honey it is true that a very large 

 brood-chamber colony may get to swarming before they do 

 section-work, but this does not apply so much to estracted- 

 honey stock where a set or two of combs above, ready to 

 store in, attracts the bees to them. 



Conditions (that is "locality," sometimes) make a great 

 difference. I call the reader to note carefully what I am 

 just now to put before you, for these matters must be under- 

 stood or you will say the doctors do not agree. 



I have been for several years in a tield in which the few 

 vreeks Jus f pn'ii'ding the June flow, were weeks of an abso- 

 lute dearth of nectar. Now, reader, suppose you were here 

 with your bees under such conditions. Suppose they were 

 in S-frame hives, and the last half of May and first half of 

 June there was practically «£>/A/«^ for them in the fields, 

 and the stores at home very low. Do you think you would 

 have any swarming? Or even a proper amount of breed- 

 ing ? You would not need to bother your head about how to 

 keep down swarming — I will guarantee no swarming-fever 

 under such conditions. 



Now, suppose your bees, instead of being in 8-frame 

 hives, single story, were in two-story or 16-frame ones, 

 stores to be in proportion. I can tell you that such two- 

 story hives well-provisioned, weather warm, and other con- 

 ditions favorable, you would have sonu- swarming before 

 the flow, and much more after it began. You could, bj' a 

 careful and judicious management, handle your one-story 

 hives so as to have good colonies, but it would have to be 

 done by close watch, and never at any time allow the col- 

 ony to get out of stores, and while they would have very 

 little ahead make them handle what little they do have. One 

 principal factor in inducing free laying by the queen, is to 

 have workers with full sacs much of the time. 



Thus it is possible to have bees carried thru the spring 

 in a dearth of nectar, bringing them up to a honey-flow in 

 good condition and no swarming-fever. Such colonies will 

 go into the sections and work for some time without swarm- 

 ing, many going thru a flow and not swarm if care is used 

 to give and keep plenty of room in supers. But, should 

 there be a little nectar from the fields for two or three weeks 

 just before the flow, and at no time a scarcity of old stores, 

 some would no doubt be ready to swarm at or about the be- 

 ginning of the flow, if not sooner. 



Your two-story hives having a great abundance of two 

 things (yes, three) — stores, empty comb and house-room — 

 will breed just about as rapidly under the complete-let-alone 

 plan as will the other with the coaxing and encouragement. 

 The large hive is the easiest to winter and spring, for two 

 reasons : 1st, because they go into winter with a host of 

 bees, and can endure the cold, and so have more bees in 

 in spring to start and care for brood ; and 2d, because there 

 is a plenty of feed at all times, both winter and spring. As 

 before stated, I find my two-story hives build up faster in 

 the spring, and make great rousing colonies by the time the 

 others are in fair condition. lean not account for it in any 

 other way than the great amount of brood and bees in the 

 fall being a protection against cold ; earlier and more rapid 

 spring breeding from some cause ; and a courage and ambi- 

 tion because of the much empty comb to occupy, and backt 

 by a rich store of honey. 



I wish here to say that there is another probable reason 

 — perhaps I should leave out the " probable." When a col- 

 ony is wintered in two chambers, that have been under con- 

 ditions that find the brood and cluster low down or in the 

 bottom hive in late fall and early winter, they work upward 

 in vs-inter and start breeding in the top hive in the spring. 

 This leaves honey below the cluster in lower outer combs, 

 and this they will from day to day carry up and store aboz'e 

 and about the brood. You see, here is a condition that 

 causes the workers to handle honey, have full sacs, also 

 open stores and a well-fed queen and brood. It all conduces 

 to the welfare and prosperity of the colony. It is a condi- 

 tion that is very like a flow of nectar, and is obtained with 

 the least care and labor on the part of the apiarist. 

 cr Now I think I hear E. R- Root hurrahing for two-story 

 8-frarae hives, and I think he is not far amiss as to the re- 

 sults to be obtained when they are rightly managed. If 

 3'ou winter bees outdoors, use a larger hive for the cellar. 



If you produce extracted, use larger hives than for comb 

 hone}-. If you use 8-frame hives, use two of them for a 

 brood-chamber in verj' many cases; but you can contract if 

 j'ou choose, when the flow comes on. 



Larimer Co., Colo. 



Fiat-Bottomed Foundation Securing Drones in 

 tlie Fall. 



BY G. M. DOOLITTI.K. 



A CORRESPONDENT writes thus: "I have always 

 used foundation having a natural septum or base, but 

 I am thinking of using the flat-bottomed next season. 

 Will you please tell thru the columns of the American Bee 

 Journal whether the bees change the base of such founda- 

 tion before drawing it out ? Or, after drawing it out, will 

 they fill out the corners with wax, or let it remain with a 

 flat base ? " 



Bees never leave the base of the cells as they come from 

 the foundation-mill making foundation with flat-bottomed 

 cells. This is one reason why there is never a base of yel- 

 low wax apparent with flat-bottomed foundation, where 

 such is used in producing comb honey. With foundation 

 having the natural-shaped base, the bees often, in times of 

 an excessive honey-flow, add their own wax right on to the 

 raised part of the foundation, so that this added part can be 

 scraped off with the honey, the foundation washt, and the 

 same be nearly or quite as perfect as when given to the 

 bees. This gave rise to the "fish-bone center" in comb 

 honey, complained of when comb foundation was first used 

 in sections, and the flat-bottomed process of making foun- 

 dation was invented especiallj- to overcome this "fish- 

 bone," if I am correctly informed. 



When bees are given the flat-bottomed foundation, the 

 fii-st thing they do is to go to work to change the base, and 

 in doing this the side-walls are manipulated also, but just 

 how this work is accomplisht I have never been able to tell, 

 after all the close watching I have been enabled to do, for 

 when the work is being done, the bee has its head in the 

 cell, hence the vision of the would-be investigator is cut off, 

 so long as the bee is at work. 



While I prefer the flat-bottomed foundation to all other 

 makes for section honey, it has two drawbacks, as I look at 

 it, which are that this manipulation of the base of the cells 

 takes time, so that sections filled with such foundation are 

 not completed quite as quicklj' as is the case where the nat- 

 ural-shaped base is used ; and where the sections are placed 

 on the hive before the honey-flow is fully on, the bees will 

 mischievously work at it far more than they will that with 

 the natural base, often gnawing and tearing it all down, 

 where the honey-flow we expected does not come, so that it 

 is necessary to look after the sections to see that they are 

 all right when the bees are about to enter them to fill with 

 honey, after a period of scarcity, or before putting them on 

 for the next season. 



I have had scores and hundreds of sections which were 

 filled with this foundation, and which had been on the hives 

 during a period of scarcity of honey, the foundation of 

 which was eaten or gnawed away so that only a neck of 

 foundation, of from a quarter to a half an inch wide, re- 

 mained next to the tops of the sections, while the lower half 

 of the foundation was very nearly as it was when first put 

 in. When honey commenced to come in from the fields, 

 and the bees began to work on the foundation, it would 

 twist about so that it would touch the separators, and be 

 fastened there. And at the end of the season, when I ex- 

 pected to take off nice comb honey, the whole thing would 

 be spoiled by the cutting and tearing necessary in taking it 

 from the separators. This is the worst trouble I have with 

 the flat-bottomed, and were it not for this, I would not think 

 of using any other make in the sections. Of course, in 

 good years, this does not apply, but in years like the past 

 has been, when fullj- ten percent of the sections have the 

 foundation badly gnawed in them, it is quite an item. 



For brood-frames, I can not see where the flat-bottomed 

 has any advantage over that having the natural base, while 

 it has the disadvantage of taking the bees longer to manip- 

 ulate it ; consequently I prefer the foundation having the 

 natural base for the brood-frames. 



GETTING DRONES FOK 1-AI,I, OUEEN-RE.ARING. 



Another correspondent writes thus : " I wish to rear a 

 few queens nearly every fall, but when I wish to do so, I 

 find that the most or all of the drones have been killed oft'. 

 Can I coax the queen to lay in drone-comb, if the same is 



