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AMERICAN BEE lOURNAL 



Oct. 3, iy< 1. 



ing time, queens can be forced to lay in such cell-cups con- 

 veniently placed in the hive ; at other times it would not 

 seem practical, and hard to be accomplished. 



Mr. Stachelhausen thinks that it can only be done dur- 

 ing swarming-time. 



Mr. Atchley told how it could possibly be done, by plac- 

 ing cell-cups around and near drone-brood, conveniently, 

 and where queens are mostly found after their regular 

 season's laying has been at its fullest, when the queens are 

 almost worn out from the hard work of depositing worker- 

 eggs. It is then that they are almost crazy to resort to 

 depositing drone-eggs, as it seems to be easier for them to 

 do this than that of laying worker-eggs. This of course, 

 like the other cases cited, will be at about swarming-time. 



IMPORTANCE OF GOOD OUKHNS. 



A paper from Willie Atchley on this subject was read, 

 in which he said that too much could not be said about 

 queens. Good queens, good bee-keepers, and good locali- 

 ties make beekeeping a success ; and either of these essen- 

 tials lacking, bee-keeping is a failure. It is highly essen- 

 tial that all apiarists look sharp to the prolificness of their 

 queens, and the working qualities of their bees. Give him 

 good queens, and a good location, and he will turn out a 

 crop of honey. 



Mr. Weaver and others gave some of their experience 

 about good queens, a good locality, good queens, and good 

 management, being a sure road to success. Some told 

 about the difference in queens, some being large and tine 

 looking, but almost worthless in other qualities, while some 

 of the very smallest, sometimes called •■ stub " queens, have 

 done wonders. This, however, is not a rule. 



REARING GOOD QUEENS. 



This was by Mr. G. F. Davidson, who gave his modus 

 operandi, which were given at previous meetings of the 

 Central Texas Bee-Keepers' Association. 



He recommends the Alley plan he has so long practiced, 

 and with which he has been successful. 



H. H. Hyde spoke in favor of the Doolittle plan and 

 method, and although the 6es/ queens can be reared by the 

 Alley plan, with the Doolittle method good queens, and 

 more of them, can be obtained. 



MOVING BEES." 



O. p. Hyde had much and varied experience in moving 

 bees, as he moves bees nearly all the time. He has also had 

 some /i/n connected therewith, on which account he began 

 to study to find out the best way to move bees, and has been 

 quite successful. To close the entrances, he uses a device 

 (the idea of which he obtained from a bee-keeper who did 

 not know anything about bees, only having a colony or 

 two), with which he can close up the entrances of 10 hives 

 to one closed in the ordinary way, by tacking wire-cloth 

 over the entrances. It is simply a piece of tin about two 

 inches wide, with a cleat or piece of board half as wide 

 nailed on the upper edge, all as long as the hive is wide. 

 The lower half of the tin is perforated to give ventilation. 

 Now with t%vo ,"•(/. wire nails in the cleat, just tack on the 

 entrances, and it is done. 



Next, the cover is nailed down with two more nails, one 

 on each side, into the side-walls of the hive. Two or more 

 story hives are held together by means of strips of lath 

 nailed to the sides of the hive, diagonally across the sides. 



In hauling, one should have a wagon-bed wide enough 

 so two hives can be set end to end across the bed, and other 

 tiers the same way on top of the^5e. For this purpose they 

 have an "Electric" handy, low wheeled wagon, with a 

 wide platform, having low side railings on the outer edges. 

 If understood rightly, the back ends of the hives rest on 

 these, leaving them slanting towards the middle from each 

 side. The second tier, when put on top will then easily 

 stay in place. In this way he has hauled bees for over 30 

 or 40 miles, and hardly a quart of bees were lost. 



Mr. Davidson and others have used wire-cloth, but it is 

 much trouble. 



Mr. Atchley told about some of their experience, as they 

 move bees extensively. They keep a large share of their 

 bees on the migratory plan. Sometimes it happens to rain 

 hard some distance from their bees, and the country around 

 being a most wonderful one in regard to the quick growth 

 of honey-yielding and other plants after a heavy rain, the 

 flowers appear most abundantly in a very short time. It is 

 then that they move whole apiaries from dry situations to 

 the fields yielding nectar. For all this they are extra pre- 

 pared with bee-wagons, and some 200 regular shipping- 



I cases with wire-cloth, provided %vith slotted cleats in 

 which the frames are hung, with all the bees put in, closed 

 up, and are then ready to haul on the special bee-wagons. 

 The empty hives are hauled on any other wagon separate 

 from the bees. 



Mr. Victor makes large frames by ripping hive-bodies 

 into rims, one inch square, on which wire-cloth is tacked. 

 This is nailed over the top of the hives after the covers have 

 been removed. He next sticks moss into the entrances, 

 nails cleats, one on each side of the hive, and they are ready. 



H. H. Hyde recommends cleats nailed on diagonally 

 across and from opposite corners from the one on the other 

 side. In winter or cold weather, wooden cleats to close the 

 entrance are sufficient. 



IMPORTANCE OK LARGE BREEDING-SPACE. 



In a paper on this subject L,. Stachelhausen said the 

 secret of successful bee-keeping is to have the colonies at 

 their fullest development just when the main honey-flow 

 commences, for which purpose it is necessary to use differ- 

 ent managements, whether the flow is early or late in the 

 season. In most localities this honey-flow is so early that 

 we have to do all we possibly can to develop the colonies at 

 the right time. 



His and other bee-keepers' experience has taught that 

 in their localities they can get their colonies developed to 

 the most possible strength before the main honey-flow, 

 without any work at all, if they give them a large breeding- 

 space and large comb-surface. This is the reason why Da- 

 dant recommends large frames and large brood-chambers. 

 An experience of about 20 years has taught him that, in his 

 climate at least, the division of the brood-nest into two or 

 more shallow stories is no hindrance at all for the develop- 

 ment of the brood ; the queen will pass these " sticks " with- 

 out any hesitation. On the other side the extension of the 

 brood-nest to another comb, sidewards of the brood-nest, is 

 much more difficult. This is easily explained : The combs 

 on both sides of the brood-nest generally contain a large 

 quantity of pollen, and can not be used for brood before 

 this pollen is consumed. To extend a brood-nest of this 

 character sidewise, we are forced to remove these pollen- 

 filled combs and replace them with empty ones ; or to set 

 empty combs into the middle of the brood-nest, as recom- 

 mended by Mr. Doolittle. All this has to be done at the 

 right time, not only corresponding to the strength of the 

 colonies, but empty combs should be given just in the place 

 where the queen is laying, because, even in this respect, the 

 bees keep the brood-nest in wonderful order. For this rea- 

 son the colonies have to be watched closely all during 

 spring, causing a considerable amount of work, limiting 

 the number of colonies a man could keep, especially if scat- 

 tered in different apiaries. 



If in large brood-chambers, with a large amount of 

 comb-surface, all this work is unnecessary, because the de- 

 velopment of the colony goes on without any work of ours, 

 showing at once the advantage of such large brood-cham- 

 bers. More colonies can be kept with the same amount of 

 work ; and even if the honey crop per colony should be 

 smaller, which is doubtful, as by other management, the 

 profit of the whole apiary will be larger. To get strong 

 colonies in the spring, in such hives, it is necessary always 

 to have enough honey in the hive, but not too much, with 

 sufficient number of empty cells, or always enough more 

 than the bees need at a given time. 



Another advantage of large brood-chambers is that 

 swarming is reduced to a minimum, especially so if the bees 

 are kept in large hives during several generations. In this 

 respect the condition of the honey-resources of certain lo- 

 calities are to be considered ; in some localities swarming 

 can be practically prevented by the use of large hives, while 

 in other localities the number of swarms is reduced very 

 much, and, to prevent these few swarms, other ways can 

 easily be executed. 



Nobody disputes these advantages of large brood-cham- 

 bers in early spring, but some say that they have disad- 

 vantages during the main honey-flow. It would seem sea- 

 sonable to ask. Why not use large brood-chambers in spring, 

 as long as they are advantageous, and afterwards contract 

 the brood-nest as soon as thought advisable ? But this ob- 

 jection can not be overcome by this simple way. 



1st. One objection is, when producing extracted honey, 

 and using an unlimited breeding-space, during a very good 

 honey- tlow, the brood-nest will be contracted by the honey 

 which the bees store around the brood. Contrary, in a mod- 

 erate honey-flow, it is said, that the bees will use the large 

 space to breed extensively, and will store very little honey, 

 at the end of the flow leaving a strong colony of useless 



