314 



American Vee Jonrnal 



Even if it has no brood, merely honey and 

 pollen, it will do. You will fill up the old 

 hive with drawn combs or frames filled with 

 foundation, and you will also put one of 

 these in the vacant space left in the hive- 

 body. Now put the queen in the old hive, 

 place an excluder over the hive, and the 

 hive-body with brood-conibs over the ex-t 

 cluder. The bees will not swarm, but will 

 turn those combs of brood into extracting 

 cuinbs. 



2. About 17 days, more or less. 



Uniting — Transferring 



I. I liave S colonies in box hivts. This 

 winter 1 am going to 'buy modern frame 

 hives, into which I wish to transfer my bees. 

 As three colonies are weak I wish to kill 

 these and get all the honey they have. You 

 say a strong colony will winter better than 

 a weak one. If that is so, would it pay to 

 unite those three with some others, anil 

 when lliey have united put a bee-escape be- 

 tween them, and when they have all gone 

 down take the top off and get the honey 

 and render the old combs into wax? 



2. Will the following plan work well for 

 transferring? Say, I have five colonies in 

 box hives and" wish to transfer and I go to n 

 hive to be transferred and smoke and drum 

 out all of the bees into the frame hive ex- 

 cept some to care for the brood that is in 

 the hive at this time, which we suppose is 

 in May or June; after which I set the old 

 hive for, say, five days with its entrance 

 closed over the frame hive and with a wire 

 cloth between. After five days I replace 

 the wire cloth with a queen excluder, which 



1 let stay for fifteen days, or one day before 

 all the brood is hatched, then I put on an 

 escape-board in its place; and when they have 

 all gone down, take the old hive off, save all 

 the good combs and melt the others. 



3. T)o you think that a company can af- 

 ford to sell a good two-story hive fitted with 

 two comb-honey suners and one brood-cham- 

 ber for $2.00 in flat? Nortti Carolina. 



Answers — 1. Yes, that will work all right, 

 only you must look out, when you give the 

 excluder, that the queen is below it To 



make sure about it, you can drum all the 

 bees out of the upper hive, dump them down 

 at the entrance, and then set your upper hive 

 over the excluder. 



2. Yes, only it is hardly necessary to 

 leave the wirecloth as long as 5 days. Likely 



2 days would be long enough — just long 

 enough for the queen to get started laying 

 below. Indeed it might wor*. all right to 

 give the excluder at the start, and the less 

 time the wirecloth is left the better it will 

 be for the brood above it. 



3. I don*t know much about the cost of 

 such things, but- they are not likely to offer 

 what they cannot afford, although sometimes 

 quality suffers for the sake of making a low 

 price. 



Shook or Brush Swarming— After-Swarms 



From what some contend "all" one should 

 go by, is the symptom culminating in the 

 presence of capped queen-cells. Within two 

 weeks, I had about six of such colonies. 

 It was just after apple bloom and before 

 white clover, albeit that there were lots of 

 dandelion. Aside from this the weather was 

 cold and rainy and bees much confined, so 

 that with every spell of sunshine the bees 

 from most every colony were very lively. It 

 seemed to me better to destroy the queen 

 cells and avoid a further crop before shaking 

 and brushing. What is your attitude: shake, 

 especially when there are several queen 

 ceils or destroy and put off until very close- 

 ness of actual honey-flow? 



2. When there is more than one queen 



Ed Swenson. of Spring Valley. Minn., and a Hive Barrow of His Own Invention. 



cell in a colony will there be further swarm- 

 ing? When will the first queen destroy the 

 other cells? 



Pennsylvania. 



Answers — jShake-swarming has been well 

 called anticipated swarming, and is practised 

 not because we want the bees to swarm, but 

 because, if the bees are determined to 

 swarm, we want "to beat them to it," if you 

 will allow the slang. So it really comes to 

 the question whether the bees will swarm 

 if we don't anticipate them. And that will 

 lead you pretty clearly to the ground you 

 now occupy. ■ It is true that the starting of 

 queen-cells is proof that the bees contemplate 

 swarming, but it is also true that bees are 

 not infalible in their judgment about its be- 

 ing best for them to swarm, and sometimes 

 fhey give up the notion of swarming and 

 tear down the cells. At other times they go 

 on and swarm when it would be better for 

 them if they didn't. Flow or no flow (al- 

 though generally bees will not swarm with- 

 out a flow) it often happens that if you de- 

 stroy the cells started they will not start 

 others for some time, indeed sometimes not 

 again that season. So if you find cells and 

 think it not yet time for swarming, destroy 

 them. Ten days later, if you find only eggs 

 or very young larvae in cells, you may de- 

 stroy again, if you think it too early to shake. 

 But if, ten days after your destroying cells 

 you find cells well advanced, nearly ready to 

 seal, then you must shake if you want to 

 head off swarming. 



2. When a colony sends out a prime swarm 

 there will always be found in the hive a 

 number of queen-cells, half a dozen, a dozen, 

 or more. If I am correct, your question is: 

 When will afters warming follow, and whert 

 will there be none? Of course in the former 

 case the workers stand guard over the queen- 

 cells, protecting the'm from the first emerged 

 virgin, while in the latter case she is al- 

 lowed to destroy the cells. It looks as if 

 the matter of afters warms or no afterswarms 

 was always left open until after the issuing 

 of the prime swarm, and indeed until after 

 the emergence of the first virgin. Then it 

 seems to depend on whether the bees think 



they can afford to swarm or not. If there is 

 a good flow of honey there seems little risk. 

 and one or more afterswarms will be likely 

 to issue. Possibly the strength of the coibny 

 may have something to do with it, at least 

 with the first afterswarm, for sometimes they 

 seem to get reckless with later swarms, send- 

 ing out only a handful of bees, and leaving 

 the mother colony weak. There is no way for 

 the bee-keeper to tell by looking in the hive 

 whether the bees intend to send out after- 

 swarms or not, unless it be at the very last, 

 when he may see the oldest virgin digging 

 open the cells to destroy the inmates, or may 

 see the workers protecting the cells from the 

 virgin. But the bee-keeper has it in his power 

 to make the bees decide against sending out 

 any afterswarms, in a way often mentioned in 

 this journal. When the prime swarm issues 

 be hives it and sets it on the old stand, plac- 

 ing the mother colony close beside it. Then 

 in about a week he moves the old hive to a 

 new place 10 feet or more distant. Thafs ali; 

 and he may feel quite sure there will be no 

 afterswarms. The philosophy of it is easy. 

 The first afterswarm issues about 8 days 

 after the prime swarm. If, just before this 

 time, the old hive be moved some distance 

 away, it will be depleted of all its field-bees; 

 for when these field-bees go to the field they 

 take no note of any change, and when they 

 return, instead of looking up the hives from 

 which they went, they return straight to the 

 old place, and join the swarm. Thus it hap- 

 pens that no honey will be coming into the 

 old hive at about the time the first virgin 

 emerges, and the bees feeling that a dearth is 

 upon them will permit the destruction of all 

 the occupants of the remaining queen-cells. 



What Grade of Foundation to Use 



I am going to liave to buy foundation for 

 1500 Hoffman frames for the next season and 

 do not know wliether to buy medium or 

 light brood. I have used both and can see 

 but little if any difference in results. 1 

 have had no trouble with light brood sag- 

 ging. I wire my frames but do not use 

 splints. Which do you think is the better 

 to use? Ohio. 



Answer. It's merely a question of which 



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