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THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



ing the swarming preparations. A colony 

 with the swarming fever is of little value 

 as a honey gatherer. 



5. The best honey gathering colonies 

 are not kept at home during the best 

 honey flow by the nursing of too much 

 brood. If there is too much brood in 

 proportion to the working force, most of 

 the honey gathered will be consumed by the 

 brood. The bee keeper whose bees rear 

 a large amount of brood during the main 

 honey harvest, or near its close, will find, 

 as he stands before his colonies at the 

 close of the harvest, that although they 

 are strong in bees and the combs fault- 

 less, the latter will be empty and will 

 stay so. 



A queen may be faultless in the fall, 

 and fail in the spring. To discover this 

 failure early in the spring and give the 

 colony another queen is all-important. 

 To introduce a queen with no danger of 

 loss, remove the poor queen and all of 

 the combs, giving the latter to some 

 colony that can care for them tempo- 

 rarily. Allow the bees three or four 

 frames with starters only. Give them 

 the new queen in a cage. Watch closely 

 and see what kind of comb they build. 

 If it is drone comb they will not accept 

 the queen. Cut it out and let them start 

 again. If no honey is coming in they 

 must be fed. When they begin building 

 worker comb it is a sign that they have 

 accepted the queen and it is safe to 

 release her. The second day after her 

 release three or four of the brood combs 

 are returned. The remainder are given 

 the next day. As a rule queens are not 

 kept after the second year. If the colony 

 with the newly given queen does not 

 prove diligent, exchange three or four of 

 its combs for the same number of combs 

 of sealed brood taken from the most 

 industrious colony in the yard. 



The second point is that of supplying 

 colonies with abundance of empty combs. 

 When the bees build their own combs 

 there is not only the loss of the honey 

 that is consumed to furnish the wax for 

 comb building, but the bees that are 

 secreting the wax and building the combs 

 could be gathermg honey were they not 

 thus employed. I have always worked 

 with all my power to have on hand a 

 sufficient supply of comb, but I must 

 admit that I have sometimes wished that 

 I had more. At such times I have would 

 have given much if I could have gotten 

 Warnstorf's combs, but his discovery is 

 of recent date and I was obliged to use 

 foundation, which is a great help, but not 

 the equal of completed combs. (The 

 Warnstorf combs, with full depth cells, 

 cannot be used for raising comb honey 



as they are twice as heavy as natura 

 comb, but they are excellent, strong- 

 combs for use in extracting.) 



The third point is that the bees swarm 

 at the right time — that the mother colony 

 has a fertile queen and the young colony 

 has Its brood combs comoleted before 

 the main harvest comes. Colonies that 

 make preparations for swarming at the 

 height of the harvest, or towards its close, 

 miss the best opportunity for honey 

 gathering. A swarm that comes late 

 can but build its combs and secure a 

 store of honey for winter, while the 

 parent colony will not become sufficiently 

 populous until the harvest is past and 

 gone. At the end of the season the bee 

 keeper will stand before his colonies and 

 complain of the average season, or, 

 perhaps, the poor season. The only 

 strange thing about it is that colonies 

 "X" and "Z" have done all that could be 

 wished. At least, they have gathered 

 twice as much as the others. By close 

 searching after the causes of these things 

 the bee keeper will find that in nine cases 

 out of ten, the colonies that are starving 

 in the spring swarmed at the wrong 

 time, while "X" and "Z" swarmed at the 

 right time. If swarming at the wrong 

 time is the cause of a small crop, then 

 the bee keeper will not doubt a moment 

 as to what he ought to do. The only 

 point is how it shall be done. Of course, 

 we want early swarms, not simply in- 

 dividual swarms, but we want the whole 

 apiary to swarm early. To accomplish 

 this, that is, have the whole apiary 

 swarm early and within a period of a 

 week or ten days, those colonies that are 

 in the rear must be helped at the ex- 

 pense of those that are too far advanced. 

 This is done by the exchange of combs. 

 From the time the bees are wintered 

 until the opening of the main harvest, 1 

 work with this end in view, that of hav- 

 ing them all enter the field equally strong. 

 During this preparatory period, many of 

 them build combs. Of course, if colonies 

 are too far in the rear it may be best to 

 leave them to themselves or unite them. 

 There are other means than exchanging 

 combs for equalizing colonies but they 

 must be practiced with great caution. If 

 some of the colonies do not swarm when 

 it seems they ought to, they can be 

 divided. An artificial swarm that is 

 made like a natural swarm and at the 

 right time, will work with the same 

 energy as a natural swarm, and in some 

 conditions is to be preferred. To get 

 early swarms the bees must have pro- 

 tection and an abundance of stores. In 

 the province of Hanover, where bee keep- 

 ing has been made a specialty for a few 



