138 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



Dadant hive is not well adapted to comb 

 honey work. Something- like the Jumbo, 

 or a Draper barn, would be needed. 



You don't want a double story brood- 

 nest. To put out a first story, then add 

 ^ second later, then take it away, sorting- 

 out the combs, and putting those with 

 brood in the story left, having the others 

 to take care of and protest from moths 

 and rats, is too much work. It will never 

 answer when keeping bees by the hun- 

 dreds or thousands of colonies. 



Cut that out 1 I say. cut that out al- 

 together. 



Some will say that it might happen that 

 such a brood nest would not be full when 

 the main {\ov comes, and then the bees 

 would put lots (?) of honey in the brood 

 nests instead of in the sections and add 

 almost dramatically, " We want every 

 drop of honey in the sections," or some- 

 thing to that effect. 



You do, eh? Well, what 1 want to 

 know is how the bees are to put honey in 

 the sections when there is nothing there 

 but foundation and probably only small 

 starters at that. It takes about three 

 days to start wax secreting, and about 

 three more until enough comb has been 

 built to any appreciable amount. During 

 that time the bees have either to be idle, 

 or put in the brood nest whatever they 

 gather. So, after all, what is there is 

 clear gain, and will be very useful when 

 next winter comes along. 



SHAKING OR REQUEENING. 



I am emphatically in favor of requeen- 

 ing instead of shaking or dividing to pre- 

 vent swarming. Dividing requires an ex- 

 tra set of hives which is quite an expense 

 when working on a large scale. Then 

 extra combs have to be taken care of. 

 But that is not the most important point. 

 In the process as used nowadays all the 

 combs are carried to a new stand and the 

 colony has to rebuild a new brood nest. 

 That means a certain quantity of honey 

 to be consumed to produce the necessary 

 wax, and, what is worse, quite a number 

 of bees are engaged to do the work in- 

 stead of going to the field and working in 



the sections. In my locality that means 

 about thirty pounds of honey on an aver- 

 age. As these thirty pounds very often 

 constitute my sole surplus, or nearly so, 

 there is no wonder that I should object to 

 a system of management involving that 

 loss. 



PREVENTION OF SWARMING. 



It is a question very much debated as 

 to how the prevention of swarming is to 

 be managed. Some go over their colonies 

 every eight or ten days to ascertain which 

 ones are preparing to swarm, and deal 

 with them accordingly. That is entirely 

 too much work, and should be dispensed 

 with altogether. Cut that out. 



Others will requeen (or divide) the 

 whole apiary at the proper time and be 

 done with the thing once for all. That is 

 all right where the swarming comes all 

 together, or nearly so, at a certain definite 

 time, and where nearly all the colonies 

 would likely swarm. In my locality that 

 kind of proceedings does not work. There 

 is no very definite time for the bees to 

 swarm, the entire period during which 

 they may s varm is at least six weeks. 



Usually only about one-fourth, at most, 

 of the colonies do actually try to swarm. 

 Treating four colonies to prevent one 

 from swarming is rather a waste of time. 

 Furthermore, the ones which have, not 

 contracted the swarming- fever give far 

 better returns when left undisturbed. 



So, I finally decided on putting- queen 

 traps on all the hives and let them swarm 

 if they wish to. Of course, the swarms, 

 being queenless, return. The queen is 

 usually found in the trap and is either 

 removed or caged, the cage being placed 

 in the center of the hive in order that she 

 can be fed by the bees. The queen cells 

 are destroyed, except two or three which 

 are caged. A week later, whatever queen 

 cells have been started are destroyed and 

 the best of the. young queens (from the 

 caged cells) is turned loose and all the 

 others destroyed or used elsewhere. The 

 queen trap is left- two or three days 

 longer, because, if some queen cells had 

 been overlooked, swarming might occur. 



