June. 1911. 



Amef ican Hae Joarnal 



less filled with brood, the central ones 

 becoming the most congested. As soon 

 as this is almost reached, the conges- 

 tion is broken up by interchanging the 

 stories in such a way that the brood- 

 nest is again open, and room for the 

 queen is made at the same time. In 

 remodeling the brood-nest and re- 

 arranging the honey-stores, etc., an 

 impetus is given that has a stirnulating 

 effect upon the colony, and gives ex- 

 cellent results. By thus exchanging 

 the different stories in various ways to 

 suit the immediate needs of each and 

 every colony every week or 10 days, 

 for the several weeks during which the 

 swarming season is on, I have been en- 

 abled to manage a goodly number of 

 colonies in many apiaries scattered far 

 and wide. 



It is an established fact here in the 

 South, that the bees will stop all 

 swarming as soon as the main honey- 

 flow begins, when they seem to resort 

 to only one thing— that of gathering in 

 all the stores they can possibly get. 

 My secret, therefore, is to abate swarm- 

 ing until this honey-flow comes, when 

 the danger-point is past. However, 

 this spring we did not have an early 

 flow, and the coming season was con- 

 sequently prolonged for a considerable 

 length of time. But in spite of this 

 fact, the number of swarms was kept 

 down to a small percent with my meth- 

 ods of manipulations, while others 

 complained of too many swarms. 



Some Swarming Troubles — Robber-Bees 



One of the difficult things we liave to con- 

 tend with in this locality is bees swarmiriK 

 when little or nothing is being gathered by 

 them. What I mean by this is. not enough 

 honey is being gathered daily 10 supply the 

 demands of the colony, and we have to keep 

 a constant lookout to see that some colonies 

 do not run entirely without stores, and de- 

 stroy their brood. Of course, we can feed 

 or give frames of honey, but to do either 

 means swarming later, sure. If we coiild 

 always have a surplus of ready-drawn combs. 

 we could overcome this by tiering up and 

 givingplenty of room. . 



It is here like It is in California and other 

 warm climates, if bees have plenty of stores 

 in the hives, or are given a liberal supply of 

 honey, they will swarm almost as badly as if 

 a light flow of honey was on. (Bees seldom 

 swarm here when a heavy honey-flow is on. 

 provided plenty of pollen is to be had, 

 which is usually the case.) 



It sometimes happens that we want some 

 increase, and we are short on combs, and 

 to hive swarms on foundation without a 

 frame of honey to help them would mean 

 almost or quite starvation, and the comb 

 foundation badly gnawed around the wires 

 —perhaps ruined. How to overcome this is 

 quite a puzzle to me. If I had plenty of 

 combs, as stated. I could easily overcome 

 this. Such, however, is not the case, and 1 

 have more or less loss each season from this 

 source. If I had the bees all at home I could 

 partly overcome it by feeding: having them 

 scattered in 3 or 4 yards, several miles from 

 home, it is not an easy thing to manage, and 

 I almost always have a honey-dearth at the 

 main swarming season here. 



No doubt but there are few who have the 

 same amount of trouble along this line as I 

 have. Any suggestions from practical bee- 

 keepers on this subject would be appre- 

 ciated. 



We are in the height of the swarming sea- 

 son at this writing, and as I left the bees an 

 over-supply of stores last fall. I expect an 

 over-supply of swarms. Plenty of stores 

 here in the spring means much swarming, as 

 a rule. 



Fooling the Robber-Bees. 



A good way to stop robbing is to watch at 

 the entrance of the colony being robbed, 

 and line the bees as they come out of the 

 hive, to the colony doing the mischief. It is 

 usually just one colony doing most of the 

 robbing, although the average novice might 

 think, from the uproar they were causing. 



that at least a dozen had a "finger in the 

 pie." After you have the thieves located. 

 Quietly pick up the colony being robbed, 

 and move it to the stand of the one doing 

 the robbing, and put the robbers on the 

 place they occupied: or, in other words, ex- 

 change places with them. Any one who has 

 never tried this has no idea how quickly 

 they will quiet down, and all hands go to 

 work as if nothing out of the common order 

 of things had been going on. 



When I first read of this plan of stopping 

 robbing, my fears were for one or both 

 queens being balled, but after having tried 

 it a number of times, with not a single queen 

 being molested. I have no further fears 

 along that line. It will not only stop rob- 

 bing, but it is almost always a real benefit 

 to the one being robbed, at least, for it is 

 almost always a weak colony that is robbed, 

 and a strong one doing the robbing. So the 

 exchange strengthens the weak one. and 

 does the strong one no harm. 



I would use no other plan now to stop rob- 

 bing. Try it and report the results through 

 the American Bee Journal. 



Rescue, Tex.. April 10. L. B. Smith. 



Starters or Full Sheets of Foundation 



It is a pity that some people begin to 

 save at the wrong end. Many bee- 

 keepers are addicted to this in the use 

 of comb foundation. To try to save 

 on foundation by using only starters 

 instead of full sheets means a far greater 

 loss in results obtained than is at first 

 expected. Too few stop to figure this 



out, and look only upon the saving in 

 the first cost. My experience has taught 

 me that a saving of 20 cents worth of 

 foundation on each super will mean a 

 loss of $1.10 worth of honey. That is 

 to say, supers given with full sheets of 

 foundation will be filled with that much 

 more honey in a certain length of time 

 over those in which only starters were 

 used. 



This difference I discovered acci- 

 dentally several years ago. In apiaries 

 where supers were given, part of which 

 were filled with full sheets and part 

 with starters only, the former were 

 almost completed in 8 days' time, while 

 the latter were only half full. So great 

 was this difference that I noticed it 

 immediately, and further examination 

 of the entire lot of supers thus used 

 proved to me conclusively that it did 

 not pay me to use the starters. 



On account of a short supply of comb 

 foundation, caused by a delayed ship- 

 ment, and with a good honey-flow on 

 at the time, it was necessary to use only 

 one-third sheets to make the supply on 

 hand last. The loss due to the supers 

 filled with the starters amounted to 

 $200 in 8 days. 



It pays, and pays big, to use full 

 sheets of comb foundation at all times. 



Contributed 



Articles^ 



Requeening and Queen-Rearing 



BV F. GREINER. 



The bee-keepers of our land are be- 

 coming more and more convinced 

 that they must look after the age of 

 their queens more than they have. 

 Some colonies renew their mothers 

 timely without any interference of the 

 keeper. If we could depend upon this 

 we need not trouble ourselves at all. 

 In Switzerland, good breeding stock 

 must supersede timely. This must be 

 a fixed quality, or the stock is rejected. 

 Since foul brood has made such in- 

 roads upon us, many bee-keepers have 

 observed that colonies with young 

 queens are more immune, or disease- 

 resisting, than such as are headed by 

 old queens. This being true, we might 

 decide on renewing all our queens 

 every season, but if we did that we 

 would never have any reliable breed- 

 ing-queens, as none could be tested in 

 so short a time. 



Taking the above view, it would be 

 better at least to calculate on keeping 

 each otherwise good queen two years ; 

 select out of those such as outstripped 

 the rest, and again keep them for a 

 third season. Following this policy 

 we would probably have but few failing 

 queens. The losses from failing queens 

 are often very great, and we certainly 

 ought to guard against this thing all 

 we can. 



Mr. Taylor, at a bee-keepers' insti- 

 tute, said a few years ago, "The remedy 

 is, ' A'f<-/i mo?e bees.' " Like the former, 

 Doolittle advises to allow the bees to 

 renew their queens when they think 



best; this would be the "easy" way 

 but would need more capital ; and but 

 few of us would like to see our capital 

 lie idle. So it will undoubtedly be to 

 our advantage to have something to 

 say about renewing the queens of our 

 colonies kept for honey-production. 



In localities furnishing no more sur- 

 plus honey after the flow from clover 

 and basswood is over, no better time 

 can be chosen to replace old queens 

 than just at that time. It is not neces- 

 sary to buy queens for this purpose. In 

 fact, the better way is to rear them 

 yourself. In order to preserve the 

 high standard of the honey-bees, the 

 queens should be reared under most 

 favorable conditions. These conditions 

 prevail during the honey-flow, and at 

 no other time. It is possible to help 

 out by feeding, and thus producing, 

 artificially, favorable conditions, but 

 the honey-producer might better de- 

 pend upon Nature. 



I am also not fully satisfied that the 

 standard of our bees can be maintained 

 if we constantly rear queens by trans- 

 ferring larvje into artificial queen-cells. 

 I greatly hope it is, because it does en- 

 able us to have ripe queen-cells with- 

 out much trouble at the right time. I 

 have reared queens from natural cells; 

 I have used natural cells, removing the 

 original larvje and replacing them by 

 selected ones ; 1 have used artificial 

 cells primed and unprimed ; but I have 

 not found any difference in the result. 

 We must, however, not forget that our 

 honey-bee has been bred for thousands 

 of years by the natural process, and all 

 her qualities have been so well fi.xed 



