1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



811 



Conversations with 

 Doolittle 



At Borodino 



EAKLY WORK 1>" THE SUPERS. 



" How can I get my bees to enter the su- 

 pers early in the season? I know that bees 

 will begin work sooner on empty combs than 

 when they are obliged to build their comb; 

 l)ut I am told that comb foundation will take 

 the place of drawn combs." 



"It will when nectar is coming in from 

 t he fields fast enough so that the bees begin 

 to secrete some wax of their own; but when 

 the honey-flow begins very gradually, and 

 continues slow, we very often find that col- 

 onies provided with combs will make quite 

 a show in the surplus apartment before those 

 with only foundation to draw out, or those 

 which are obliged to build their combs, make 

 any start at all." 



" But is it not just as well to leave the su- 

 pers oflf during such slow work, allowing 

 this little to be put in the hive for food for 

 the larval bees?" 



"No, not by any means. 8uch a course 

 encourages swarming, which is a detriment 

 in our modern bee-keeping. It is of great 

 importance that the bees begin to put hon- 

 ey in the sur^ilus apartment at the very first 

 of the honey season. They work much bet- 

 ter afterward when their first honey goes 

 above, and they are not nearly so likely to 

 fill the brood-combs with honey, and tlius 

 curtail the brood through lack of room given 

 the queen in which to lay. Here is one of 

 the great problems in apiculture; for with 

 the crowding of the queen comes a desire to 

 swarm, which swarming fever is against a 

 good yield of honey, even if the brood was 

 not so curtailed as to injure materially the 

 prosperity of the colony through the whole 

 sfason, which is generally the case. By 

 placing a hive of empty combs abov^e each 

 colony as soon as it becomes strong enough 

 to receive them, work will be begun there 

 long before any colony thinks of en- 

 tering the sections. Then as soon as the 

 bees are well at work in these combs they 

 are taken away from them, and sections 

 put on, in which the bees go to work 

 readily, especially if these first supers of sec- 

 tions contain a few baits. The bee-keep- 

 ers of nearly a quarter of a century ago 

 I found out that, if a hive of drawn brood- 

 combs was placed on a strong colony quite 

 early, the bees would take advantage of 

 them and store honey before they would go 

 into supers with baits. Then after these 

 combs were taken off the bees would at once 

 go into the sectit)ns, store first in the baits, 

 then draw out the foundation in the sections 

 ne.xt to these, and soon work would be going 

 on throughout every section in the super; 

 swarming would be retarded, and a good 

 yield of section honey assured. The combs 

 in which the bees were at work were put on 

 other colonies not strong enough to occupy 



upper stories when this work first began; 

 and when all had been brought up to the 

 occujjying of sections except the very weak- 

 est, these combs, now pretty well filled with 

 honey, were piled from two to four stories 

 high on these weak colonies, and left for ex- 

 tracted-honey production." 



"Was the plan a success?" 



"It was very much in advance of the 

 former way of working where sections were 

 only starters or only foundation were put on 

 the colonies, after they got nearly or quite 

 strong enough to swarm; but it lacked some 

 of the better elements of ou r present-day bee- 

 keeping, the turning of all the honey stored 

 by the bees during any and all years, which 

 was not needed by the bees themselves, into 

 the sections, and that without the necessity 

 of having any swarms. A plan for doing 

 this is given in ' A Year's Work in an Out- 

 apiary.' As soon as several of your colonies 

 are strong enough so that a hive containing 

 the full number of worker combs can be put 

 over them without injuring their prosperity 

 at brood-rearing, take off the winter cover- 

 ing from them and first place over the brood- 

 chamber a queen-excluder; on this the hive 

 of combs, and put the cover over the whole. 

 The bees will now go to work in thesecombs; 

 but instead of taking them off and putting 

 sections in their place, as the earlier bee- 

 keepers did, leave them till the first honey 

 harvest opens, or till white clover is opened 

 enough so the bees have commenced to work 

 on it quite freely. Asa rule, no preparations 

 for swarming will have commenced so far, 

 which is better than waiting later. Now set 

 the upper hive down in place of the lower 

 hive and put a super of sections containing 

 baits on top, and on this super place anoth- 

 er filled with sections having foundation in 

 them. Next, shake and brush all the bees 

 off their combs and out of the hive, which, 

 up to this time, has been their brood-cham- 

 ber, right in front of the hive you have just 

 put the sections on, into which they will 

 run as fast as you shake them off their 

 frames of brood. You now have all the bees 

 which were in both hives in what was the 

 upper story a few moments ago; and as the 

 bees have been used to working and carrying 

 their honey into the hive above, so they 

 will continue, going immediately into the 

 sections; and as the queen lays, the honey 

 stored in these combs will go into the sec- 

 tions, together with that coming in from 

 the fields, while the colony finding itself 

 without brood will go to work the same as a 

 newly hived natural swarm, so that all 

 swarming is unthought of, and a large yield 

 of section honey results. Put the queen- 

 excluder you now have out of use over some 

 weak colony, and on this put this hive of 

 beeless brood. And as the season's work 

 progresses put on more and more. I often 

 have hives so used till there are five hives 

 like this all in one pile. And these are the 

 combs which are used to go on top again 

 the next year, the honey which will be stor- 

 ed in them being of advantage the next sea- 

 son." 



