354 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



June 1 



Brood-rearing, this sjiring at least, dejiend- 

 ed entirely on one fact. When (light was 

 free the queen got busy; when it stoi)))ed, 

 so did she. There was no question of i)ol- 

 len-dearth, as there was plenty of old pollen 

 in the hives. 



It is doubtless a good thing to have "mil- 

 lions of honey in the house " in spring; but 

 when the bees can not tiy, ai)i)arently they 

 do not care to use it. So far as 1 can draw 

 conclusions from this season's observations, 

 1 would rather have thousands of bees than 

 millions of honey. 



The principal conclusion I have arrived at 

 is this: When bees can not fly, sj^ring stim- 

 ulative feeding, whether of sugar syrup or 

 artificial pollen, or both, is a waste of energy. 



I am aware that one swallow does not 

 make a summer; neither is it safe to gener- 

 alize from one season's observations; but, 

 nevertheless, those made in a climate that 

 is different from most are, I feel, deserving 

 of record. 



Victoria, B. C, April 26. 



THE ESTABLISHMENT AND MAINTENANCE 

 OF A BROOD-CHAMBER. 



Eight vs. Twelve Frame Brood-chambers. 



BY B. F. HOL,TERMANN. 



Continued from last issue. 



In my experience with bees and the brood- 

 chamber of the hive they occupy, I find cer- 

 tain conditions which govern. If I wish to 

 establish a brood-chamber, there are condi- 

 tions which have a bearing on that ques- 

 tion. 1. The distance apart the frames are 

 spaced; 2. The nature of the comb founda- 

 tion used; 3. The number of bees with which 

 it is established; -1. The amount of brood 

 when a heavy flow begins; 5. The queen. 



Now, I do not profess to name these in 

 the order of importance. Such would seem 

 to me to be something like solving the fool- 

 ish problem often propoundetl — which is 

 the most important, the hive, the locality, 

 or the man? when any one of them left out 

 would leave no jiroblem. 



1. The distance of spacing is important, I 

 feel sure. I-^et me illustrate: In a super, 

 combs may be spread so that ten combs oc- 

 cupy the space twelve normally do. But 

 when foundation is used, bees come up, oc- 

 cupy, and build on that foundation much 

 more readily when the spacing is normal 

 than when it is abnormal. I use a brootl- 

 chamber si)acing 17 inches inside the hive 

 for 12 frames, using no follower, yet I am not 

 prepared to say that slight variations from 

 this will work any injury. 



2. As to the foundation used, .Jacob Al- 

 paugh first directed my attention to this 

 l)oint, and I will gi\ e his words as nearly as 

 lean recall them. He stated, "There are 

 lots of queens condemned as not up to stan- 

 dard for laying, because the combs do not 

 suit them. There are makers of foundation 

 who, in the process of making, stretch the 

 cells so that they are larger one way than 



the other, or the foundation may be stretch- 

 ed in the hive through no fault of the foun- 

 dation-maker. When this foundation is 

 built out, the queen, from natural instinct, 

 does not care to use them, and she loses 

 much valuable time because she does not 

 have suitable cells to lay in." 



I heartily endorse this statement; and if 

 the queen is to do her best, do not condemn 

 her without a fair trial. The bee-keeper, 

 not the queen, may be to blame. 



3. In establishing a brood-chamber the 

 nicest drawn-out comb can, as we almost all 

 know, be secured by giving the bees no 

 more room than they can well cover and 

 draw out at one time. Bulging and uneven 

 sections in supers, for instance, are often 

 the result of too much room for the condi- 

 tions which prevail when the comb is built 

 out. The same holds good in a brood-cham- 

 ber. 



4. I aim at getting the brood-chamber 

 well filled with brood before any thing Hke 

 a heavy surplus honey-flow begins. With 

 a good flow it is the tendency of the bees to 

 fill all unoccupied space about the brood 

 with honey, thus in a measure shutting off 

 the opportunities to expand the brood-nest. 

 True, some varieties of bees and some strains 

 in perhaps all well-known varieties, wdll 

 overcome this by prolific queens that either, 

 by their own manifest energies or by that 

 in combination with a trait in the worker 

 bees, seems to gain ground with the brood 

 and crowd the honey into the supers; but 

 this process means a loss of time, and there- 

 fore lost worker bees later in the surplus 

 honey-flow or for winter. P^or the same rea- 

 son I avoid, in the honey-flow, taking combs 

 of brood out of the brood-chamber and put- 

 ting in their place empty comb, as, with a 

 good strong honey-flow, these are often fill- 

 ed with honey. 



For this reason, if a man has an eight- 

 frame Langstroth hive, and he changes to a 

 twelve-frame just at the commencement of 

 a honey-flow, he may not get satisfactory 

 results unless he has very prolific queens or 

 a long honey-flow. He may even, unless he 

 considers the honey in the brood-chamber, 

 have a poorer honey crop. He can take a 

 good eight-frame colony and add combs as 

 wanted before a hea\ y flow; but with a heavy 

 flow the bees may fill the added comb large- 

 ly with honey. W'here a bee-keeper es- 

 tablishes a large colony, goes into winter 

 quarters with a twelve-frame colony instead 

 of an eight-frame, and winters them well, 

 he can then win out alongside of an eight- 

 frame stock wintered equally well, and do 

 it with less fussing and manipulation. If 

 for any reason the colony lags in brooding 

 or building up, as some may, no matter 

 what the kind of hive, he can contract un- 

 til a suitable ojjportunity offers for expan- 

 sion. 



5. The queen has already been referred to 

 so often that nothing more need be said on 

 this point. 



In closing, let me say that the method of 

 manipulating the supers has a bearing on 



