1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



483 



each new hive, placing the new hive on a 

 queen-exchider over the old hive, with the 

 queen released on the frame of brood after 

 her wings had been clipped. I did this, 

 thinking I wovild get the bees at work above. 

 I was very much mistaken, however, as 

 there was no honey coming in, and what I 

 did practically stopped egg-laying, the foun- 

 dation above being left untouched. I did 

 not know what was the matter, and I began 

 to think that these bees were a very stub- 

 born lot; but I left them in this way until 

 during fruit-bloom, when all the brood be- 

 low had hatched, and then I took a brood- 

 comb, put it in a shallow hive on a bottom- 

 board at the old stand, filling up the hive 

 with full sheets of foundation. I then took 

 the section that the bees had been occupy- 

 ing with partly drawn combs at this time, 

 and put on top of this first one and drove 

 the bees from the old hive into these two 

 bodies thus prepared. I did this with each 

 of the old colonies, and then closed up the 

 old hive so the bees would not rob out the 

 honey left in the combs. The bees went to 

 workwith great energy, although they were 

 not as strong in numbers as they should 

 have been. This experience, then, was 

 rather expensive. 



The colonies now built up rapidly, as the 

 weather was favorable, and only a few days 

 between fiuit-bloomand locust-bloom. The 

 locust furnished some honey, and was short- 

 ly followed by clover, which yielded abun- 

 dantly. As soon as the clover flow began I 

 raised up the top brood story and placed 

 comb-honey supers between the two stories. 

 They were Jeft in this way for two days, so 

 that work would be started nicely in the 

 sections, and then the supers were put on 

 top of the two brood-sections. 8ome of the 

 sections were badly plugged with pollen, 

 and had to be sold for 2 cts. less; but on the 

 whole I secured a nice lot of honey that 

 many i)eople praised highly. 



The flow was of long duration; and when 

 some colonies slowed down in the work and 

 commenced loafing I removed the supers 

 without disturbing the bees in them; then I 

 smoked most of the bees down out of the 

 top brood-section, so as to be sure not to get 

 the queen; then this top section was set 

 aside to be used for increase later, and su- 

 pers put back on the lower sections. After 

 this I blew a few puffs of smoke at the en- 

 trance to drive the bees up off the bottom- 

 boards, and then lifted off the w^hole lot and 

 placed biood sections with full sheets of 

 foundation on the bottom-boards, putting 

 back the former lower brood sections and 

 supers over them. More s^moke was then 

 blown in at the entrances, and the work 

 was done. In this way I induced each col- 

 ony to give a good account of itself, and this 

 seemed to check swarming at the same time, 

 as I had but two swarms during the clover- 

 flow, and all had increased to rousing colo- 

 nies. 



My first swarm I united with a colony 

 that was not doing very satisfactory work 

 in the sections, and the bees were accepted 



without any fighting. My plan of uniting 

 was to shake out a few bees from each lot, 

 mix them up, and allow them to run in to- 

 gether. My other swarm was hived on a 

 new stand. At each instance the queens 

 were easily found, running about near the 

 hive, as they had been clipped. 



At the end of the white honey-flow I had 

 eleven colonies. About that time I sent for 

 six untested Italian queens, as my bees were 

 blacks or hybrids, and three of these w^ere 

 used to replace old queens, and the other 

 three used for making increase. To make 

 the increase I took one brood section from 

 the strongest colonies, being careful not to 

 get the queens, and gave these strong colo- 

 nies a section filled with full sheets of foun- 

 dation instead. The new colonies were 

 smoked to cause the bees to mark their new 

 location, and a queen was introduced to 

 each in the mailing-cage. The entrance of 

 each new hive was contracted to a small 

 sjjace to prevent robbing. The queens were 

 accepted with one exception, and I bought 

 a strong colony from a neighbor and united 

 it with this queenless colony in the fall. 

 This time I placed a sheet of paper between 

 the two bodies and drove the bees from the 

 hive I had bought into the lower section. 



The new colonies and the divided colonies 

 were left mostly to themselves after divid- 

 ing until the buckwheat flow, which gave 

 some surplus. Then super room was given 

 to each that I thought was strong enough. 

 After the buckwheat the next main source 

 of supply was the goldenrod, which was 

 abundant in many fields, and furnished con- 

 siderable honey. This did not cease entire- 

 ly until nearly the first of October. As we 

 had a late fall, with no killing frost up to 

 this time, I decided the bees were storing 

 no more honey, and so I removed all the su- 

 pers with Porter bee-escapes. After remov- 

 ing the honey, I sorted, scraped, and joaek- 

 ed it as soon as convenient and placed it on 

 the market. After figuring up I found I 

 had taken off just 581 sections of marketable 

 honey that were sold at 12 to 15 cts. each, 

 with the exception of some that were given 

 away, and also what we used ourselves and 

 what we kept for winter. Honey given 

 away to neighbors is a very good invest- 

 ment, as such neighbors tell others about 

 it, and the number of customers is materi- 

 ally increased. 



After takingoff the last honey I commenc- 

 ed preparations for packing for the cold 

 weather. I took three frames out of each 

 top brood-section and put chaff cushions at 

 the sides. Then on top I put an empty su- 

 per, aiKi filled it wiih chatT or leaves. All 

 the hives were very full of honey and pollen, 

 there being in some of them more pollen 

 than I thought the bees would ever need, I 

 did not want to leave so much in the hives, 

 but did not know how to get rid of it. 



In the future I intend trying some easier 

 method of packing, as it is too much work 

 to make cushions and pack them. Then 

 the frames that are taken out must be stor- 

 ed away and looked after as well as the other 



