1895 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



347 



THE CAUSE OF WEAKVESS. 



This is first to be inquired into. Usually the 

 queen is at the bottom of the trouble, but not 

 always. She may be a drone-layer by reason 

 of age or having passed her time of usefulness, 

 or by reason of being raised too late in the fall 

 before to meet the drones. In either case the 

 only course is for the apiarist to destroy her and 

 give her bees to some other colony. Other 

 queens may be all right, but able to lay only a 

 small quantity of eggs in a day. It is of this 

 kind that you will probably find most, and here 

 the former treatment would be suicidal. Simply 

 let them remain; tuck them up close with 

 enamel cloth and quilt, or division-board; see 

 that they have plenty of honey, and do not dis- 

 turb them until about ten days before clover- 

 bloom, except to see that the queen has room to 

 lay at all times. At this time, if you have ob- 

 served the proper conditions as to food and 

 warmth, each colony will have increased per- 

 haps from three to five frames. These, if left 

 to themselves, would, of course, not amount to 

 much as honey-colonies in their present shape, 

 for it would take about all the bee-force to 

 maintain the heat of the hive, etc.; but I find 

 that, by uniting the working force, we can get, 

 even from this unpromising material, some sur- 

 plus. First, look your colonies over and ascer- 

 tain just how many frames of brood there are 

 in each, and mark them in some conspicuous 

 place with that number, selecting the best for 

 your honey-colonies; then from the others take 

 frames of sealed brood with adhering bees, and 

 fill these honey colonies full of brood, putting 

 the removed frames into the colonies from which 

 the brood was taken. Just how many to leave in 

 the robbed colonies will depend much on the 

 weather at the time; if warm and fine, all but 

 the eggs and unsealed brood may be taken, for 

 there will be returning bees enough to care for 

 them. Of course, it hardly seems necessary to 

 say, '■ Do not carry away the queen, and mix 

 the bees well in their new home." This is easily 

 done by mixing the frames from different hives, 

 not putting two from the same hive side by side. 

 With this plan I have never found it necessary 

 to cage the queen. By this plan, you have not 

 increased your bees by one; but you have put 

 them where they can do your work better, and 

 their own housework will not suffer materially. 



You have now quite a number of fighting 

 battalions ready for tlie coming onslaught of 

 forest, field, and plain; whereas, by building up 

 the weak from the strong, only weak forces 

 would have been at your command, and the 

 spoils would have been few and scanty. 



But the war is not over yet. You have these 

 few weak colonies yet to care for. What shall 

 we do with them? They will have increased 

 some by the time swarming commences, and are 

 worth looking after. 



SWARMS. 



These will probably come from your strong 



colonies very soon after l\oney commences to 

 come in, and then is the time to show your gen- 

 eralship again. Remember that increase of 

 number of hives containing bees is not necessa- 

 rily an increase of bees. Our maxim now should 

 be: Allow no increase until all hives now occu- 

 pied are full. Having this always in mind, one 

 can readily see how to arrange those weak 

 forces. Allow the swarms to issue in the good 

 old way, which, in my mind, has no equal; 

 hive them on their old stand, which is a small 

 job if you have the queen clipped, as you should. 

 Give them a new hive with two frames of un- 

 sealed brood, taken from the old hive, in it, and 

 fill out with empty combs, foundation, or empty 

 frames, as experience or conditions dictate as 

 best; put a surplus arrangement on top, and 

 your honey-gathering goes merrily on at the old 

 stand in the old way, but with added vim. 

 Take your eight frames of brood, which you 

 have left from the old colony, and put them in 

 two or more of your weak colonies, and by the 

 time basswood blooms they are weak no more. 

 If you think the queen is poor, and would rath- 

 er replace her, all you have to do is to decapitate 

 her majesty and put a frame containing a queen- 

 cell in the hive, and you soon have a new queen 

 to reign over your new colony. 



After all colonies are made strong in this way, 

 and if swarming continues, you can get all the 

 increase desired by making nuclei of the brood 

 instead of putting it in other colonies. This 

 plan has been the one I have followed for sev- 

 eral years, and can yet see no reason for change. 



Ithaca, Wis. ' 



[Here is another article on the same subject. 

 —Ed.] 



1^ ■ — ^ 



MANUM IN THE APIARY. 



SPRING MANAGEMENT ; .TONES TAKES ANOTHER 

 LESSON. 



By A. E. Manum. 



"Manum, do you run a hot-bed with all the 

 rest?" 



"No, Jones; thisiswhat gardeners call a cold- 

 frame. For the want of a better place, such as 

 a hot-bed or a greenhouse, I start my plants in 

 the house, and then transplant them into these 

 little three-inch pots, and on sods, and set these 

 in the cold frame." 



"Do you expect those cucumber and melon 

 plants to thrive'when put out in the open gar- 

 den?" 



Oh ! yes, if they are not put out too early, by 

 growing them in pots and on sod they can be 

 transplanted without disturbing the roots in 

 the least; in fact, they never seem to stop grow- 

 ing when put out if kept watered. Now, Jones, 

 we will see how the bees are prospering. We 

 will make short work of it to-day, as the middle 

 of April is pretty early to expose the brood-nest 

 very long to the cool air. We can only look af- 

 ter their store of honey, and see how they are 



