446 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 1. 



quality of honey in the sections, and also to get 

 the bees to work in the sections before they 

 conamence to store honey in the brood chamber 

 to any extent. 



Second, if the three combs had any great 

 amount of sealed brood in them, so that the 

 hatching of this brood materially strengthened 

 the swarm, it would be very likely to result in 

 swarming, or the issuing of "virgin swarms," 

 as it is called, where a swarm of the present 

 year casts a swarm. These virgin swarms 

 always destroy the prospect of a good yield of 

 section honey, for, as a rule, they are much 

 more persistent in continued swarming to the 

 end of the honey-flow than is an old colony. 

 I have often had new swarms go to work with 

 a will in a large number of sections, working 

 till they were about two-thirds completed, and 

 then, just as I was priding myself on having a 

 large lot of beautiful honey from such a hive, 

 had them swarm, and be so persistent in swarm- 

 ing that none of said sections would be com- 

 pleted, while the nice looks of the work they 

 had begun would be spoiled through the long 

 failure of its completion. 



Tbird. But the greatest trouble with such 

 a plan of working lies in the persistency of new 

 swarms in building drone comb in the remain- 

 ing part of the hive, where any part of it is sup- 

 plied with any thing in the shape of frames 

 filled with combs. Why this is so I never could 

 fully understand; but an experience of more 

 than 35 years along this line has proven to me 

 that bees can not be depended upon to build 

 worker comb during the first week after being 

 hived, if there is any completed comb in the 

 hive at the time of the hiving of a prime 

 swarm. With second or third swarms, the case 

 is different, as bees are more apt to build 

 worker comb with a queen when she first com- 

 mences to lay, and only unfertile queens ac- 

 company these latter swarms; and in this 

 case the queen does not'commence to lay till 

 the bees are fully accustomed to their surround- 

 ings. But with an old or laying queen, she 

 seems to adhere to the combs placed in the hive 

 when the swarm is hived, going but very little 

 on the new comb then building, the result of 

 which is the building of store comb for honey, 

 which is always of the drone size of cells. After 

 the bees have built a frame or two of drone 

 comb, and the queen recovers her normal egg- 

 laying powers which she had before the swarm 

 issued, then the bees will go on and build 

 worker comb; but we have worker and drone 

 comb all mixed through our frames, which is a 

 condition an enterprising apiarist does not like, 

 and one which, if allowed to remain, results in 

 a diminished crop of honey each year. My 

 advice to all is, use only starters in the frames 

 in hiving swarms, or else fill all frames with 

 foundation, or give all frames filled with combs. 

 Frames filled with foundation mixed with those 

 containing combs do much better than frames 



having only starters when used with combs; 

 but even this is objectionable, on account of 

 the bees lengthening the cells of the combs 

 given while they are working out the founda- 

 tion, so that the combs are very thick when 

 completed, while those on the foundation are 

 correspondingly thin. 



ITALIANIZING. 



Question.— When is the best time to Italianize 

 an apiary of 52 colonies without interfering 

 with the honey flow, without buying queens 

 for every hive? and when should the queen- 

 cells be started for doing this ? 



^?is((;er. — There is no time of the year in 

 which queens are so generally superseded as 

 immediately after the general honey-flow; and 

 we can always rest assured that, when the bees 

 are willing to do such work, then is our best 

 time. With me, fully three-fourths of all the 

 queens which are superseded by the bees are so 

 superseded during the three weeks immediately 

 following the basswood bloom, as that gives 

 our main honey-flow. Knowing this fact I 

 have for years done the most of my requeening 

 at this time of the year, and with success which 

 has always pleased me, without interfering 

 with my crop of homy in the least. To this 

 end I start a greater number of queen-cells 

 than usual, from five to eight days before the 

 expected close of the basswood-honey harvest; 

 and when these cells mature, hunt out the old 

 queen and dispose of her, giving a mature cell 

 24 hours after having removed the old queen. If 

 cell-protectors are used, the cell can be given at 

 the time of removing the old queen, thus sav- 

 ing once opening of the hive; for, as a rule, the 

 bees allow a queen to hatch all right where a 

 cell-protector is used. If the young queen 

 hatches in an hour or so after giving the cell, 

 or before the bees become aware that their 

 mother is gone, they will sometimes kill her and 

 start cells from their own brood; but if the cells 

 do not hatch in less than from 12 to 24 hours 

 after the old queen was removed, nearly every 

 queen will be accepted all right. A plan which 

 I often use at such times is to raise a lot of ci^lls 

 from my best queen; and, 24 to 48 hours before 

 they will mature, give one to each colony hav- 

 ing a queen more than one year old, using a 

 cell- protector for each one, and placing this 

 cell in the sections or anywhere I best can 

 where the bees can cluster about it, without 

 hunting out the old queen at all; when, if the 

 bees have any notion to supersede their queen, 

 they will accept of this young queen and de- 

 stroy the old one. If they destroy the young 

 queen I allow the old one to remain, thinking 

 that the bees know what is right; and, 19 cases 

 out of 20, where the bees decide on keeping the 

 old queen I find she proves par excellence till 

 after the honey-flow of the next year is over. 

 This is something that does not cost much 

 labor, and one which I have practiced often to 

 my satisfaction. 



