1893 



tiLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



519 



all ready to swarm, and the application of the 

 device and the running of all of the working 

 force into hive No. 2 prevented the issuing of 

 the swarm, and kept them all at work; but 

 somehow both turned up queenless in a few 

 days. The colonies evidently had old queens, 

 and wanted to supersede them. The principle 

 is all right; and for a comb-honey apiary 1 have 

 no doubt it will be a desirable invention; but in 

 an apiary like this, worked for extracted honey 

 with two supers each, there is but little desire 

 to swarm, and a swarm -preventer would be 

 useless." 



"I see you have the queen-excluders and 

 Porter's bee-escapes in full force here. How 

 do they work this year? " 



"We'll. Harry, tliey work nicely except when 

 the queen gets above the excluder, which they 

 will do soau'.iimes; and I think it is the fault of 

 the zinc, for it is some of the first manufacture. 

 You know a cat will crawl through any hole 

 that she can get her head through; so with a 

 queen — she will go through any hole that her 

 thorax will go through. The first round of 

 extracting went very nicely ;those third supers, 

 with the excluders below, came off every time 

 with the combs free from bees; but now I am 

 restricting the queen to the lower hive; and in 

 making this change I find much brood in the 

 second story, and the brush has to play its part 

 more or less. I hope to get these two supers 

 filled twice with honey before the season closes. 

 I think these supers are too deep to work to 

 good advantage under this system. I think 

 that a Heddon case would work better. The 

 next great invention, Harry, is in connection 

 with the shallow super, with our electric un- 



" Yes. I suppose you will have to go and see 

 your family. Well, adlos." 

 "^(7io.s." Ramblek. 



CLIPPING QUEENS' WINGS. 



capping-machine, and a proper extractor. We 

 will put our whole super into the extractor, and 

 throw out the honey at once, and handle not a 

 frame— .sY(?)e f " 



'• Why, Rambler, what a visionary fellow you 

 are! I believe you will soon imagine that you 

 can get the bees to bring the honey and deposit 

 it right in the tank." 



■'Perhaps, Harry: but remember that, if it 

 were not for us visionary fellows — A. I. Root, 

 Dr. Miller, and I— you would plod along in the 

 old rut. But you have been making that ex- 

 tractor lium for an hour, and you must by this 

 time have a good appetite. Let's go to dinner. 

 What have I got for dinnc^r? W(^ll, 1 am so 

 rushed these days that I can't stop to heat up, 

 cook, and wash dishes moi'(> than onc(^ a day, 

 and that is in the morning; so I'll give you 

 what I have — cold potatoes, cold pancakes, 

 canned beef, cold coffee, etc." 



■'Well, hunger makes a good cook," added 

 Harry, as he arose from our humble repast; 

 "but I believe I shall have to be going." 



COVERS FOK BEE-HIVES; HOW TO FIND A 



QUEEN, AND HOW TO CLIP HER WINGS 



WITHOUT HER KNOWING IT. 



The first determination in the clipping of 

 queens is the season or time of the season. 

 When a farmer has 200 acres of grain to cut 

 with one machine he watches it closely, and 

 begins when it is a little green, and finishes 

 when it is very ripe. If he should not begin 

 until the earliest was thoroughly ripe, the last 

 would be so " dead ripe " that most of it would 

 shell out so as to be hardly worth the harvest- 

 ing. One machine is able to cut about 10 acres 

 a day, and 20 days' time will extend from the 

 beginning of the ripening to the over-ripeness 

 of grain. It is no truer of grain than of clip- 

 ping the queens at the right season, which 

 comes when there are two or three combs full 

 of brood and patches of brood in three or four 

 other combs. Queens may be clipped when 

 there are only two or three combs of brood; 

 but this would come earlier in the spring, when 

 the warm hours of the day are few and the 

 mornings and evenings are cold. The colonies 

 being low spirited at this time, queens are 

 quite apt to be ■'balled," especially if the 

 queen has been handled or frightened. 



Then it is just as necessary to avoid letting 

 the season get too far advanced, as then seven 

 or eight combs would be filled full of brood, 

 making large areas to search in or 'er to find 

 queens; the brood would also extend around 

 the lower and side edges of the combs, where 

 queens would be apt to hide and be hard to see; 

 there are more bees in our way, and, what is 

 still more, when brood is so plentiful the queen 

 seems to be less interested in her work, and is 

 more liable to run from comb to comb, or even 

 run off the combs entirely on to the side of the 

 hive. When there are not more than two or 

 three combs containing brood in the hive it is 

 rarely that the queen will leave it; but if sev- 

 eral combs are full of brood, the first desire of 

 the queen seems to be to get off from them at 

 once. Thus it may be inferred that the most 

 propitious time is after the colonies begin to 

 build up, and before they develop very consid- 

 erable strength; and this period probably does 

 not exceed twenty days. Some colonies would 

 be in the best condition sooner than others, and 

 it would require more or less than twenty days, 

 according to the number of queens and skill of 

 the operator. 



Next after the time comes the hive. Some 

 may think one hive as good as another; but 

 this rule is varied. It wants a hive which- we 

 can get open and find the queen at her regular 

 work undisturbed: and the first thing encoun- 

 tered is the cover. The latter should be flexible, 

 so as to be removed gradually to prevent jars 

 or snaps. A telescopic cover of lumber, and 

 the frames covered with enamel cloth, accom- 

 plishes this; but as enamel cloth is eaten and 

 destroyed by the bees it is too much trouble to 

 keep it renewed; and it is also best to have a 

 ^ space between the cover and top-bars, to 

 avoid propolis. A solid board is propolized 

 around the edges, and nearly always comes up 

 snapping. I have watched many removing the 

 flat board covers, and they stand squarely 

 behind the hive and grasp the cover at each 

 rear corner, and pull straight upward steadily. 

 When the propolis breaks, the cover is raised 

 suddenly, and often jumps quite out of their 



