THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



149 



workers. I think it hardly pays to requeen 

 any queenless stocks that are found 'now. 

 About this time our honey flow is over for 

 the season : rearinK of (jueens and all such 

 outside of tlie honey flow is bothersome and 

 disagreeable business. We have anticipated 

 this, and made our increase previously by 

 the nucleus plan. Colonies that have re- 

 queened "O.K." need no further looking 

 into the brood chamber. Those that have 

 failed can be torn up root and branch, and 

 several of them hived together with some 

 poor queen, or a good one if we have one 

 to spare, and allowed to forage through the 

 fall. If they are hived on starters, they 

 may make quite a little wax, and possibly 

 some honey, and can be destroyed when 

 cold weather comes, or so soon as the pros- 

 pect of getting some honey is past. 



While there is yet a drip of honey coming 

 in, we endeavor to get all the honey cleaned 

 up, (i. e., off the hives and into the honey 

 house) shutting all colonies down to the 

 brood chamber. If we can get this done 

 before robbing begins, so much the better. 

 If not, we do it as best we can, doing a little 

 at a time, on cool days. The flow begins 

 about .June 15 or later and is over in from 

 forty to sixty days, so we have but little to 

 do in the apiary after Aug. 15 or Sept. 1st. 



With the closing of the flow perhaps some 

 of the nucleus colonies have not built up 

 suiEciently to winter. If so, the weak and 

 light ones can be united. This we do in 

 preference to trying to winter weak colonies. 

 We want each colony to go into winter with 

 plenty of stores (about thirty-five to forty 

 pounds) and just a fair force of bees. We 

 don't object to boarding a force of workers 

 when we have the prospect of a honey flow 

 three or four weeks ahead, but we don't 

 want to board any more than necessary after 

 the flow is over. This system of manage- 

 ment accomplishes the desired result. 



We have now given you our system of 

 management. No doubt it has its faults. 

 It, too, has its advantages. It suits our 

 location and gives splendid results. Were 

 our honey flow a little later, or a little ear- 

 lier, or a little shorter, say like a basswood 

 flow, I would change the details somewhat. 

 Should the flow be of but ten or fifteen days 

 duration, I would remove queens before the 

 flow opened. 



The success ot the apiarist lies in having 

 only strong colonies to gather honey, the 

 stronger the better. Concentrate that 



strength, instead of running the same bees 

 in two hives, run them in one, and it brings 

 in the surplus. It takes but few bees to run 

 a brood chamber, and make a colony suffi- 

 cient to winter over, but three to five times 

 as many are needed before they can and 

 null do good work in the supers. This is not 

 so applicable to j)roducing extracted honey, 

 but I have enough faith in it to use the same 

 system in producing the extracted. 



The honey is brought from the out apiar- 

 ies at the close of each day's work. To re^ 

 move the supers, we have usually smoked 

 the bees out and brushed off with a big wad 

 or wisp of grass. 



We have used some escapes with success 

 and will adopt that system in future. 



When we arrive with a load of honey it is 

 piled up just as it comes from the hives. 

 No opening of supers during the honey sea- 

 son; 'tis much easier and Reaper to have 

 enough supers to hold the entire crop and 

 let the honey remain in the supers until we 

 are ready to clean and crate. 



LovELAND, Col., May 20, 1892. 



Twenty Colonies in one Cluster! — A Novel 

 Method of Transferring. 



C. B. BANKSTON. 



"M^AST SPRING I had a great deal of 

 ^fcV transferring to do, and I tried nearly 

 every method of which I had read, 

 when I happened to hit upon the following, 

 which gives excellent results where there 

 are many colonies to transfer. 



On this occasion there were twenty colo- 

 nies to transfer. I removed everything 

 from the honey room, raised the window, 

 put in a screen, then began operations by 

 bringing in one colony at a time, inverting 

 the hive and driving out the bees, catching 

 the queens. The bees all clustered in one 

 big lump near the window. 



The old hives were placed where I wished 

 them to stand until it should be time to 

 make another draw on them. The new 

 hives were placed on the stands previously 

 occupied by the old hives, and a caged 

 queen placed over the frames. 



Nothing more was done until after sun- 

 down, when, after smoking the bees in the 

 room, I began issuing a quota of bees to 

 each hive. One hive and queen was left in 

 the room to catch the stray bees. 



Mr, Urban, for whom this job was done, 

 knew nothing of imy singular method, and 



