234 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



lay freely, and in spite of all efforts see the 

 colony " grow smaller by degrees and beau- 

 tifully less." More queens fail just when 

 we want them to do their best, and when 'tis 

 the hardest to buy or raise them, than du- 

 ring all the rest of the year. 



I sometimes borrow (steal) from the 

 stronger and give to the weaker. To do so 

 may pay in raising extracted honey, but I 

 have doubts about it in raising comb honey. 

 No queen can get her colony too strong for 

 the summer (June and July) flow. I be- 

 lieve it pays to take brood from the weak 

 and give to the strong, and run for surplus 

 those colonies only that are so strong that 

 contraction is unnecessasy to get them into 

 the supers. This is not intended as an argu- 

 ment against contraction, but it is better to 

 have all colonies build up nearly alike. 



My experience says Doolittle is correct 

 about the value of good queens. In the sea- 

 son of 1890 I handled stock that had been re- 

 qneened only as the bees re-queened them- 

 selves when aged queens failed. It was a 

 good season. The yield varied from 25 lbs. 

 to 2.52 lbs. per colony. The "25-pounders " 

 had failing queens. That year I re-queened 

 most of the stock. 



The season of 1891 1 handled the same 

 stock. I did not borrow half so much brood 

 to help the weaker as I did the previous sea- 

 son, and despite the fact of a poorer season 

 the yield per colony ranged from about .50 to 

 150 pounds. I don't know how the stock 

 averaged in honey this year, but the bees 

 wintered with no loss, except of the 300 col- 

 onies six or seven came out queenless. The 

 proprietor told me, however, that he doubled 

 down to 204 and got 10,000 or 12,000 pounds 

 of honey. 



This year we have altogether different 

 stock. It is a combination of two apiaries. 

 One was run heretofore on the "swarm as 

 much as you please " plan and never an old 

 queen superseded except as the bees did it. 

 Twelve or fifteen per cent, of the queens 

 failed, and some colonies never reached the 

 capacity of a ten-frame Simplicity until the 

 present month (Aug.) and gave not a pound 

 of surplus, while the best colonies gave (iO or 

 70 pounds each. The other lot had been 

 better cared for, but for two or three seasons 

 had had a large per cent, of old queens. 

 Many swarms had been purchased last year 

 at swarming time. Of course, many of 

 these had old queens. Of this stock, I think 

 fully 25 per cent, failed, and many that did 



pull through have not to day (Aug. 24) gath- 

 ered enough for winter, while some colonies 

 that undoubtedly had queens of last year's 

 rearing gave nearly 100 pounds. Had all 

 the queens been young and vigorous, I feel 

 sure we should have at least one-third more 

 honey. 



I would rather destroy a colony now, tak- 

 ing all the stores, than to try to winter it 

 and get a crop next year, if it had a feeble, 

 old queen. Let beginners mark well these 

 points and not forget them. » 



Our crop this year is short. Colorado 

 will not compete much with you this season, 

 Bro. H., unless we get a late flow which is 

 not probable. It's going to work against us 

 in our exhibit at Chicago. The far - famed 

 alfalfa did not " give down " in our locality 

 this year. We got some red clover honey 

 and very little else. To date we have not 

 half a crop. However, we will hold our 

 " honey day " just the same, the 28th and 

 29th of Sep., at Longmont, in Boulder Co., 

 about two hours ride from Denver. 



I wish Sam Wilson would tell us why al- 

 falfa does not " give down. " Guess the 

 main reason is that the farmers cut it too 

 soon. If any one doubts this, come and see. 



LOVELAND, Colo. 



Aug. 21, 1892. 



Sealed Stores Best for Spring Feeding. — 



How They May be Secured.— The 



Miller Feeder. 



C. C. MILLEB. 



T AM not ready to 

 1 say whether it is 

 l>*tter to use eight- 

 frame hives or 

 r-oinething larger, 

 Imt I am ready to 

 stand up and say 

 that I don't believe 

 a hive no larger 

 than one holding 

 eight frames can be 

 profitably used 

 without feeding. 

 At any rate, in a locality like mine. Gener- 

 ally, there is nothing to speak of in the way 

 of a harvest after white clover. At the close 

 of the clover harvest the hive contains so 

 much brood there is not room enough to 



