164 



May, 1916. 



American Hee Journal 



years ago, wrote that shaken swarms 

 ought to have a restricted access to 

 their brood, and that they would be 

 more contented and would not swarm 

 out. Acting on this idea, which had 

 been developing in my mind for some 

 time, I prepared some hives and tried 

 the following scheme to my entire sat- 

 isfaction. It is needless to say my en- 

 thusiasm has gone up several degrees. 



This is the plan : Prepare two bot- 

 tom boards for each colony to be 

 operated by cutting a slot about ^sx5 

 inches in one of the side-cleats of each 

 board equi-distant from the ends. 

 Place the colony on one of these 

 boards, closing the slot temporarily 

 with a piece of lath tacked on. Now 

 follow Mr. Doolittle's plan, and in early 

 May set a hive-body of empty combs 

 on top with a queen-excluder between. 

 This will prevent the brood-chamber 

 becoming congested and will delay 

 swarming as in extracted honey pro- 

 duction. Then just as the main honey 

 flow opens I deviate somewhat from 

 the Doolittle plan, and instead of sep- 

 arating the brood from the bees, I lift 

 off the top story and set it on the other 

 bottom-board by the side of the first 

 one so that a slotted bridge between 

 them will form a passage from one 

 hive to the other through the slots. A 

 strip of excluder-zinc is nailed to one 

 side of the bridge to hold the queen 

 where she is put. The brood-section is 

 moved to one side enough to allow the 

 other section to take its place on the 

 stand. 



Find the queen and put her and a 

 frame of unsealed brood in the new 

 hive, or shake the bees out if the queen 

 cannot be found readily. Close the 

 entrance of the brood-section and let 

 the bees use the new entrance, now at 

 the old location. Slip a piece of sec- 

 tion under the back end of the brood- 

 section to raise it from the bottom- 

 board an eighth of an inch, or raise 

 the cover slightly in order to give the 

 brood sufficient ventilation. Put a 

 couple of supers of sections on the 

 new hive with an excluder under them, 

 and the bees will do the rest. The ca- 

 pacity of the hive is now doubled, the 

 colony has not lost its brood and has 

 plenty of room for breeding and stor- 

 ing. The bees will go to work with a 

 rush and transfer the honey in the 

 combs to the sections and the queen 

 will fill the hive with new brood, while 

 the old brood in the other hive will be 

 well taken care of and none of it lost. 

 The natural daily loss of flying bees is 

 constantly recruited by the emerging 

 young bees from the old brood-cham- 

 ber, which will maintain a rousing 

 colony to the end of the honey flow 

 without a break, and there will be no 

 dwindling during the next three or 

 four weeks, as is the case when the 

 brood is separated from the swarm. 



Before the brood has all emerged, 

 say in about two weeks, I make a re- 

 verse shift by returning the queen to 

 the original hive, transferring the su- 

 pers and opening the closed entrance 

 and closing the open one. This causes 

 the colony for the second time during 

 the honey flow to work with the vim 

 and energy of a prime swarm during 

 its first week. If I want increase, after 

 a few days I set the queenless section 

 on a new stand, giving the brood a 

 queen or a cell and let them build up, 



thus making my 100 percent increase, 

 If increase is not wanted I let the brood 

 all emerge and insert a Porter escape 

 for a day or two, then set the empty 

 combs away to be used in the same 

 way the next season. 



.\nd what is the result? Well, I have 

 extra-strong colonies at a time when 

 they will do the most good, and, as Mr. 

 Doolittle says, "Very strong colonies 

 will store a surplus of honey when 

 weak or only fairly good colonies will 

 hardly make a living." Compared with 

 natural or shaken swarms one can get 

 an average of anywhere from 50 to 100 

 percent more honey and 100 percent 

 increase of colonies or no swarms at 

 all, as he chooses. The sections are 

 invariably better filled and sealed. The 

 plan has the advantage of two brood- 

 nests — one full of brood and the other 

 being filled to hatch later. If it is true, 

 as claimed, and I have no doubt it is, 

 that too many young bees in the hive 

 will create an unbalanced condition 

 and discontent of the colony, the dou- 

 ble hive affords the young bees a place 

 to stay out of the way of the workers 

 until they are old enough to go to 

 work, as they do not come out of the 

 brood-section until they are several 

 days old. I have kept bees on a side- 

 line for "going on" 29 years, and I 

 never have seen a colony too strong to 

 do good work if it has room according 

 to its strength. 



There is, of course, some work to 

 this plan, but a man knows what he is 

 doing and what the bees will do every 

 time, and every move is a profitable 

 one, considering the extra amount of 

 honey he will get ; even the last move 

 gets a new colony of bees from every 

 hive, worth $5.00 each, and the faster 

 one works the more he will make and 

 the sooner he may become a million- 

 aire. 



If any beekeeper would like to have 

 his bees do something worth while, 

 and then some, in comb or extracted 

 honey, in either eight or ten frame 

 hives, let him try the Stephens twin- 

 hive method. It is sure and easy, and 

 there is no rainbow chasing attached 

 to it. 



Denison, Iowa. 



Why and How I Paint Comb 

 Foundation 



BY EDWARD HASSINGER, JR. 



MY experience with painting comb 

 foundation with wax is limited 

 to two years, and 3000 Langstroth 

 frames for brood-combs and extracting 

 combs. 



WHV I DO IT. 



First — To secure as nearly all perfect 

 worker-comb as it is possible to get in 

 Langstroth frames. 



Second — The bees will enter and oc- 

 cupy whole supers of this painted foun- 

 dation as readily as they do supers of 

 all drawn combs. There is something 

 about it that is very alluring to them ; 

 they will draw it into comb in the 

 smallest kind of a honey flow and will 

 fasten the foundation to the end-bars 

 before drawing the comb. In a heavy 

 honey flow I have repeatedly seen 

 whole supers drawn into comb ^s-inch 

 in length in less than 24 hours and 



some honey stored in the cells. If any 

 one claims that the bees would not take 

 time to thin down the base of the cell 

 walls in a heavy honey flow I should 

 say he had a freak colony of bees un- 

 der his observation. 



Third — I have reason to believe that 

 it pays in dollars and cents. More defi- 

 nite statements could be made on this 

 subject, if some one will determine just 

 where the dividing line may be drawn 

 between the voluntary and involuntary 

 secretion of wax in the average colony 

 of bees. 



Can any one prove that a colony of 

 bees with all drawn comb in the hive 

 will produce more wax involuntarily 

 than is required to seal the ripened 

 honey, etc.? If they do, what do they 

 do with it if they deposit it all in the 

 hive in the form of brace comb? I am 

 then satisfied that it does not amount 

 to much. Finding wax scales on the 

 bottom-board does not prove that the 

 bees had no use for them in the supers. 

 The question is : Would the bees carry 

 their own wax scales outside of the 

 hive simply because the combs were all 

 built in the hive ? 



A drawn comb Langstroth size con- 

 tains about five ounces of wax. A sheet 

 of medium brood foundation contains 

 two ounces of wax. A sheet of light 

 brood foundation contains one and 

 three-fifths ounces. It takes no more 

 time to paint a sheet of light brood 

 foundation than it does to paint the 

 medium brood foundation ; therefore, 

 the advantage is in favor of the light 

 brood foundation. 



If I add not less than one ounce of wax 

 to each sheet of light brood foundation 

 this would make the sheet two and 

 three-fifths ounces in weight, or one- 

 fifth ounce more than half the wax re- 

 quired for a full drawn comb. One 

 hundred and twenty-five pounds of wax 

 would make 1000 sheets of medium 

 brood foundation at a cost of 11 cents 

 a pound or $13.75. and it takes only 100 

 pounds of wax to make 1000 sheets of 

 light brood foundation at 13 cents a 

 pound or $13. 



The balance in favor of the light 

 brood foundation would be 75 cents in 

 cash and 25 pounds of wax, not count- 

 ing the labor of painting this wax on 

 the foundation, but as it is assumed 

 this work would be done anyhow and 

 enough more wax added to equal one 

 ounce per sheet. 



Assuming that it takes 10 pounds of 

 honey to produce one pound of wax, 

 and if honey is worth 10 cents a pound, 

 then it cost $1.00 to produce one pound 

 of wax. Then by buying wax at 30 

 cents a pound a saving or gain of 70 

 cents a pound is made. 



One thousand sheets at one ounce 

 per sheet would require 62^ pounds of 

 wax ; same at 30 cents a pound would 

 be $18.75. It would cost $62.50 worth 

 of 10-cent honey to produce this wax, 

 the balance in favor of buying the wax 

 and painting it on the foundation would 

 be $43.75 plus the 75 cents that it costs 

 less to have 1000 sheets of light brood' 

 foundation made, and have it better 

 liked by the bees than any lighter or 

 heavier foundation made by machinery. 

 The price of labor deducted from the 

 above mentioned figures would still 

 leave a favorable balance. It takes 

 from 1)4 to 2 minutes to paint one 

 sheet of foundation of Langstroth size 



