276 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



August 



may hardly be noticed. 



You say you find it difficult to Ital- 

 ianize. It is a matter of time and 

 patience generally, for with black or 

 hybrid blood all about you it is im- 

 possible for you to have your young 

 queens always purely mated, and the 

 only way is to breed constantly from 

 pure stock, buying a new queen as 

 soon as the old one dies. You can 

 also help matters by suppressing all 

 drones except the Italians. But if 

 the number of colonies in your apiary 

 bears a small proportion to those of 

 impure blood surrounding you the 

 work of Italianizing will be a matter 

 of years. 



Yet there is one encouraging item. 

 It is that the first cross makes 

 as good gatherers generally as the 

 pure bloods. One very successful 

 beekeeper makes no pretense to 

 keeping pure stock, but rears all his 

 queens from pure mothers, regard- 

 less of how they may mate. 



GET EVERY COLONY READY FOR 

 SUPERS 



Referring to "Xotes by the Way," 

 on page 243, the rule practiced by Dr. 

 Miller still holds good, at least in 

 this locality. 



It is true that if the bees are lett 

 entirely without attention some colo- 

 nies will not be ready for supers for 

 some time after white clover begins 

 to bloom, while others will swarm be- 

 fore that time unless they be given 

 room. 



But why let your bees remain in 

 such a condition? Why not equalize 

 your colonies and have them all 

 ready for supers at the beginning of 

 the white clover harvest? , 



That is what we aim to do, and it 

 is seldom that every colony in our 

 apiary is not ready for supers when 

 the white clover harvest begins. 



GETTING QUEEN CELLS 

 STARTED 



For the every-day beekeeper there 

 is, perhaps, no better way to get 

 queen-cells reared than the one given 

 in "Fifty Years Among the Bees," of 

 which such a beautiful picture was 

 given not very long ago on the first 

 page of the cover of the American 

 Bee Journal. That was a picture of 

 a frame of cells gotten up by the Da- 

 dants, and Dr. Miller thought they 

 beat him at his own game. 



But that plan requires some prep- 

 aration in advance, and it may hap- 

 pen at some time that one does not 

 want to wait to have a new comb 

 built on which to have cells started. 

 Or, if one has only a few colonies, 

 one may prefer to have cells started 

 on one or more of the regular brood- 

 combs. An easy way is to take away 

 the queen with two or three frames 

 of brood and adhering bees from a 

 strong colony having one's best 

 queen, leaving the bees to start cells 

 anyhwere they like. The trouble is 

 that they will like to start them in a 

 number of frames instead of in one 

 particular frame, and will be pretty 

 sure to have some of them started on 

 opposite sides of the same comb, so 



that they will interfere with one an- 

 other in the cutting out. 



To avoid these troubles Dr. Miller 

 decided to try having cells built on a 

 comb lying horizontally. A good deal 

 was said about this plan a few years 

 ago, but for some reason it does not 

 seem to have gone into general use, 

 possibly because appearing too trou- 

 blesome. As we have used it, how- 

 ever, last year and this, it is very 

 little trouble, and as some of the 

 sisters may want to try it, it may be 

 well to tell in detail just how it is 

 done "in this locality." 



The machinery necessary is a shal- 

 low super to contain the one comb 

 lying flat, and a rack to support the 

 comb. The super is the width of the 

 hive, three inches deep, and the in- 

 side length is a little more, say one- 

 quarter inch more, than the length of 

 the top bar of a brood-comb. The 

 rack is a sort of ladder having two 

 side pieces 14 inches by 1;4 by ^, and 

 three rungs 9xlx^. The long or side 

 pieces are nailed upon the ends of 

 the rungs, one rung being in the cen- 

 ter and each of the others 4 inches 

 distant from the central one. When 

 tn use this ladder is to be laid upon 

 the top bars of the frames in the 

 brood-chamber, and the edges of the 

 rungs come flush with the edges of 

 the side pieces on top, leaving one- 

 quarter inch space below between 

 top bars and rungs. That is so that 

 the rungs will not be glued to the 

 top bars. Let it be especially noted 

 that all these measurements are 

 more or less by guess, and it is pos- 

 sible, indeed probable, that some of 

 them might be changed to advantage. 



Having the shallow super and the 

 rack ready, we are now ready to go 

 to work. We fill a hive with combs 

 entirely empty, or they may contain 

 some honey, or even sealed brood, but 

 no unsealed brood. On the whole 

 it is perhaps better- not to have any 

 brood at all. Over this hive is 

 placed our shallow super, and in the 

 super is placed the rack, being sure 



that the rack is right side up, so that 

 there is a space between the rungs 

 of the rack and the top bars. On 

 the rack is placed a frame of brood 

 taken f'-om the colony that has the 

 best qnc'-n, this frame being one that 

 contains the largest proportion of 

 brood just hatched from the egg. If 

 l!.-iC is any difference in the two 

 sides let the best side be down. Call 

 this hive A. Set it in place of B, 

 which may be any strong colony, and 

 set B on a new stand. Brush into A 

 all the bees from three of B's brood- 

 combs, of course taking care not to 

 get the queen. Then cover up B and 

 leave it for ten days, when the cells 

 will be ready to cut. 



You will now find your advantage 

 in the fact that instead of having to 

 handle and examine all the combs of 

 a colony, you have to do with only 

 one comb. Moreover the cells are on 

 only one side, standing straight out 

 from the face of the comb, and with 

 the small blade of a pocket-knife you 

 can cut out a cell and leave a hole 

 only a third as large as when the cell 

 is built on a comb hanging in its us- 

 ual position. It is claimed that you 

 get more cells in this way, which 

 may be true. 



Someone may say "But you have 

 said nothing about preparing the 

 comb by scraping to the bottom al- 

 ternate rows of cells, as has always 

 been directed." No, we do nothing of 

 the kind, simply using the comb as it 

 is. We are not convinced that the 

 other way is any better. At any rate 

 we get good results and are saved 

 the extra bother. 



INTRODUCING QUEENS 



My experience may not be conclu- 

 sive, as I have only used it this year, 

 but I have lost no queens introduced 

 in this way and I find it much less 

 "messy" than the honey method. The 

 first queen came from Alabama, a 

 Golden. I felt very choice of her. 

 I seldom use smoke about my bees. I 



A JULY SWARM CAPTURED BY S. L. CORK, AT PERU, ILL. 



