July, 1910. 



American Hee Journal 



Making Increase— Best Race of 

 Bees— Getting Worker-Comb 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



"I am a bet'inncr in bee-keeping, liaving 

 only 10 colonies. I wish to increase these to 

 20. and secure what honey I "can. I have 

 commenced to read the American Bee Jour- 

 nal, and am greatly pleased with it. Now! 

 wish you would tell us through its columns 

 how swarms can be managed so they will 

 build mostly worker-combs, what use to 

 make of any drone-comb that may be built, 

 and which race of bees is best to keep. Why 

 1 ask about the comb-matter is. that I do not 

 feel able to buy comb foundation to fill the 

 frames with." 



The first requisite toward a newly- 

 hived swarm building all or nearly all 

 worker-comb is, that such swarm have a 

 good queen, one which will keep up with 

 the bees in their comb-building, filling 

 all the cells as fast as built with eggs. 

 With such a queen little if any drone- 

 comb will be built, as a newly-hived 

 swarm has no use for drones that year, 

 especially if they have a good queen. 



Drone-comb is built for two pur- 

 poses: To store honey in, when honey 

 is coming in from the fields very rap- 

 idly, so that comb is built faster than 

 the queen occupies the cells with eggs; 

 and for the purpose of rearing drones. 

 But as the bees of a swarm having a 

 good queen need no drones the same 

 year, the swarm arrives at its newly- 

 found home, no drone-comb in which 

 to rear drones for their natural pur- 

 pose is needed, hence where built by 

 such swarm it is generally built for 

 store-comb, and used for drones the 

 following summer. However, where 

 swarms having queens which have been 

 wintered over build drone-comb, there 

 will be more or less drone-brood reared 

 in it unless the flow of honey is very 

 profuse. At least, such has been my 

 e.xperience. Now if the swarm is a 

 very large one, and the flow of nectar 

 is very profuse at the time such a 

 swarm is hived, if it is put in a 10-frame 

 Langstroth hive, the bees will build 

 comb faster than the best queen ever 

 reared can fill the cells with eggs, and 

 for this reason all practical apiarists 

 know that if worker-comb is to be built, 

 swarms must be under size, or the 

 brood-chamber be reduced in size, this 

 reduction being offset by plenty of sur- 

 plus room over a queen-excluder. 



Years ago, before comb foundation 

 was known, I used either to return a 

 part of a large swarm to the parent 

 hive, or hive the same on .5 frames, 

 with surplus room for 40 pounds of 

 comb honey, if said swarm issued when 

 there was a good flow of nectar from 

 the fields. In either way I succeeded 

 in securing nearly all worker-comb. 

 Where only 5 frames were used, at the 

 end of 10 days these would be filled 

 when the other 5 frames were added, 

 and as the queen was now at her 

 height of egg-laying, these other'.") 

 would be generally filled with worker- 

 comb, especially if the bees succeeded 

 in filling them with comb before any 

 of the brood emerged from the first 

 combs built. Where these last -5 put in 

 were placed in the center of the hive, 

 between those already built, better suc- 

 cess was obtained than if placed at the 

 sides. Of course, dummies must be 

 used in place of frames, where a part 



of those needed to fill the hive are left 

 out. 



If those wishing worker-comb built 

 will always bear in mind the using of 

 only enough bees in the brood-cham- 

 ber so that comb will not be built fas- 

 ter than the queen can supply it with 

 eggs, they will succeed in accomplish- 

 ing what they want. Where a large 

 amount of bees are with a queen, and 

 the flow of nectar is very small, these 

 conditions are secured just as well as 

 with a few bees and a large flow of 

 nectar; and nearly as well by giving of 

 a large amount of surplus room and a 

 small brood-chamber with a large force 

 of bees and a large flow of honey. In 

 other words, the befkei-prr must learn 

 to adapt everything to the circum- 

 stances under which he finds his colo- 

 nies and locality, together with the 

 season. 



In regard to what to do with drone- 

 comb when built, let me give a bit of 

 experience before the advent of comb 

 foundation : 



A large swarm was hived in a full 

 hive, with a strip of worker-comb yi 

 inch wide attached to the underside of 

 each frame as a " starter." At the end 

 of a week the frames were pretty well 

 filled down with comb, one-third, or 

 nearly so, drone or store comb. This 

 was all cut out, and a few days later, 

 on examining again, I found the frames 

 filled with very little drone-comb. What 

 little there was, I cut out again, when 

 the whole set was completed with not 

 more than two or three hundred of the 

 cells being aught but worker-comb. 

 The drone-comb thus obtained, was 

 cut up and fitted into the surplus honey 

 boxes, using, where necessary, melted 

 wax to fasten them. These bo.xes were 

 placed over a brood-chamber con- 

 tracted to 5 frames, in which a large 

 swarm was hived, when, at the end of 

 12 days I had the boxes all filled with 

 the finest lot of honey I had ever seen 

 up to that time, with the 5 frames be- 

 low completed with comb, every cell of 

 which was of the worker size, each 

 supplied with brood from the egg to 

 fully capped pups. In this will be 

 found an illustration how any one can 

 manage independently of foundation. 



As to which race of bees it is best to 

 keep, from my point of view and my 

 location, there can be only one answer, 

 the Italians. Some claim that the 

 blacks will work the best on raspberry 

 and buckwheat bloom, but after the 

 most close watching for a period of 15 

 years, I failed to find a single instance 

 when, or a single plant or tree upon 

 which, the blacks exceeded the Italians 

 in the least as to nectar-gathering ; 

 while at many times the Italians were 

 actually making a gain while the others 

 consumed their stores. For this rea- 

 son I discarded the blacks entirely, 

 since which, of course, I have had no 

 opportunity to test them. 



Before this discarding, to be sure I 

 was right, I sent for queens of the 

 (said to be) large brown bees, and of 

 the industrious grey bee ; but a thor- 

 ough trial of both only proved, as I ex- 

 pected, that each was not different 

 from the black bee of our fathers, a 

 half century ago. Then I tried the 

 Syrians, the Cyprians, the Carniolans 

 and their crosses, together with the 

 much-praised hybrids, produced by the 



famed breeder of .;//.« Ameikana, and 

 found none of them equal to what I 

 had been using, taking everything into 

 consideration. During all of this time 

 of trying all of these bees, "a book 

 account" was kept with each colony, 

 and after a term of years a "summing 

 up " was made, which showed the profit 

 made from my sales of honey from my 

 Italians to be enough greater to force 

 me to part with all other races and 

 varieties of bees. 



The black bees, at times would show 

 more dark or buckwheat honev than 

 from the Italians; but my experience 

 was that, at the same time' this was be- 

 ing done, the Italians were storing 

 more icliile honey from the second 

 crop of red clover than the others got 

 from the buckwheat. 



Borodino, N. Y. 



Honey Same Price Now as 20 

 Years Ago 



BY A. RICHTER. 



Does the gentleman from Donovan, 

 111., (page 55) find a home market for 

 all his honey? If so, he does not pro- 

 duce as large a crop as G. M. Doolittle, 



Will any one assume that ilr. D. 

 does not care how he puts his honey 

 on the market? I never had the pleas- 

 ure of examining the honey of either 

 of the gentlemen, but I will wager that 

 any of the large producers, especially 

 Mr. D., markets a better honey than 

 he did 20 years ago. Does he get more 

 for his honey, or less? Why? Not be- 

 cause it's a luxury any more than it 

 was 20 years ago, and if it is, all the 

 more reason why the price should ad- 

 vance, for our laborers indulge them- 

 selves more today than they did 20 

 years ago. 



If honey is not a food I would like to 

 know what is. 



Honey has many substitutes. There's 

 " Karo." So will candle-grease substi- 

 tute butter if your taste was cultivated 

 in the North Pole region. 



Yes, honey is governed by the amount 

 produced, but can any right-minded 

 student of genomics cry over-produc- 

 tion in hon^% or any other commodity, 

 when half our population go hungry 

 and half clothed? 



Eggs may not have sold for 40 or .50 

 cents a dozen in May, but do now, and 

 did sell for 60 cents, hence Mr. Doolit- 

 tle scores another mark. There were 

 more than 5 bee-keepers to one 20 

 years ago. What's the result? Each 

 ships his surplus to the commission 

 man in the large cities ; he makes the 

 price, because he has no trouble to get 

 all the honey he wants at /;/i price; 

 while, on the other hand, he gets what 

 he asks from the small buyer, who can- 

 not afford the time to get in touch 

 with the producer, just as the producer 

 cannot afford the time to get in touch 

 with the consumer. We trust to the 

 middle-man. who. like most human be- 

 ings — power makes them selfish. To 

 increase their profits they falsely state 

 the product was not in No. 1 condition, 

 or that it sold for less than it did, un- 

 til " they kill the goose that laid the 

 golden egg." This is the history of the 

 fruit-growers of California; the Michi- 

 gan grape-growers; and the growers 



