12 



Januriiv, 19lo. 



American See Journal 



queens, which 1 denominate good or 

 bad by their work in the brood-cham- 

 ber, and I never fail to find some that 

 need superseding. 



The heavier colonies naturally get 

 far ahead of the lighter ones and will 

 start drone-brood, so 1 hold them back 

 except a few of the best stock that 

 raise good, yellow drones. 



Most any time after March I start a 

 hive or two making queen-cells. With 

 me, the Doolittle plan has resulted 

 best, and as soon as the cells are about 

 or 10 days old I pick out some good, 

 strong colony of my darker, or what I 

 call my vicious bees, remove their 

 queen, cage the mature cells and put 

 them in a frame and place them in the 

 warmest part of the now queenless 

 colony. 



In about 4 or 5 days these cells are 

 all hatched and the young queens 

 caged. These are critically examined 

 for visible defects or faults. Those 

 passing the examination are now ready 

 for use. 



This is where nuclei hives shine. I 

 take 6 of them (3 or 4 frames) and set 

 them in a semi-circle back of the hive 

 with the caged queens. Then I removt 

 the super and take frames from the 

 colony and place one in each of my 

 nuclei. I give each nucleus as near an 

 equal amount of brood as possible. 

 Then I divide the rest of the frames 

 containing honey, being careful not to 

 use drone-combs. Of course, you un- 

 derstand that I raise these combs out 

 carefully so that what bees are clus- 



tered on them go with the combs into 

 the nuclei. 



Now I divide what bees are left in 

 the old hive so that my nuclei each 

 have like amount of bees. I then take 

 my caged young queens, and to be safe 

 dip them into water, and turn them 

 loose on the alighting-board of the 

 nuclei, and they run in without trou- 

 ble. Having been hatched in the 

 mother hive, they are already ac- 

 quainted with the workers and are 

 immediately received. 



I now take these nuclei and set them 

 in my apiary wherever I want them, 

 for bees thus divided rarely, if ever, go 

 to the old stand again. However, as a 



precautionary measure, I remove the 

 hive from the place, leaving the place 

 bare. 



I have found that the percentage of 

 queens lost by this plan is very small. 

 The young queens in a few days will 

 be laying. 



These nuclei are given great care, 

 and as fast as they need room I give it 

 to them by using a (5-frame, then a 10- 

 frame box, and from that to my regu- 

 lar hive. 



I replace all poor queens at this same 

 tirne, thus building up my colonies so 

 they can do good work when the flow 

 starts in. Andrew Joplin. 



Bee-Keeping 



In Dixie-^ 



Conducted by J. J. Wilder. Cordele. Ga. 



Bad Case of Dwindling 



" I have a few colonies of black bees 

 that I transferred from box-hives this 

 year. At first they were strong and 

 worked very well but soon dwindled 

 down, and I think now that four of 

 them are so weak the queens have quit 

 laying. They have very little honey 

 (and I haven't had supers on at all), so 

 for the past few days I have been feed- 



ing them a little at night. I have also 

 taken out all but five frames in one 

 hive and put in a division-board. 



"Moths are bad, and I thought per- 

 haps that was the cause of dwindling 

 at first. These bees, seem to me, enjoy 

 having moths around. Several times 

 I have pinched off a moth's head and 

 dropped it at the entrance, and they 

 would not trv to move it in the least. If 



Beekeepers' Kield Meet held at Chas. F. M. Stones apiary in Lamaiida r^ark. Calif., last 



middle is for " wireless." Mountains in the backcround 



I. The trees are live oaks, and the pole in the 

 es miles away. 



