May, 1915. 



171 



American Tiee Jonrnal 



good as perfect quiet, altliough the colony 

 may live in sr>tte of tlie disturbance. 



Two Stories for Brood ^Granulated Honey in 

 Sections 



I. I would like to ask a few (luestions con- 

 cerning' tliat iariie hive. When do you take 

 that second hive off. and don't you have 

 trouble with brood at that time or do you 

 use an excluder? 



; Do your bees KO to work in the supers 

 as readily as when only one hive was used ? 



^. I had a large nuuil)er of partly tilled sec- 

 tions last season, and the iioney granulated 

 before I found time to extract it. Can I put 

 these sections into the supers in that con- 

 dition or would you advise setting them out 

 for llie bees to clean out before using ? 



4 I have thought of purchasing a few good 

 queens for some of my colonies, but have 

 been a little cautious for fear I might intro- 

 duce some disease. Do you think such a 

 thing possible ? 1'ennsvlvania. 



Answers.— I. I use 8-frame hives, which 

 can hardly be called " large hives." so I sup- 

 pose you refer to my using two stories as 

 brood-chambers, making practically a i6- 

 frame hive. I put on a second brood-story 

 whenever the first becomes crowded, unless 

 I take away some of the brood to use else- 

 where. I reduce to one story at the time of 

 putting on supers for surplus. There is so 

 little trouble with brood in sections that I 

 don't think it worth while to use excluders. 

 But if I didn't till thesections full of founda- 

 tion I should have to use excluders. 



2. "Ves. perhaps more readily. 



3. Don't think of putting them on again un- 

 less you can have the honey cleaned .out of 

 them thoroughly by the bees, and next time 

 have that done in the fall, 



4. There is little danger, and probably 

 none, if you kill the escort bees. 



Greening's Plan for Comb Honey— Malting Nuclei 



1. At first glance of the article by Green- 

 ing, in September, iQt4, issue, page 3io. it 

 looked mighty well, but now it looks a little 

 dubious, especially for a comb honey pro- 

 ducer, and what I want to know is to what 

 extent do you consider it well advised to 

 try that method, and especially whatfurther 

 things to observe for comb honey in case of 

 following the Greening way. Mr. Greening 

 seems essentially to be an extracted honey 

 man. 



One snag about the whole plan is that 

 what is so extolled in the aforesaid issue of 

 the American Bee Journal, is by paragraph 

 472, page 240. IQII edition. Dadant-Langstroth 

 bee-book condemned. 



2. I want to see this year whether I can 

 make nuclei. I have four lo-frame hive- 

 bodies each especially fixed for the nuclei. 

 Will it work just to take the frames with 

 brood and queen cells and honey from hives 

 in sets of three and put them into the 

 hive-bodies fixed with divisions that I 

 have; then, when one wants to use a nu- 

 cleus, seeing that the queen in one is all 

 right and has laid eggs. Dut the same on 

 stand of the colony to be requeened. and 

 that colony next to the nucleus (now on pre- 

 vious stand of the colony), and gradually. 

 say every second day hereafter, combs of 

 brood into the nucleus hive without or with 

 adhering bees, but latter only when sure 

 about not having the old queen ? At last one 

 could shake or dump the bees in front of 

 the nucleus hive and take the old hive away 

 altogether. 



I wish I knew how to exclude the old 

 queen without having to look for her. I am 

 lamentably poor in finding queens. What 

 about field bees killing the bees of the nu- 

 cleus as they came in ? P£nn.svlvania. 



Answers.— I It is not a gracious thing to 

 make objection to a plan which succeeds so 

 well with the planner; and sometimes our 

 judgment may be wrong, if we judge without 

 actually trying. So all I can say is that I 

 should not have faith enough in the plan to 

 give it a trial for comb honey. 



Mr. Greening says: "Working for comb 

 honey would be rather more difficult. But I 

 also do some of that." He doesn't say how 

 he adapts his plan for comb honey, and I 



don't know how he does. But for extracted 

 honey he should have good success by giv- 

 ing such abundance of room and shifting 

 the brood; although it seems there might be 

 a little too much of a good thing by giving so 

 much room over the brood nest for the bees 

 to keep warm before the honey How. 



The suae you run against, which you say 

 is not endorsed by Dadant's Langstroth re- 

 fers to his manner of increase. A serious 

 question as to that refers to the quality of 

 the queen that will be reared He puts a 

 frame of brood in an empty hive, and noth- 

 ing is said about any bees being taken with 

 the comb, but the hive is allowed to be oc- 

 cjpiedby returning field bees. These are 

 bees that have given over all housework, 

 and are in no condition to feed young bees, 

 although they will do so when driven to it. 

 So I should not expect as good queens as 

 with abundance of young bees of the proper 

 age to rear brood. 



2. There ought to be no difficulty about 

 having three nuclei in a lo-frame hive with 

 proper divisions, an important thing being 

 that each nucleus be imprisoned for two or 

 three davs. so that the bees will n )t dejert. 

 If I understand correctly, your plan is (after 

 the queen is laying in a nucleus! to put 

 the nucleus in a hive of its own, and set th it 

 hive in place of a hive containing a colony 

 you want to requeen. Belter not; the whole 

 force of field bees will at once occupy the 

 new hive, and it is a pretty sure thing the 

 new ciueen will be killed. You will greatly 

 multiply your chances of success if you re- 

 move the old queen two or three days in 

 advance. 



'You ought to be able to sift out the queen 

 with an excluder. Here's one way. Call the 

 hive that contains the colony A. and let the 

 empty hive be called B, Brush all the bees 

 from half or more of the combs in A, and put 

 these beeless combs in B. Take A from its 

 stand, and put B in its place. Put an ex- 

 cluder on B. and over this an empty hive- 

 body. Into this empty hive-body brush all 

 the bees from the combs in A. All but the 

 drones and the queen will go down, or may 

 be smoked down, leaving the queen in sight. 



IThe paragraph of the Dadant-Langstroth 

 book mentioned in the query is by Mr' 

 Langstroth himself. The reader will find it 

 in any copy of the 3d or subsequent editions 

 of the original "Hive and Honey Bee." 

 pages I50-I and foot-note. There is not any 

 doubt that queenless colonies build only 

 drone combs.— C. P. D.j 



Breeding from Choice Queens 



1. Ill one of my colonies of bees I have a 

 very prolific queen which I desire to breed 

 from and reciueen five other colonies 

 Later I wish to divide one colony into two 

 or three frame nucleus and rear queens 

 from this same stock. Please advise the 

 best method for me to pursue. 



2. Please explain the meaning of the fol- 

 lowing; Breeding bees according to the 

 "reflex theory.' The danger of gypsy 

 moths mating with queens. Kentucky. 



Answers.— I. It's a bit hard to know just 

 how to advise, there are so many ways of 

 doing and so much depends upon circum- 

 stances, previous experience, and perhaps 

 other things. In spite of the fact that I 

 don't like advertising in this department. 

 I will say that I think you would get infor- 

 mation enough on this one topic alone to 

 makefile purchase of " Fifty Years Among 

 the Bees " a profitable investment. But I'll 

 give you one way that ought to be success- 

 ful, even if you have but little experience. 

 Strengthen the colony with your choice 

 queen by givine it brood with adhering bees 



from other colonies, so it will be the first to 

 swarm. Call it A, and name the other colo- 

 nies in the order of their strength. B, C. D. 

 K. K. When A swarms, set the swarm on 

 the stand of B, and set B in a new place, A 

 week later you can cut out the queen-cells 

 and give them to C, D, K. and V. having de- 

 queened these a day previous. If, however, 

 you want to operate in an easier way, after 

 you have put A in place of B, it will be 

 strengthened by receiving all the field bees 

 of B as they return from the field. Then it 

 will be practically certain to swarm when 

 the first virgin emerges, and you can leave 

 the swarm on the same stand from which it 

 issued, and set A in place of C. Repeat the 

 same thing each time A swarms, setting it 

 successfully in place of D, K, and F. 



The author says "this is a typographical 

 error, and should read gypsy drones." 



Tlie Chandler Plan of Swarm Prevention 



I can scarcely call myself a beekeeoer 

 even a backlotter. as I have only four colo- 

 nies 1 his year I would like to build up to 

 ten. eight at least, and get as much honey as 

 possible. I planned to do this by nreventing 

 swarming until the main flow {while cloverl 

 IS almost over, then making artilicidi 

 swarms. 



1. Would this be better than to let them 

 cast natural swarms when they wish ? I in- 

 tend to use the Chandler plan of swarm pre- 

 vention, as described in the Bee Journal for 

 September, igi3. This is to replace the su- 

 per with an empty hive-body containing a 

 little drawn comb, and brood and starters 

 in the other frames. This is separated from 

 the brood-body by a screen, and projects 

 forward a little farther than the brood- 

 body. A cone escape is put on the entrance 

 so that the bees returning will have to crawl 

 up the hive front into the upper body Leave 

 It this way about four days. Phe queen will 

 destroy the queen-cells and the swarming 

 fever will be cured. 



2. My objection to this would be that a 

 close watch must be kept for queen-cells so 

 as to know when to start it. Is there any 

 better plan for comb honey ? 



3. Would it be practicable to divide each 

 two colonies into five by forming two colo- 

 nies out of the old bees and three out of the 

 equal parts of the brood ? 



4 Would the divisions have a better 

 chance to build up strong for winter if they 

 were given queens or sealed cells instead of 

 letting them rear queens from brood ? 



5 My plan is to form a 3-section nucleus 

 like a mating nucleus, then dequeen a short 

 time before queens would be needed 

 Would the nucleus start queen-cells? 



6. Would it be self supporting or would it 

 have to be fed ? 



7. I am certain that some where in your 

 answer you will use the proviso: " If the 

 colony is strong. " Mine have never been 

 strong according to my notions, but have 

 done pretty well considering the amateurish 

 management. What is a good rule to go by 

 in this problem ? I hesitate to bother you 

 with such questions. Minnesota. 



Answers.— 1. I don t know. It would cer- 

 tainly be less trouble to let them swarm, 

 which they are pretty certain to do if the 

 season is good, and if you set the swarm on 

 the old stand it will be most likely to give 

 you a fair return in honey. You would thus 

 feel a little surer of having all in good shape 

 for winter than if you divide later. 



2 ft isn't easy for any one else to say what 

 is best in your case. You can yourself de- 

 cide best after carefully studying what is 

 said in the books 



3. Yes. 



4. Certainly. More than that, if you trust 

 to a nucleus to rear a queen from brood, the 

 chances are that you will have a very poor 

 queen. Nothing but the best in the way of 

 queens ought to be counted good enough. 



5. Yes. a very weak nucleus will start cells, 

 but I wouldn t give a cent apiece for the 

 queens reared. 



t). That depends upon the strength of the 

 nucleus, and more particularly on the sea- 



