GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Fig. 6. — Motor boat used at the apiary fcliowa in Fj 



able at the present time I shall say a few 

 words along that line. The fact is apparent 

 at once, even if we never ran outyards, that 

 natural swarming is not to be considered at 

 all in the matter of making increase at out- 

 yards; and as losses are bound to occur 

 there as well as at home yards, we soon had 

 to decide the best way to go about making' 

 up these losses. Numerous plans of divid- 

 ing up the colonies into two or more nuclei 

 were tried for a while, as my grandfather, 

 who was a successful beekeeper, had used 

 this method in my earlier days when I had 

 little thought of keeping bees for a living. 

 But I soon discarded the plan for different 

 reasons, and in the end settled on the nucle- 

 us system now commonly in use by a good 

 many. This plan differs from the old-time 

 dividing scheme in that all brood is saved, 

 and the colony from which the increase is 

 being made is not perceptibly weakened or 

 disorganized for the gathering of a crop of 

 honey. 



Fig. 7. — 25 miles from home at 6 a. m., on the banks of a trout-stream. 



Briefly the plan is as 

 follows. I simply give 

 it for the benefit of be- 

 ginners, knowing that 

 the system is a well- 

 known one. Either raise 

 young queens or buy 

 enough to have one for 

 each nucleus you wish to 

 form for purposes af 

 increase. Seven or eight 

 days before your young- 

 queens are ready to 

 hatch, or that long be- 

 fore you are quite sure 

 of receiving the ones you 

 have ordered, go to a colony sti'ong in bees 

 and brood, and, after finding the queen and 

 placing the comb she is on at one side, lift up 

 four frames with brood and place them in 

 the upper story with a queen-excluding zinc 

 between the two stories. Do this with as 

 many colonies as you wish to increase, fill- 

 ing with worker combs or full sheets of 

 wired foundation the empty space in the 

 brood-nest from which the combs of brood 

 were taken. Seven or eight days later, when 

 your queens arrive, go to these colonies and 

 place the four frames of brood with all the 

 adhering bees you can take with them into 

 a hive already prepared. Place this hive on 

 its stand, and at once introduce the young 

 queen to them by any of the well-known 

 methods. As you are dealing with nearly 

 all young bees in the nucleus (any old field 

 bees in the recently formed nucleus will at 

 once fiy back to the old stand), introduction 

 will be successful in nearly every case. In 

 fact, I cannot recall having lost a single 

 queen when introducing 

 to nuclei except in one 

 or two cases when the 

 old queen had got up 

 through the excluder, 

 and had then been 

 carried into the nucleus 

 on the combs of brood. 

 Many would advise us- 

 ing less than four 

 combs; but, all things 

 considered, I prefer that 

 number instead. There 

 is no mistake in making 

 a colony too strong; but 

 thousands of mistakes 

 are made by making 

 them too weak,. In an 

 ordinary season a nu- 

 cleus made as I have 

 described will build up 

 into a strong colony 



