GLEANINGS IN BRE CULTURE 



Two minor items are worth mentioning, 

 as they add to the general eonvenience of 

 the operator. The floor of the inner box is 

 painted with enamel white paint, for two 

 reasons: First, if it gets sticky it is easy to 

 wipe or rinse clean; second, if the young 

 queen is timid, and runs from the combs to 

 the floor, she is easily seen. When holding 

 any nuclei very late into the fall for mating 

 choice queens to selected drones, the nuclei 

 ai'e made quite strong, as baby nuclei go, 

 by shaking in young bees and then a piece 

 of wool felt is laid on \o]) of the frames and 

 under the regular inner cover of w^ood — 

 seemingly small matters these, but some 

 small things save manv larye fi'oubles and 



Toward the end of the season, when the 

 number of nuclei needed is diminishing, the 

 surplus ones are united with any stock hive 

 by the simple process of putting on to the 

 latter an empty stock chamber and hanging 

 the combs and bees from tlie nuclei into it, 

 'observing only the common ])recautions 

 used in uniting bees. As such wholesale 

 uniting is done when colonies are contract- 

 ing, the bees Avill leave the ujiper chambers 

 soon after the last of the brood emerges, 

 and then all chambers not needed are re- 

 moved and the colony is supplied witli 

 stores if necessary. Thereafter it is treated 

 and wintei'ed as arc colonies in standard 

 hives. 



l*ru\ idence, R. 1. 



PRACTICAL METHODS OF QUEEN^MATING FOM THE BEEKEEPER 



BY E. F. ATWATEK 



In rearing queens for our own use we 

 have for several years used about 100 nuclei, 

 containing the little frames 5% x 8. B_\ 

 proper use they certainly will give the best 

 of results. For some years we Avould fit 

 three of these little frames into one stan- 

 dard frame, to gel them stocked with brood 

 or honey, or to get combs built. 



A few years ago, however, I found that 

 a shallow extracting-super, 6 inches deep, 

 as shown in the cut, with a board across the 



A .sliallow extiuctiiig-super can be converled into a handy bioud body 

 containing twenty little frame«. 



inside, we made a super or brood-body tliat 

 would hold twenty of the little frames. The 

 ]iartition is made of two 7-16-inch boards 

 with a folded tin projection at the top. 



Since we keep one or more colonies in 

 such hives at all times, we always have a 

 place fi'om which we can draw brood or 

 lioney. These prepared supers may be 

 tiered as high as desired. Perhaps the queen 

 would better occupy both parts of eacli sec- 

 tion if the division-board were of slats, bee- 

 spaced apart, as in the 

 Aspinwall hive. 



When we wish to 

 start our nuclei, if we 

 have not enougli combs 

 containing some hon- 

 ey resei'ved fi'om the 

 previous year, we take 

 several of these supers 

 containing tw^enty of 

 the little combs (even 

 spaced so that each 

 contains 22) and ])ut 

 one on each of several 

 strong colonies. 



Tinder such colonies 

 we put either an Alex- 

 ander feeder or one of 

 o u r feeder-bottoms, 

 and about every hour 

 we feed these colonies 

 until the little combs 

 contain .sufficient hon- 

 ev. This does not lake 

 lung. 



Vdv (Mil' use w (' lind 

 that (lie little twin nu- 

 cleus boxes are not the 



