328 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 15 



and give these to the forced colonies. I 

 spread the brood-nest of the full colonies, 

 and fill the empty space with frames of sec- 

 tion boxes with foundation starters as be- 

 fore. I also remove from \.\i& forced colonies 

 all boxes containing- eggs and honey, and 

 place them for safe keeping with the parent 

 stocks. By thus manipulating I succeeded 

 in getting, by May 31, 336 section boxes 

 with eggs and honey; but this was done, of 

 course, at the expense of breaking up and 

 seriously disturbing several full colonies, 

 and the end is not yet. The next step is to 

 people these boxes with bees' and queens. I 

 have six queenless colonies of the parent 

 stock spoken of above, and think these will 

 be just what I want; but upon inspection I 

 find that, if the boxes are peopled from 

 these colonies alone, it will take all the 

 bees, and ruin the colonies, unless I give 

 them onlj'^ one frame each; but this will re- 

 quire 42 queenless colonies ; two will re- 

 quire 21, etc. 



Hi, there! Swarthmore, et al., come to 

 the rescue! I refer to the article in ques- 

 tion for light. I find this: "Then hang 

 the frames in the hives of such bees as you 

 may have just used in getting a batch of 

 cells or any queenless and broodless bees 

 you may have at the time." Now, the fact 

 is I am quite particular not to have a colo- 

 ny of queenless and broodless bees in my 

 apiary at this season of the year (I rear 

 my queens by the supersedure method in 

 upper stories, and three or four of these 

 will furnish me with 1000 to 1500 queens in 

 a season). I finally removed all frames 

 from the original six colonies, and put in 

 their place the section-box frames, giving 

 five frames to each — all that can be accom- 

 modated after the covers are on. I dequeen 

 two more colonies, and give five frames to 

 each. The two remaining frames I place 

 in the upper story of a supersedure colony 

 by way of experiment, with the result that 

 the queens that hatched in these latter sec- 

 tion boxes were promptly killed by the bees. 

 Before placing the section boxes in the va- 

 rious hives I adjusted a selected queen-cell 

 to each comb. On the afternoon of June 1 

 I inspected and found queens in nearly 

 every one, supplj'ing such as had failed to 

 hatch, or were not up to the standard of 

 vigor, with a strong active virgin queen. 



The boxes now had each a queen and a 

 full complement of bees. These were to re- 

 main five days, according to Hoyle — I mean 

 Swarthmore. In the mean time a little su- 

 gar syrup was fed each day. On the fifth 

 day, the weather being unfavorable, the 

 bees were not disturbed until the following 

 day when all were removed to stands some 

 distance from the parent stands, and fasten- 

 ed to stakes as illustrated on page 436, but 

 with four flight-holes on each side instead 

 of three. Going over all carefully I found 

 four dead queens, which I replaced. To- 

 ward evening I opened the flight-holes as 

 directed; and, as the next few days were 

 pleasant, I watched developments. 

 To be ConHnued. 



AN EXPERIMENT AND APPARENT RESULTS. 



Made a Successful Attempt in Curing Foul Brood 

 with Sulphur Smoke. 



BY T. F. BINGHAM. 



About the beginning of the buckwheat 

 honej'^-flow last season a very full colony 

 sent out a prime swarm which was given 

 one of my fractional hives full of clean emp- 

 ty combs, but no honey below it; two frac- 

 tional hives with full sheets of heavy foun- 

 dation; room enough, but none to spare. 

 The queen, though an old one, stowed in 

 the eggs, and soon the full combs were fill- 

 ed with new honey and brood, and the queen 

 passed down to the new combs, and, after 

 filling them, gave out, and the bees reared 

 a new one, and matured the brood so that 

 very little was left to develop, but a fine 

 colony occupied the entire hive. Mr. Heth- 

 erington was at my place, and I wished to 

 show him my first buckwheat colony. 

 When opening it we found a non-laying 

 queen and a few black dead larvje scatter- 

 ed at intervals among the empty cells when, 

 evidently, the brood had just matured. Mr. 

 Hetherington said there was no doubt that 

 the dead brood was such as had made trou- 

 ble in Eastern New York. It filled the de- 

 scription given in the journals so far as we 

 could decide. I told him I would try an 

 experiment, and watch results. I gave 

 them an unfertile queen five days old; and 

 when darkness came I smoked the bees, 

 thoroughly at the entrance, and at the top 

 of the hive, and at the two joints between, 

 with pure sulphur smoke. The following 

 night I gave tiiem the same treatment, but 

 stopped the exits from the hive and compel- 

 led the bees to stay a while. Just as the 

 young queen had begun to lay, Mr. H. was 

 again at my place, and, of course, we ex- 

 amined the first prime buckwheat swarm to 

 see if the combs had still in them evidence 

 of disease. Nothing could have been clean- 

 er or in better order. The question, so far 

 as cleaning out the few dead larvje was a 

 factor, was complete. One factor, however, 

 remained; viz.. would the disorder develop 

 again? I kept watch of the brood, and 

 nothing could have been finer or more abun- 

 dant. The queen laid abundantly till the 

 flowers failed, and no signs of weakness or 

 dead brood appeared. 



The query will naturally arise, "Was 

 the sulphur smoke the causeof the change?" 

 The reason I have given this experiment 

 publicity is because I am not likely to have 

 an opportunity to test the experiment again; 

 and while I do not like to sa}' much, based 

 on a single experiment, others may find it 

 of value. 



When at Thompsonville, at the Michigan 

 State Bee-keepers' convention, and The A. 

 I. Root Co. was represented, and Mr. Hutch- 

 inson and Mr. Hilton and Mr. Rankin and 

 many others not so largely known were 

 present, I stated to the convention that I 

 thought it reasona:le that sulphur smoke 



