1902 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



851 



made of lath that leads to within % inch of 

 the hive-entrance. When they return hon- 

 ey-laden they g-o directly into the lower 

 chamber where the queen is, and, there be- 

 ing no drawn cells to store their treasures 

 in, they are forced to enter the supers at 

 once. In 21 da3's all the brood will have 

 hatched, and the bees have joined the busy 

 force below. 



I find the above plan of Mr. Evans ob- 

 jectionable, as the nurse bees escape too 

 soon, leaving- much unsealed brood to dry 

 up for want of care during- the first nine 

 days, or until all brood is sealed. Perhaps 

 this objection ma}' be overcome by inserting- 

 a small piece of perforated zinc in the su- 

 per-cover, although I fear that the bees 

 might then store honey in the combs as the 

 brood hatches. Please ask Dr. Tinker 

 about this last point. 



If neither hive A nor B is very strong- in 

 bees, we shake off most of the bees from 

 both to make the shook swarm, as such 

 swarms are not satisfactory unless very 

 strong. In this case we would, of course, 

 leave one of the queens with the brood. 



The shook swarm is one (not the) solu- 

 tion of the swarming problem in out apia- 

 ries run for comb honey. This and the 

 Aikiu method will be used almost exclusive- 

 ly in our apiaries next j'car. When using 

 the eight-frame L. hive for shook swarms a 

 dummy may well be used to take the place 

 of a frame or two. With the Heddon hive 

 two sections must be used for the first few 

 days or there is danger of desertion. When 

 this danger is past, remove the lower case. 

 However, if you find that shook swarms in 

 a single shallow brood-case are inclined to 

 store pollen in the sections, then when the 

 upper case is full of combs replace the low- 

 er case with one containing full sheets of 

 foundation. The bees will gradually work 

 down into it, and work in the supers will 

 go on as before. This I owe to L. Stachel- 

 liausen. The giving of one frame of brood 

 is important, whatever the hive used, to 

 prevent pollen in the sections, and to keep 

 the bees contented. In this locality this 

 frame of brood has not caused swarming 

 out, contrarj' to the experience of Mr. 

 Stachelhausen. With a brood-chamber of 

 five or six L. frames capacity, full sheets 

 of foundation may be used if the bees per- 

 sist in building drone comb. 



During a slow honey-flow we do not like 

 the shook-swarm plan, as the queen, if the 

 bees are Italians, will be crowded out, too 

 much drone comb built from starters, and a 

 very light crop will be the result. If a col- 

 ony (with no thought of swarming) is do- 

 ing excellent super work we would not think 

 of making a shook swarm from it. We wire 

 all frames for shook swarms. Note these 

 points: 



1. Shook swarms must be very strong. 



2. A comb of brood will usually obviate 

 danger of pollen in sections. 



I '3. Supers must contain bait combs, or, 

 better, be taken from colonies well at work 

 in the sections. 



4. In the arid region, with its cool nights, 

 brood from shook swarms must always be 

 under the care of a large force of bees, to 

 prevent loss by chilling. 



5. Last, and of great importance, the 

 shook swarm must be strengthened several 

 times during the flow. E. F. Atwater. 



Boise, Ida. 



VALUABLE INFORMATION CONCERNING THE 

 SHOOK-SWARM METHOD. 



Evidently the time is now ripe for this 

 method to become thoroughly practical. 

 I practiced the method years ago when my 

 colonies numbered from 100 to 125. I have 

 advocated the method from the time of its 

 discovery, and I wrote it up for The Indi- 

 ana Farmer under the caption of "Swarm- 

 ing without Increase," and yet I have 

 known of very few followers. Just to think 

 of a swarm issuing and leaving a crate of 

 unfinished sections, with the result that 

 the season is exhausted before the parent 

 hive is able to finish the sections! Why 

 did the "shook" method fail to become pop- 

 ular long ago? I have returned swarms to 

 the old stand, giving them the unfijiished 

 super, and frames with narrow starters, 

 and, after brushing oif every bee from the 

 remaining brood, I have obtained better 

 and more rapid results in the super than I 

 was getting before the operation. I have 

 always found that a queen-excluding honey- 

 board was very essential, and the onlj' ob- 

 jection to the entire method is that for a 

 few days some pollen will be stored in the 

 sections. 



I have always disposed of the remaining 

 brood in two ways — by strengthening weak 

 colonies and by tiering up over an excluder 

 for extracting. I have tiered as high as 

 five stories, and it seemed to me that such 

 colonies contained a barrel of bees. In 

 such cases I allowed only three or four 

 combs of brood in the lower chamber, fill- 

 ing the remainder of the hive with empty 

 combs or foundation in order that the queen 

 might have plenty of room. As fast as the 

 brood hatched in upper stories they filled 

 the empty cells with honey, making the 

 waj' possible for a large \'ield, and greatly 

 improving the results from the hives from 

 which the brood was taken. 



A few, in attempting this method, have 

 allowed one or two combs of brood to re- 

 main in the brood -chamber. This is fatal 

 to the results. The brood-chamber must 

 contain frames with narrow starters only. 

 The bees will proceed to build comb fast 

 enough for the queen; and the new honey 

 must necessaril}' be stored in the sec- 

 tions. 



"This great country of ours" is fairly 

 covered with a sod of white clover, and next 

 year promises to be a glorious one for bee- 

 keepers. I hope the "shook" method will 

 be adopted by many, and thus increase the 

 profits. Walter S. Poudkr. 



Indianapolis, Ind. 



Cofiiinued on page 86j. 



