Nov. 12, 1903. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



727 



the convention, and in a somewhat lengthy speech invited 

 the convention to that place next year. 



The meeting- then adjourned until Thursday morning. 

 (Coatinued next week.) 





Contributed Articles 





Prevention of Increase— Criticisms 

 plained. 



Ex- 



BY ADRIAN GETAZ. 



I DON'T think any of my past contributions have received 

 as many comments as the one on page 407. 



NORTH VERSUS SOUTH. 



One first cause of misunderstanding is often the differ- 

 ence of "locality." In the Northern States, generally, the 

 honey-flovf (when there is any) opens suddenly, is very 

 heavy, comparatively, and lasts, without interruption, per- 

 haps about six weeks, as a general rule. 



In the South, the conditions are altogether different. 

 There is no continuous honey-flow as in the North. 



There is a long-drawn honey season, during which the 

 flow comes very irregularly — "by jerks," to use one of 

 Rambler's expressions. That is, a few days of tolerably 

 good flow, then a slack, then a week or two of flow, then, 

 perhaps, a totalinterruption, and so on throughout the whole 

 " honey season." 



It is easy to understand that the methods of manage- 

 ment must necessarily be different in two sections of the 

 country. In the North it will do to build up the colonies as 

 rapidly as possible early in the spring, and then let the 

 brood-rearing diminish in order to increase the surplus. 

 But in the South we must not only build up early, but main- 

 tain the full strength of the colonies during several months. 

 This requires two conditions : 



1. A large brood-nest, so the queen should be able to 

 lay at her full capacity. As to what constitutes a large 

 brood-nest, I found the size advised by the Dadants the 

 best — 10 Quinby frames. 



2. No swarming, neither natural nor otherwise. The 

 honey-flow, or rather the "jerks" that constitutes our 

 honey season, are (except now and then) not strong enough 

 to furnish anything like a surplus and rebuild a brood-nest. 

 It is one or the other. Please bear in mind, that no swarm- 

 ing thus understood, means no increase, that it means keep- 

 ing the bees, brood and combs together throughout the 

 whole season. The mere issuing of the swarm is only a de- 

 tail, as the swarm can be returned. 



REMOVING THE BROOD. 



The prevention of swarming thus understood, is what 

 gave me the most trouble. I spent some five or six years in 

 experiments. One of those were mentioned in my contribu- 

 tion of June 25, and consisted in taking out all the brood, 

 putting it in another hive, and returning it after five or six 

 days (cutting out the queen-cells, of course.) I also stated 

 that the process was a success as far as swarming was con- 

 cerned, but was objectionable, chiefly, by requiring an extra 

 set of hives to hold the brood, and from the fact that the 

 bees, during these few days, worked too much in the brood- 

 nest and too little in the sections. One of my critics misun- 

 derstood me completely. He thought that by preventing 

 I meant simply preventing the issuing of the swarm, and 

 innocently remarked that the extra hives would be needed 

 for natural swarms anyway. But that is not what I was 

 after. What I wanted was, as stated in the beginning of 

 this article, prevention of increase ; keeping bees and brood 

 together. 



As to the building of too much comb in the brood-nest 

 while the brood was out, another critic said I ought to 

 have put on a super from another hive where bees were al- 

 ready at work. That's all right as far as it goes. But as a 

 matter of fact, all the colonies thus treated were already 

 well at work in the sections. 



MODERATE INCREASE. 



Another plan is to take out a comb every week or so and 

 replace it with a comb of foundation. The combs taken 



out can be used to form new colonies, or reinforce whatever 

 weak ones may be in the apiary. The object is to provide 

 room for the queen to lay. As long as there is plenty of 

 young brood to feed, the nurse-bees will not undertake to 

 rear queens. 



The advisability of putting in a comb of foundation 

 rather than an all-ready-built comb has been questioned. 

 Let me say here, that I am writing exclusively from the 

 comb-honey producer's standpoint. For an extracted-honey 

 producer the problem is an easy one. All he has to do is to 

 give enough empty combs to accommodate the brood and all 

 honey brought in. If he gets in a pinch, he can extract 

 some of the combs already full. 



But the comb-honey producer is confronted by entirely 

 different conditions. The empty combs are, by no means, 

 plentiful. I have but six now, and would not have a single 

 one if one of my colonies had not died last winter. 



But a built comb will not do, anyway. Let us study 

 the " conditions." When the flow comes the brood-nest is 

 already full, or will be in a very few days. The secretion 

 of wax and the building of comb in the sections are not 

 started yet, so there is no room, or but very little, in the 

 sections to put the honey in. Yet it is coming all the day. 

 Having no other place the bees put it in the brood-nest as 

 fast as the matured brood emerges, and crowd the queen out. 

 Eventually, swarming follows if the apiarist does not rem- 

 edy that state of affairs. 



Now, suppose we give an empty comb. There is only 

 one queen to lay eggs. There are thousands of bees ready 

 to fill that comb with honey, and they will doit. 



But give a frame of foundation and the "conditions" 

 will be different. In the first place, it will take the bees 

 some time to draw the foundation. Then, as soon as the 

 cells are drawn, the queen can lay in them, while they can 

 not hold honey until they are about an eighth of an inch 

 longer. These two conditions enable the queen to follow 

 the workers and lay as fast as the cells are ready. Result : 

 a solid comb of brood. 



Somebody said that a frame of foundation, or a fresh 

 comb, prevents the qneen from laying further, acting as a 

 division-board. There is nothing in it. Queens are con- 

 stantly passing from one comb to another, and when they 

 do stop at a fresh comb it is because they have all the room 

 they need on the side where they are. 



One of the critics says that that plan involves too much 

 work, and he prefers " shaking" Perhaps it does; I don't 

 know. But, by the above plan, 2 or 3 combs are usually all 

 that it would be necessary to take out. That is less work 

 than shaking 8 or 10. It may be objected to, that these 2 or 

 3 combs are to be taken out at different times, and would 

 necessitate opening the hives 2 or 3 times instead of once. 

 That is true, but it is to be done at a lime of the year when 

 the hives have to be opened to see if the bees are ready for 

 the supers ; put on the first super, and later on the second. 

 So, after all, the plan can be carried out with but little extra 

 work. 



" SHOOK " SWARMS. 



Shall we " shook " or not ? No, in my opinion, not in 

 the South, and 1 believe not in the North, either. But don't 

 misunderstand me again, and think I am advising natural 

 swarming. I want to keep the bees, brood, and combs to- 

 gether. It has been said repeatedly, that by placing the old 

 hive near, or above the swarm, or by shaking a second time, 

 nearly all the bees can be secured in the swarm. But that's 

 not all. The brood-nest has to be rebuilt. Did those who 

 argue in favor of shaking, everstop to think that a brood- 

 nest of only 8 Langstroth frames contains enough wax to 

 fill 6+ sections ? Would not 6-^ full sections be preferable to 

 a new brood-nest, when the old one will do just as well ? 



CAGING QUEENS. 



After trying everything in sight, and almost everything 

 out of sight, so to speak, I came to the conclusion that cag- 

 ing the queens for 8 days, or requeening, are the only ways 

 really practical. Both methods have their advantages and 

 disadvantages. Requeening requires more work and more 

 attention. Besides, some queens fail to mate, or are lost 

 some way or other. On tlie other hand, a young queen will, 

 in some way that I can not understand, induce the bees to 

 carry the honey out of the brood-nest into the sections far 

 better than an old one. 



In my locality there is (with proper management) but 

 little swarming, owing to cold spells of weather that come 

 now and then, even until the middle of May or later. Only 

 about 10 swarms out of every hundred colonies is the aver- 

 age percentage. 



To manipulate 100 colonies in order to prevent 10 swarms 



