792 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOLH«AL. 



Dec. 10, 1903. 



young queens were old enough to gather honey prior to the 

 date of Aug. 8. Not being supplied with ready-drawn 

 combs, the young queens were, of course, contined to a very 

 limited amount of brood-comb for several days after they 

 became fertile ; hence we must base our figures on the count 

 of 12 colonies for the number of pounds of surplus honey 

 obtained. 



But since this great amount of honey— 2200 pounds — 

 represented the joint efforts of the 12 colonies, the increase 

 of 38 swarms was from only 11 colonies ! One colony did 

 not swarm because he took 'so much brood from it that it 

 had no desire to swarm. This one filled 90 sections, so he 

 thinks, and at the time he was writing they had 90 more 

 nearly finished, which was 30 sections better than the best 

 work of any of the swarms. A similar treatment of them 

 all would have made the average only Z% pounds less of 

 honey, notwithstanding that the increase from that one col- 

 ony was made much earlier in the season when it could ill 

 afford to spare the brood and bees. The nuclei, we are told, 

 built up to normal in strength. 



Now, the question is : Why does Mr. Johnson lay spec- 

 ial stretis on his manipulation of the 11 colonies, with all 

 the attendant vexations of such rampant natural swarming, 

 when he could have avoided all that, and accomplished 

 practically as much in increase of colonies and honey ob- 

 tained by managing all of them as he did that one colony ? 

 We have it from his own statements that the method of 

 artificial increase was really superior, for it gave in addi- 

 tion, virtually, freedom from the apiary. 



Had Mr. Johnson practiced this method on the 12 colo- 

 nies, using full sheets of foundation in the brood-chamber 

 of the old colonies, in the place of the combs removed, and 

 then given wired frames with starters to all nuclei, I think 

 he would have found it to be the better way, at a very slight 

 additional expense. Moreover, all his colonies would have 

 been in far better condition at the close of the season as re- 

 gards worker-comb. The probabilities are that much of the 

 comb the swarms built in the brood-chamber of the new 

 hives was drone-comb, which is, at best, a very undesirable 

 state of affairs. 



Another point in this connection was his manipulation 

 of those extracting supers with two-inch strips of founda- 

 tion in the frames. According to the rule of all good bees, 

 and bad bees, I have had anything to do with, this would 

 have resulted disastrously, for what comb was built beneath 

 the foundation would have been drone-size of cell. The 

 queen would hasten up there and consume valuable time 

 laying drone-eggs, which become a burden to the colony as 

 soon as hatched, and cast a shadow across the glittering 

 raysof success. 



For the purpose of enlarging the brood-chamber and 

 promoting a rapid numerical growth of the colony, I would 

 have advised the use of a case of combs ; and, as second 

 best, full sheets of foundation in the frames. The extract- 

 ing case then materially enlarges the brood-chamber at a 

 time of year when its occupancy by the queen results in a 

 larger force of workers for the harvest. Instead of putting 

 the first comb-honey super on top of the extracting super, it 

 is better, in most cases, to place it between that and the 

 brood-chamber proper. The bees will then quickly begin 

 work in the sections, thus overcoming the tendency to flush 

 the brood-chamber with honey. Ivarge numbers of bees 

 that otherwise would remain below to crowd upon the 

 brood-combs are gotten out of the way in the best manner 

 possible. The reverse of this would largely be the result 

 when managed as Mr. Johnson did it. Besides, young bees 

 will not enter an empty extracting super practically any 

 sooner than they will a comb-honey super with fences ; and 

 when the combs are finished they are unfit for the purpose 

 named. The honey they contain must be extracted and 

 sold for less than if the same had been stored in sections. 

 It would be, on the whole, a less profitable way of manag- 

 ing an apiary. 



I will here state that a queen-excluding honey-board is 

 really indispensable whenever desired to leave the extract- 

 ing super on the hive until the brood hatches from it. The 

 old queen must be kept in the lower story ; but the honey- 

 board should be placed between the extracting super and 

 the section super, and not immediately above the brood- 

 chamber, as in the usual way. It does not then interfere 

 with entrance into the first super, but it does have a ten- 

 dency to discourage the storing of honey in the upper one. 

 When the extracting case is thus used, and left only long 

 enough to start the bees to work in the sections, the honey- 

 board is not absolutely necessary. But if the case remained 

 on the hive, and the queen were to pass through the comb- 

 honey super and again enter it, she would probably stay 



there until queen-cells were capped below, and swarming 

 resulted. In 10-frame hives there is very little danger of 

 the queen going above ; and the real advantage of the 

 honey-board in either an 8frame or 10 frame hive is to pre- 

 vent such an unhappy occurrence as the killing of the 

 mother queen by the virgin reared among the isolated combs 

 of the extracting super. The presence of queen-cells in the 

 super will not cause swarming under the same pressure, 

 and a virgin queen will often be allowed to emerge from 

 her cell and destroy the laying queen at a time of year when 

 her loss would mean the ruination of the colony for surplus 

 honey. 



Mr. Johnson's manner of giving only one super to 

 prime swarms that were largeenough to fill the brood-cham- 

 ber and super " chock-full," is simply unique in its being a 

 dangerous plan to follow. The orthodox way of treating 

 swarms, is to give an abundance of room at time of hiving 

 them, and then contracting " in two or three days " to the 

 actual needs of the bees, or what the floral conditions seem 

 to justify. The swarm issues, as a rule, because of an over- 

 crowded and heated condition of the brood-chamber, and if 

 the same conditions prevail in the new hive while the swarm- 

 ing fever is at its highest, the swarm is almost certain to 

 decamp. 



We must, however, concede to our friend the honor of 

 securing a larger crop of honey, according to the figures, 

 than that of our own this year. But we think that when he 

 has given the two methods — natural and artificial increase 

 — a more extended trial, he will welcome the latter with its 

 many advantages, and also see that his success in the pres- 

 ent case was largely in spite of his efforts at hive-manipula- 

 tion. Scioto Co., Ohio. 



The Movable-Frame Hive vs. the Box-Hive. 



BY DR. C. C. MILLER. 



WITH the permission of the Editor, I would like the op- 

 portunity of a little talk with " A Bee-Keeper in Vir- 

 ginia," whose communication appears on page 750. 



I confess, my Virginia friend, that I am not often so 

 much interested as in the reading of your letter, arising, 

 perhaps, more than anything else from your ingenious way 

 ot putting things. If your bill of particulars were to be 

 laid before a farmer, and you should say to him, " There's 

 the bill ; now you can take your choice, undergo an expendi- 

 ture of $338.18 for four years, or keep on with box-hives with- 

 out any expense, and still get SO pounds of surplus from 

 each colony," I think he would hardly be blamed for shying 

 at the expense. But is it put before him in that shape? 

 Honest Indian, did you have it before you in that waj' when 

 you decided to change from box-hives ? Possibly if it had 

 been put before you in just that light, even you 

 might have hesitated. But did you think of it at all in just 

 that way? Does any farmer? If he doesn't, then that's 

 not what glues him to his box-hives. 



But why did you stop at four years, or at 50 colonies ? 

 He might be so unfortunate as to be like some others, and 

 run up to 500 or 1000 colonies. If only 500, then your annual 

 estimate of $85 would become $850. If the $338.18 didn't 

 scare him out, perhaps the bigger figures might. 



Are all the items given to be fairly charged to box- 

 hives ? A man could get along without a smoker — some do 

 — even if his bees were in movable-frame hives. Indeed, 

 most of the items you have given can be dispensed with by 

 the man who has movable-frame hives, and I've known 

 more than one farmer who kept his bees in such hives and 

 yet made no outlay different from what he had formerly 

 done with box-hives — although I agree that he might as 

 well have stuck to the box-hives if he had no intention of 

 making use of the advantages offered by the better hives. 

 The fact is, that your items are not necessarily attendant 

 upon the adoption of movable-comb hives. A man may 

 change from box-hives with no other expense except that 

 for hives, and his further expenses — which may be grad- 

 uated all the way from very little to the fullest expense 

 called for by the up-to-datest sort of bee-keeping — must be 

 charged, not to movable-comb hives, but to improved meth- 

 ods of bee-keeping. 



You say, " You will understand that I expect it to pay 

 }ne well (notwithstanding the expense), or I should not have 

 entered on the necessary expense for the next 3 years. But 

 most users of the box-hives couldn't, and wouldn't, stand 

 the expense, even if they knew that they would double or 

 treble their honey crop." That may be true in your local- 

 ity ; others may not be as bright as you in looking ahead, 



