74 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REV In/ 



size for a hive ; I want it large enough to 

 hold sufficient winter stores, and also to fur- 

 nish about the right capacity for brood for 

 the average queen — average, 1 say, fori have 

 never been able to have all my colonies breed 

 up uniformly. Some queens will outdo and 

 go ahead of the rest, while others will fall 

 behind, it is a prominent feature of my 

 work in the bee yard during the early part of 

 the season, when the bees are building up 

 rapidly, to equalize the strong and weak col- 

 onies ; and until I have all of uniform 

 strength in the yard, and all built up to the 

 full capacity of the hive, I think I have no 

 need of more room ; and with all in this con- 

 dition I feel that I am well prepared for the 

 beginning of the honey harvest. I do, how- 

 ever, build up extra strong colonies some- 

 times by tiering-up, which I will describe 

 hereafter. 



For winter stores I would coasider it poor 

 economy to have a hive larger than required, 

 when well filled, to carry the bees through, 

 and have the honey all cleaned out at the be- 

 ginning of the honey harverit. I should rath- 

 er feed a little to brid ^e over than to furnish 

 hive room, and tug in and out of winter 

 quarters a lot of old stores that are worse 

 than useless in the hive. 



In the early days of my bee-keeping expe- 

 rience I used to buy bees in old box hives, 

 and transfer them to movable frame hives. 

 These hives were of all shapes and sizes, and 

 my work upon them gave me an excellent 

 opportunity of observation, and I availed 

 myself of this opportunity. Proper size of 

 hives was one of the things I had in mind, 

 and I satisfied myself that that a brood 

 chamber of about 2,000 cubic inches was 

 nearly right ; and the experience of many 

 years since has confirmed that decision. In 

 many of the largest of the box hives that I 

 transferred, I found old stores that had been 

 carried over from year to year until it was 

 thick and waxy. I could not see how the col- 

 ony could be benefited by this surplus of 

 stores ; and unless a knowledge of the re- 

 serve gave them a sense of security, I de- 

 cided that such hives were too large. When 

 hives were so small that brood rearing had 

 to be economized, I decided that these were 

 too small. 



LARGE SWARMS FROM BIG HIVES. 



There has been a great deal said from time 

 to time about large hives giving large 

 swarms — big booming swarms —and much 

 heavy argument is brought forward to show 

 the profit of these large swarms, and conse- 

 quently the advantage of iarge- hives. Now, 

 isn't it a fact that the size of the swarm de- 

 pends almost entirely upon the queen ? 

 Would any queen produce any larger swarm 

 in a large hive than a small one, so long as 

 she was not restricted in laying and the bees 

 were furnished room ? I think it is the lay- 

 ing capacity of the queen that regulates the 

 size of swarms almost entirely. 



Now about the economy of large swarms 

 How large would it be economy to have 

 swarms ? Of course, there is a limit beyond 

 which it would not pay to go. A large 

 swarm costs just as much per pound to raise 



as a small one ; and who can tell what is a 

 big booming swarm — how many pounds of 

 bees ? So far as I can remember, no one has 

 thought to tell us just how many pounds of 

 bees there are in a big booming swarm that 

 issues from a big hive. 



If we had a big pile of bees, as we some- 

 times do in the swarming season, when sev- 

 eral swarms go together, how many would it 

 be profitable to put together in a hive in di- 

 viding them up ? I have sometimes hived 

 these big abnormal colonies all in one hive, 

 and given them room, and watched them 

 with expectation of wonderful results. To 

 be sure, they work very rapidly at first, and 

 do more than an ordinary colony ; but they 

 never come up to my expectation. They 

 soon become normal in size, and never make 

 a record that will compare with the same 

 amount of bees in two colonies. 



During the swarming season last year my 

 bees were in what I called very fair strength. 

 Tn order to know just what my swarms were, 

 I set them on the scales and weighed them 

 before shaking them out of the basket. I 

 found them to weigh 7 to 1}-q, lbs., from sin- 

 gle eight-frame hives. I could never see 

 much gained by having swarms much larger 

 than this. 



BUILDING UP COLONIES BY TIERING UP. 



I find no difliculty in getting brood reared 

 in two hives by tiering up. In fact, I had 

 thought that more brood could be secured by 

 this method than any other I had ever tried. 

 It involves some extra labor, and requires 

 plenty of stores, unless honey is coming in. 

 When a colony becomes strong, and needs 

 more room, if a hive of empty combs be 

 placed on top or over it, the bees will soon 

 occupy it, and the queen will not be long in 

 following. The empty combs, with a strong 

 force of workers, make the conditions favor- 

 able for the queen to do her best, and she will 

 not be long in filling the combs with brood. 

 I do not expect the queen to continue laying 

 in both hives at the same time. I do expect, 

 and am not often disappointed, when the 

 queen goes above, that she will continue 

 work in the upper hive until it is full of 

 brood ; and unless honey is coming in, the 

 bees will remove a considerable portion of 

 the honey above also, thus leaving the lower 

 set of combs empty, or nearly so, as fast as 

 the brood hatches. My hive being deep, no 

 doubt gives different results from a shallow 

 one. Bees are inclined to occupy the upper 

 hive when tiered up. This I call forcing the 

 queen. I can. if I wish to continue brood- 

 rearing longer in both hives, set the bottom 

 hive on top, and it is in the most favorable 

 condition to tempt the queen above again. 

 But it is not economy to push brood-rearing 

 far into the honey season. 



The tiering feature I find valuable in unit- 

 ing colonies. I just place one colony over 

 the other, with a honey-cloth or oil-cloth be- 

 tween, with a corner turned so that a small 

 passageway enables them to get acquainted, 

 and, after a few days, remove the cloth, 

 place the hive to be occupied on top, with the 

 queen. 



