1908 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



83 



STIMULA.TING IN THE SPRING WITH SHAL- 

 LOW EXTRACTING-COMBS OF HONEY. 



"I use the Danzenbaker hives, and winter 

 the bees on their summer stands In buck- 

 wheat bloom I expect to get a lot of shallow 

 extracting-frames in Danzenbaker supers 

 tilled with buckwheat honey. Then I will 

 store, them away until the first warm day 

 next February or March, when I can give 

 each hive a super of these filled shallow 

 frames. When any of the colonies are ready 

 to store surplus honey I will raise this super 

 put a super of sections filled with full 

 sheets of foundation on the hive, then put on 

 a bee-escape board and get the bees out of 

 the shallow frames, which can then be stored 

 until the following spring. Do you think I 

 would be paid for the extra honey and work ? 

 Or would it be better for me to put the shal- 

 • low frames of honey on the hives in the fall 

 before I pack them for winter, instead of 

 waiting until spring? Would the extra space 

 to keep warm be a detriment? 



"Would it be just as well, instead of giv- 

 ing a full super, to put four or five of the 

 shallow frames of honey in the center of the 

 super and leave the rest of the super empty? 

 It seems as if even four or five frames would 

 be more than any colony would ever use, 

 and still it would stimulate them to brood- 

 rearing in the spring. 



"Girard, Pa. Norton C. Miller." 



Regarding the first proposition and ques- 

 tion 1 would say there would be advantages 

 and disadvantages in carrying out that pro- 

 gram; and in my judgment the disadvan- 

 tages would more than overcome the advan- 

 tages For this reason I should say that it 

 would not pay to work so — no, not even in a 

 larger yield of honey, to say nothing of the 

 time spent in the different manipulations. 



The advantages would be two in number 

 as I see it. The first would be the securing 

 for the bees an abundance of stores, so that 

 there would be no danger of the colonies ever 

 becoming short to an extent bordering on 

 starvation, or to their retrenching in brood- 

 rearing; but this matter should be looked 

 after in the fall by way of knoiving that each 

 colony has sufficient stores in the brood- 

 chamber to supply all wants till the flowers 

 give them an abundance the coming spring 

 This is an easy matter if all colonies are 

 carefully looked after in September, just as 

 soon as the surplus of the season is over. 

 Those not having 25 to 30 pounds of stores 

 shouldbe given full-sized Danzenbaker frames 

 of honey to take the p'ace of the light frames 

 in the hive, or the colony should be fed the 

 proper amount where such frames of honey 

 are not on hand. In this locality it is of rare 



occurrence for any colony which is worked 

 for comb honey to be short of stores for win- 

 tering and springing. Even during the un- 

 precedented spring of 1907, not one out of 

 twenty of my colonies ran short of stores. 



The second advantage would be that of the 

 bees acquiring the habit of entering the su- 

 per freely while the super of extracting- 

 frames was on the hive. Having been "fre- 

 quenters" of this super they would more 

 readily enter the super of sections when it 

 was put on to take the place of the extract- 

 ing-super, and in this respect quite a little 

 would be gained, but nothing like enough to 

 overcome the disadvantages, next spoken of. 

 Of all the time in the year when the brood - 

 nest should be kept as warm as possible, ear- 

 ly spring is that time; and the proposed plan 

 of working not only breaks open a joint be- 

 tween the cover and top of the super, but 

 one between the super and the top of the 

 brood-chamber, at which joints the warmed 

 air from the cluster can not only go out into 

 the open air, but it will be fanned out by eve- 

 ry passing breeze or high wind that blows. 

 And not only this, but the ascending heat 

 from the colony below will be up in this su- 

 per at just the time when every particle 

 should be economized for brood-rearing, so 

 that the colony, instead of becoming strong 

 in time to take advantage of the first open- 

 ing flowers, would remain weak on account 

 of the cracks all about the top part of the 

 hive and the much too large brood-chamber 

 which they would have through the added 

 super. Wniie I claim that the bees are en- 

 abled to confine the heat very largely inside 

 the cluster, so that brood-rearing will go on 

 quite extensively within the cluster, no mat- 

 ter what the conditions just outside said clus- 

 ter are, yet the warmer the air outside of this 

 cluster, the more the cluster will expand, or 

 the less number of bees it will take to make 

 the "walls" to the cluster or brood-nest 

 proper, and so an advance is made by con- 

 fining all the heat possible as nearly within 

 the limits of the cluster as may be. And 

 the adding of an extra super above the clus- 

 ter in the spring is in direct opposition to 

 nature's requirements, which, of course, is 

 opposed to a paying crop of honey, or any 

 pay for the labor performed in thus working. 

 Then, if Mr. Miller's bees are like mine, 

 unless he puts a queen-excluder between this 

 added super and the brood-chamber to the 

 hive, he will have more or less brood in the 

 extracting-frames at the time he wishes to 

 raise them up for the section-super, which 

 brood is just where he does not wish it, and 

 will cost him the honey necessary for its rear- 

 ing (besides injuring his extracting-combs), 

 and the extra work it will make for him. to 

 get rid of this undesirable brood. 



Again, this proposed plan militates little if 

 any against swarming, which will be quite 

 likely to occur soon after the bees have been 

 run down out of the extracting-super into 

 the sections. Such a plan could not be de- 

 pended upon in the least when working an 

 out-apiary unless it resulted in too weak col- 

 onies to swarm, or do little else to advantage. 



