1908 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



155 



have been brought out on the second day of 

 May. Eight pounds has been the average 

 consumption per colony in the winter. 



Mr. A. L. Beaudin, St. Chrvsostome, Que- 

 bec, is one of the largest and most progres- 

 sive French bee-keepers in the province. He 

 is about 45 years of age, and has been inter- 

 ested in apiculture for many years. He 

 generally has from 200 to 300 colonies of 

 bees, producing extracted honey almost en- 

 tirely. He uses the nine-frame Langstroth 

 hive called "The Model." His crop of hon- 

 ey is generally white clover; and as he 

 leaves the honey with the bees until it is 

 well ripened, it is of excellent quality. 



Quebec, having many natural advan- 

 tages for bee-keeping, should do every thing 

 reasonable in its power to develop it. If 

 you, Mr. Editor, could recommend a French 

 bee-journal it would be a help to many in 

 that province who do not read English. 



Brantford, Ont., Canada. 



[L'Apiculteur, 28 Rue Serpente, Paris— 

 now in its fifty-second year; L' Apiculture 

 Nouvelle, E. Bondonneau, Paris, 142 Fau- 

 bourg St. Denis; Bevue Eclectique d'Ajncul- 

 ture, 11 Rue de Mezieries, Paris.— W. K. M.] 



THE TWOQUEEN SYSTEM. 



This Plan Makes it Possible to Keep the 

 Brood-chamber Packed with Brood Dur- 

 ing the Flow; Forcing Honey into the Su- 

 pers; Wintering Two Queens in One Hive 

 not Desirable. 



BY J. E. HAND. 



Continued from the Jan. 1st issue. 



In the first article on this subject I stated 

 that no iron-clad rules should govern the 

 disposition of a two-queen colony during the 

 harvest, and I gave what I consider the best 

 method of managing such a colony during a 

 good honey-flow when the bees are likely to 

 swarm more or less. 



However, if the bee-keeper, after a careful 

 study of the present conditions and future 

 prospects of the honey resources of his loca- 

 tion,decides that the harvest will be short, and, ^ 

 consequently, not much swarming, then it 

 would be unwise to make artificial swarms as 

 directed in a former article; and he will either 

 keep the two queens in the same hive during 

 the harvest or else follow the plan as out- 

 lined in our season's work with the sectional 

 hive. 



However, since the various hive manipula- 

 tions necessary to the successful carrying- out 

 of this system are quite complicated, and 

 since feeding back is a science not well un- 

 derstood, and therefore is likely to cause 

 trouble for the beginner, I would advise 

 those who wish to give the two-queen system 

 of comb-honey production a trial to follow 

 the more simple methods as outlined in these 

 two methods. 



By expanding our brood-chambers during 

 the breeding season (gradually by means of 

 shallow brood-sections) prior to the harvest 

 we fully develop the fertility of two queens 



in one hive, thus securing a much stronger 

 force of workers for the coming harvest than 

 it is possible to secure with one queen in 

 any hive. And then, at the beginning of the 

 harvest, force this great army of workers to 

 begin storing in the sections at once — not by 

 extreme hive contraction, as in a former ar- 

 ticle, but by limiting the room in the brood- 

 chambers during the harvest, so that two 

 queens will have no difficulty in keeping it 

 full of brood to the exclusion of honey, which 

 must go into the sections. 



Mr. Titoff claims that two queens are not 

 necessary during the harvest; and cites for 

 proof the fact that some bee-keepers restrict 

 their queens during the harvest to two or 

 three brood-frames. However, he seems to 

 lose sight of the fact that, to restrict the 

 queen during the harvest, without an equal 

 contraction of the brood-chamber, would be 

 to do so at the expense of a honey crop, since 

 the honey would be stored in the brood- 

 chamber instead of in the sections. 



The successful comb-honey producer of 

 to-day will not winter his bees upon stores 

 of white honey with the corresponding dif- 

 ference in price between that and sugar syr- 

 up, as well as the superiority of the latter as 

 a winter food for bees. 



It is not only very desirable to have a 

 brood-chamber full of brood during the 

 breeding season prior to the honey-flow, but 

 it is equally important to keep it full of brood 

 during the entire harvest to the exclusion of 

 honey. And such brood will put dollars 

 into the pocket of the bee-keeper by holding 

 the brood-chamber against honey during the 

 three weeks of their hatching period, even if 

 they never gather very much honey. How- 

 ever, such bees often come handy in storing 

 honey from some unexpected source during 

 autumn, and this is just what they did in our 

 home yard last September. 



Regarding the condition under which two 

 queens may be kept in the same hive for any 

 length of time, it is needless to say that this 

 can be accomplished only by keeping the 

 queens as far apart as possible, and for this 

 reason it is safer to use a double queen-ex- 

 cluder and feed during a dearth of honey, 

 not to stimulate brood-rearing, but to keep 

 the bees busy and good-natured toward the 

 queen. Further than above stated, it is not 

 desirable to keep too queens in one hive, and 

 I prefer to winter surplus queens separately 

 in my shallow brood-sections with a small 

 bunch of young bees. The fact that several 

 queens may be safely introduced into the 

 same hive, and that such will often remain 

 together, is not strange when we understand 

 queen nature, and only proves that it is pos- 

 sible to use a plurality of queens so far as 

 the bees are concerned. If two queens meet, 

 and the challenge to mortal combat is given 

 and accepted, they will lock in a deadly em- 

 brace, and one is quickly killed; but if one 

 refuses to fight, and runs away, the other 

 will not pursue her, and this may be repeat- 

 ed every time the queens meet until the 

 cowardly and weak ones pluck up courage 

 enough to fight; and if two remain in the 



