420 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 1 



Since I have been in the business more ex- 

 tensively, a different system of management 

 has been found necessary; namely, a scheme 

 for using double-story ten-frame hives. A 

 system that is all right, and which works 

 well with one home yard of bees, may not 

 work at all with an outyard or with exten- 

 sive bee-keeping where more bees are kept 

 than the apiarist himself can care for, neces- 

 sitating the work being done by others, and 

 these, many times, perhaps of small experi- 

 ence. 



It is a fact that a very large hive contain- 

 ing an amount of honey in excess of that 

 needed to carry the colony through spring, 

 with an abundance of comb room, will not 

 swarm nor acquire the swarming fever until 

 the honey season is on, when the bees, assist- 

 ed by the queen, get the hive nearly full of 

 brood and honey. 



A ten-frame Langstroth hive, two stories 

 high, is ample in size to hold back the swarm- 

 ing fever until the white-honey season is on 

 in June. Colonies in such a hive, that are 

 good to strong, during the period of warm 

 weather previous to the honey-flow, usually 

 commence to store honey in this location 

 about May 20. With so much clustering 

 room, such as these hives afford, no swarm- 

 ing fever will be induced. 



When the warm weather of the last part 

 of May arrives, an upper story is given our 

 medium to strong colonies, either with or 

 without a queen - excluder, depending on 

 whether it is a yard where excluders are 

 used or not. Our honey season usually com- 

 mences during the second or third week of 

 June, in this location. As there is no hon- 

 ey-flow previous to the main clover flow in 

 June, sufficient to cause bees to contract the 

 swarming fever, the ten-frame hive used two- 

 story dunng practically all of the hot weath- 

 er previous to the honey-flow, keeps our bees 

 practically free from the swarming fever, 

 and without handling a single brood-comb. 



This system is well adapted to the eight- 

 frame hive or smaller hives, only the second 

 story should be of worker comb, and the 

 queen allowed full sway through both stories. 

 Later on, after the bees get to work in dead 

 earnest, if one likes, the queen can be put 

 down into the lower story, and an excluder 

 placed on the lower story, since the bees 

 nave now almost forgotten there is such a 

 thing as swarming, being so intent on the 

 securing of the abundance of honey that 

 ought to be coming at this time. Moreover, 

 with the Italian bee this is the season of the 

 year, or the season has now shaped itself so 

 that one eight-frame story is all (and usually 

 more than) the queen will occupy with brood, 

 because the bees are so intent on storing 

 honey. 



This same principle of giving abundance 

 of comb room during hot weather, previous 

 to the main honey-flow, with the idea of pre- 

 venting the bees from thinking about swarm- 

 ing, is carried out with our comb-honey as 

 well as with our extracting colonies. 



In the case of the cornb-honey bees, any 

 empty brood-nests are used for the purpose 



of this extra room. Then we have provided 

 about half as many sets of shallow extract- 

 ing-combs as we have colonies of bees in the 

 yard, which are used to finish up the season 

 in the production of comb honey, and also 

 to give clustering room previous to the sea- 

 son, as I have explained above. 

 Remus, Mich. 



SPRING MANAGEMENT. 



Building Up Colonies for the Honey-flow; 



a Unique Scheme of Exchanging Brood 



between Weak and Strong Colonies. 



BY OREL L. HERSHISER. 



Continued from last issue. 



The queen in each colony of class three 

 will soon fill as many combs with egg^ as 

 the colony can incubate, and her usefulness 

 in bee production for work in the rapidly 

 approaching harvest will be curtailed unless 

 provision is promptly made for her. We 

 will, therefore, remove two combs of eggs 

 from each of the colonies of class three which 

 is sufficient to give one each to all those in 

 class two in exchange for as many empty 

 combs which are used to fill up the empty 

 spaces in the hives of class three from which 

 the combs of eggs have been removed A 

 few days thereafter the colonies of class two 

 may again be reenforced by a second in- 

 stallment of eggs from the colonies of class 

 three in exchange for empty combs By this 

 time practically all the brood that was in the 

 combs at the time they were taken from the 

 colonies of class one and given to class three 

 will have emerged, and the additional nurse- 

 bees thus afforded, together with the more 

 favorable weather conditions that usually 

 obtain with the advancing season, will ena- 

 ble the colonies of class three to nurture the 

 yoang and incubate the eggs as fast as the 

 queen can produce them; and we have so 

 strengthened all the colonies of class two by 

 the reenforcements of eggs from the twenty- 

 five weak colonies as to bring them up to 

 prime condition in good time for the honey 

 harvest. If any of them should be still lack- 

 ing they may be at once strengthened by the 

 addition of combs of capped or hatching 

 brood (not eggs) from the colonies of class 

 three just before the honey-flow commences, 

 class three having a goodly supply of such 

 combs by reason of having kept those first 

 given them from the strong colonies filled 

 with brood. 



Having thus brought all the colonies of class 

 two up to the honey-flow in prime condition, 

 let us see what may be done in order to real- 

 ize some further profit from the colonies of 

 class three. It is a fact that many bee-keep- 

 ers might profitably recognize, that one 

 strong colony that will yield a good surplus 

 is better and more valuable, so far as honey 

 production is concerned, than a large num- 

 ber of weak colonies that yield nothing. 

 What, then, is the use of these twenty-five 

 weak colonies from which we have been con- 

 tinuously and systematically taking most of 



