1908 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



577 



queenlcss to allow the l^ees time to cap all 

 the unsealed brood. This rule ur principle 

 is observed in the Somerford, Alexander, 

 and Chapman plans, all of vvhieh will be con- 

 sidered here; and if bee-keepers would keep 

 this thought in mind, and work out a system 

 of artilicial swarming in which no unsealed 

 brood is carried away from the parent colo- 

 ny, much better success could be expected. 

 It is well known that, when bees are carried 

 to a new location in the process of making 

 artificial increase, if the apiarist is not well 

 versed in the art of making bees stay where 

 they are put in the different manipulations, 

 lai'ge quantities of unsealed brood virill be 

 lost by the bees deserting the hive in the new 

 quarters and returning to the parent hive. 

 Let us now consider the 



SOMERFORD PLAN FOR MAKING INCREASE. 



This is a good one; but in order to work 

 this system to the best advantage, one ought 

 to have a very good stock of bees. The idea, 

 in brief, is as follows: During either a nat- 

 ural or artificial flow of honey, the queen is 

 removed from a colony that is very strong 

 and in good condition to build queen-cells. 

 In ten days, when the queen-cells are ripe 

 and all the brood sealed, the colony is ready 

 to be divided. 



The average bee-keeper will have no trou- 

 ble with the plan up to the time the division 

 is to be made; but the difficult part comes 

 ■when the attempt is made to compel the bees 

 to stay in their respective places on the new 

 stands. We will suppose that it is early in 

 the season, and that two frames of brood 

 have been selected with at least one good 

 queen-cell, and that the bees from a third 

 frame have been shaken on to the first two 

 frames. The difficulty now consists in try- 

 ing to make a good percentage of these bees 

 stay with the brood on the new stand. 



In preparing the hive for these little colo- 

 nies, a lath is nailed over the entrance 

 through which a f-inch hole had previously 

 been bored, which hole, however, is now 

 corked up. The third night after the little 

 swarm is made, and after the bees have 

 stopped flying for the day, this cork should 

 be removed from the |-inch hole at the en- 

 trance, when the bees will be found ready to 

 come out: for during the confinement they 

 will have been gnawing at every opening 

 where a particle of light could be seen. On 

 this account, if the entrance were thus open- 

 ed during the middle of the day, every bee 

 that could fly would rush out and many of 

 them would go back to the old stand, for it 

 would be natural that they should prefer the 

 old home to the prison from which they have 

 just escaped. The consequence would be 

 that but a very small number would be left 

 at this new stand, with about as many bees 

 at the old stand as there were before the di- 

 vision was made. Such a small swarm or 

 nucleus would have a hard slow pull in or- 

 der to get in shape for winter, and many 

 times it would have to be helped. The small 

 entrance, consisting only of a |-inch hole, 

 and also the time at which this entrance is 



opened, makes the plan successful where it 

 othei wise would be uncertain and peihaps 

 an actual failure. For instance, if this finch 

 entrance were opened late in the day after 

 the bees had stopped flying, there might be, 

 perhap-", a cupful of bees that would crawl 

 out of the little entrance, for they are quick 

 to realize that they are no longer prisoners, 

 and the glad tidings go through the hive like 

 magic. However, since it is so late that the 

 bees will not fly, there will be practically none 

 that will go back to the old stand, by this 

 time the young queen has hatched, and the 

 bees soon begin to carry out dead bees, eU-., 

 and to clean house generally. In other 

 words, things have changed suddenly, for 

 the bees that were prisoners, and were think- 

 ing of nothing but trying to get out, now be- 

 gin to think about keeping house, and dur- 

 ing the first night of liberty much is done 

 along this line, so that, when morning comes, 

 and the bees take their first flight, they no 

 longer try to go back to the old location, but 

 mark the new one, so that but very few go 

 back. The consequences are that the nucleus 

 will be in good condition, and very thrifty, 

 when it might otherwise have been almost a 

 failure. 



In making nuclei with this Somerford plan 

 we start a few artificial queen-cells at the 

 time of making the divisions, which cells are 

 from our best stock, so that if, for any rea- 

 son, extra cells are wanted they will be on 

 hand It sometimes happens that it is con- 

 venient to use a colony for increase that we 

 would not care to breed from, and it is less 

 work to make artificial cells than to cut them 

 from one comb and transfer them to another 

 one. as would have to be done if following 

 the Somerford plan, for many times all the 

 desirable cells will be on only one or two 

 combs of brood. Furthermore, only a few 

 of the cells in such colonies will be good 

 enough to use, the inferior ones being torn 

 out when the division is made. 



HOW THE QUEEN-CELLS ARE PRODUCED. 



With the number of colonies that the hon- 

 ey-producer has to select from, there is no 

 trouble in picking out colonies for cell-build- 

 ers that are especially adapted to the work. 

 I have found that nervous bees are better 

 cell-builders than the more quiet strains, so 

 in selecting the cell-building colonies pick 

 out hybrids or bees that tend toward a dark- 

 er-colored strain. After making this selec- 

 tion, see that all the cell- building colonies 

 are strong in numbers. Then remove the 

 brood and the queen from each, being sure, 

 however, that there is plenty of honey left. 

 However, it sometimes happens that there is 

 brood in nearly all of the combs so that, 

 when these are taken away from them, there 

 will be almost no honey left, and thus it will 

 be necessary to give two or three frames of 

 stores, tilling up the empty space with empty 

 combs with the exception of one or two in 

 the center of the hive. In this space in the 

 center, place bars containing empty cell- 

 cups, in order that these may be cleaned and 

 made ready by the queenless bees for the 



