578 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 1 



larva? to be transferred later. The firdt day 

 after the bees have been made brood less and 

 queenless they will be anxious to get brood 

 to start cells with. 



We are now ready to transfer the larva? 

 from some of the best queens to the cells 

 which have been cleaned out by the queen- 

 less bees. A transferring-needle, jelly-spoon, 

 plenty of queen-cells containing royal jelly, 

 etc., will be needed. There is enough royal 

 jelly in an ordinary queen-cell to prepare 

 ten cells for larvae. It is important to get 

 the larva? transferred to the jelly in the pre- 

 pared cells so nicely that the bees are hard- 

 ly able to tell it from their own work. The 

 cell-bars containing the transferred larva- 

 are now placed in the queenless colony to be 

 started; and after they have been accepted, 

 in a day or two they are taken from the 

 queenless colony and placed in the second 

 story of a powerful colony above a queen- 

 excluder, where they may be finished. Two 

 frames of brood should be lifted up from the 

 lower story, and placed one on each side of 

 the cell- bars in order to make sure that the 

 bees do not leave the cells and go below, 

 which might happen on a cool night. With 

 the two frames of unsealed brood it is quite 

 certain that the cells will be well taken care 

 of. I am sure that the work will succeed 

 better if the cells are started in a queenless 

 colony in the way described, rather than in 

 an upper story over an excluder. Of course, 

 after the cells are started they can be trans- 

 ferred to such an upper story over an ex- 

 cluder to be finished. 



For the honey-producer who raises only 

 the queens that he needs to make up winter 

 loss and increase, and when the regular 

 brood-frame is used, no tools except those 

 that I have mentioned will be necessary. 

 These are so few, and their advantages so 

 great, that no one can afford to be without 

 them. In this way a queen can be supplied 

 any time during the season. 



THE ALEXANDER METHOD OF MAKING IN- 

 CREASE. 



This is a very good system, for, as in the 

 Somerford method, the brood is left with the 

 full force of bees until it is all capped. This, 

 of course, means a saving of all the unsealed 

 brood, and this can not be said of some of 

 the other methods which are being used 

 where the unsealed brood is moved to a new 

 location from which many of the bees that 

 were taken with it go back to the old loca- 

 tion, leaving the brood to take care of itself. 



With the Alexander plan the queen-cells 

 are all produced artificially, as explained 

 above. By the way, the brood- nest above 

 the excluder is one of the finest places to get 

 cells finished after they have been started in 

 the queenless colony. A ten-day-old cell 

 should be ready to give the brood four days 

 before it is set on the permanent stand. In 

 this way the young queen is ready to fly the 

 first day after the division is made, and she 

 becomes a laying queen in another week. 



We made up some winter losses by the 

 Alexander plan of increase just at the com- 



mencement of the clover flow. In this case 

 the brood-nests were all ready, some having 

 honey where the bees had died before it was 

 consumed. The queen and one frame of 

 brood were put in the center of one of these 

 sets of brood-combs, and a queen-excluder 

 was put on top; then the brood and bees 

 were set over this so that all were on the old 

 stand. In one week a ripe cell was given 

 the bees in the upper body, and on the elev- 

 enth day this upper body was set on a stand 

 of its own with a virgin queen ready to fly 

 the first favorable day. This worked well, 

 for all were in good shape for winter, there 

 being no weak inferior cohmies likely to be 

 robbed out at any time. There was one objec- 

 tion, however — the plan was expensive. It 

 can be seen that a set of brood-combs to be 

 filled with brood and honey is equivalent to 

 a set of frames containing the best clover or 

 raspberry honey, and this amount of honey 

 would be worth about $4.50. It is evident 

 that we could go into the market and buy 

 bees for less money than this. 



Our next plan was to wait until near the 

 close of the clover season, when the honey- 

 flow would last but a few days longer, it hav- 

 ing already begun to slacken. At this time 

 the plan just described was carried out, and 

 it worked better, for it gave the advantage 

 of the honey- flow in which to have the cells 

 prepared and introduced, and it allowed also 

 the colonies to get in a little honey so that 

 they would be in very good shape, but of 

 course short of stores, although they usually 

 would have enough to last them until the 

 time to feed up with sugar syrup for winter. 



While some of our winter loss is still made 

 up on this last plan we have another plan 

 that we like better. At the commencement 

 of the honey-flow the division is made and 

 the cell is given in four days, and the brood 

 set off on its own stand on the eighth day 

 after the division. At this time the brood is 

 all capped so that there is no loss there. 

 While this method takes three days more of 

 hatching bees away from the colony that is 

 left on the old stand, which is our honey- 

 gatherer, we make two colonies from 

 the brood by dividing it in the middle, 

 giving each half an equal part of the bees, 

 brood, and combs of honey. Each half is 

 also given a ripe queen-cell; and although 

 one of them will have the virgin and will, 

 therefore, destroy the cell, it saves work in 

 the end and is the better way. By making 

 these nuclei of the divided brood early, they 

 breed up rapidly and make just as good col- 

 onies for winter as if the brood had not been 

 divided. There is this difference, however; 

 that is, brood not divided in halves in the 

 way I described might have enough stores 

 for winter, while the two halves of the divid- 

 ed brood would have to be fed some syrup 

 to carry them over to the next season. 



While this latter plan costs only half as 

 much honey in the first place as does the 

 plan first described under the heading, "The 

 Alexander Plan of Making Increas," yet 

 more sugar has to be fed for wintor stores, 

 but not enough more to offset what is gain- 



