700 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 1 



ous. I use full sheets of medium brood founda- 

 tion, but I cut it down so that it does not reach 

 the end-bars by half an inch, or the bottom-bar 

 by ^4- inch. The whole secret seems to be in 

 giving these full sheets to the bees, and I do this 

 by inserting one frame at a time in the center of 

 my hives, allowing the bees to have an equal 

 force on both sides of the foundation at the same 

 time. If foundation should touch the end-bars 

 the bees would proceed to fasten it before it 

 could hang plumb. 



Some one may ask, "How about extracting 

 from such combs.?" I would not extract from 

 them at all, but would work new combs into the 

 brood-chamber and always extract from combs 

 that had been used for brood at least one sea- 

 son. In shipping nuclei I select such combs as 

 have seen at least one year's service, and I have 

 never had reported a single instance of a comb 

 breaking down. 



I have also considered it desirable to have my 

 combs built to the bottom-bars. To accom- 

 plish this I cut a good comb lengthwise into 

 strips about yk inch wide, using a sharp thin- 

 bladed knife. I then lay a comb on its side and 

 trim off about % inch from the bottom, and then 

 insert one of the strips and place it in the second 

 story of the hive during a honey-flow, and 

 within 24 hours the work is completed. On this 

 plan I have a stock of combs that are more beau- 

 tiful than anv wired combs I have ever seen. 



Indianapolis, Ind., April 25, 1908. 



THE IMPORTANCE OF HAVING 



QUEEN -CELLS FINISHED BY 



STRONG COLONIES. 



BY JOHN M. DAVIS. 



I do not wish to pose as a critic; but I beg to 

 call attention to Mr. Wm. W. Case's method of 

 keeping "the apiary supplied with a class of 

 queens having no superior on earth," page 363. 

 His selection of breeding stock is good, but the 

 after-manipulation is ruinous. He says, "When 

 they swarm, remove to a new stand the hive 

 from which the swarm issued. Hive the swarm on 

 the old stand, giving it, say, three combs ..f brood 

 from the old stock." First, if I were going to 

 use the queen-cells (swarming-cells) from a hive 

 from which a swarm had issued I would add bees 

 to it rather than move it off the old stand and 

 thus deprive it of the field bees that should re- 

 turn to it. Not satisfied with thus depopulating 

 t;ie cell-building colony, Mr. C. takes three 

 combs of brood from them and gives to the new 

 swarm, and does not even tell us to shake all the 

 bees from these combs back into the parent hive. 

 Not satisfied with this second depletion of the 

 cell-builders' force, he then divides the remainder 

 into three nuclei and keeps them building queen- 

 cells for the next seven days. I would not use a 

 queen-cell from a hive thus moved from the old 

 stand and weakened after swarming, to say noth- 

 ing of dividing it up, as does Mr. C, and allow- 

 ing these small nuclei, in their weakened state, to 

 care for queen-cells seven or any number of days. 

 If you desire to use such cells, do not fail to keep 



the old hive full of bees, and do not divide it into 

 nuclei until seven or eight days after swarming; 

 then you will have queens that are serviceable, 

 and developed under favorable conditions. These 

 surplus cells can then be removed safely and giv- 

 en to other nuclei, as they will be (as a queen- 

 breeder would say) ripe. In this condition they 

 can be handled with much less damage to the in- 

 mates. The owner of half a dozen colonies can 

 use this method as well as the extensive breeder. 

 The latter, however, necessarily does not depend 

 on swarming-cells. An unripe queen-cell should 

 never be placed in a nucleus. I often have the 

 young queens emerging from cells while distrib- 

 uting them to nuclei. These queens have had 

 the benefit of very strong colonies from start to 

 finish. Long experience has taught me that this 

 method develops the best queens. 



CLIPPING queens" wings. 



Lean the comb against the hive; catch the 

 queen's wing betvveen the thumb and index fin- 

 ger of the left hand; place the point of the scissors 

 against the index finger, with the wing between 

 the blades, and cut. The queen clings to the 

 comb, and there is no danger of amputating the 

 leg. 



TWO QUEENS IN A TEN-FRAME HIVE WITH A 

 SOLID DIVISION-BOARD, PAGE 372. 



For many years I have used a thin division- 

 board in ten-frame hives in early spring to secure 

 an abundance of nurse bees for building queen- 

 cells. A zinc excluder is fastened to the top of 

 the division-board by small bent wire nails so it 

 can be removed at will, and brood from the 

 brood-chamber exchanged for combs from which 

 the brood has mostly hatched in the super. This 

 gives practically ten combs for each queen, and 

 at the same time keeps the increase in one two- 

 story hive, giving the best conditions for cell- 

 building in a super a la Doolittle. After the 

 season is so far ndvanced that one queen and her 

 bees can keep the proper strength for this work, 

 one queen and the division-board are removed. 

 1 have lost but one queen by this method, and 

 this was from a defect in ihe division-board. 

 When first prepared I place one sheet of newspa- 

 per on the excluder; punch a few small holes 

 through it so that a few bees can come up from 

 either side of the division-board. Next I select 

 good worker combs partly filled with honey; 

 bruise some of the cappings and place them in 

 the super. The bees will remove the honey from 

 the bruised combs to the lower chamber, work- 

 ing peacefully together. The paper will soon be 

 cut away by the bees, and it will be practically 

 one colony of bees, and the exchange of combs 

 can be commenced and queen-cells given them, 

 after having been started by either of the meth- 

 ods practiced by queen-breeders. I can see no rea- 

 son for wishing to keep two or more queens in a 

 ten-frame hive after the season has so far advanced 

 that colonies should be practically strong, unless 

 it should be thai there were some colonies too 

 weak to work in supers. In that case the two 

 queens can remain, and their progeny store honey 

 in the same super. Any queen unable to keep a 

 ten-frame hive full of brood should have her head 

 pinched. 



Spring Hill, Tenn, 



