1909 



GLEANINGS IN BKK CULTURE. 



173 



reach, and, owing to the cold weather, can not 

 get to the food that may be at the further end of 

 the hive. Prolonged cold weather has caused 

 losses indirectly, though in this case the bees were 

 really starved. 



The difficult task in this vicinity is not the 

 wintering, but to have strong colonies by the be- 

 ginning of the main honey-tiow, which begins in 

 this neighborhood with the dandelion. May 12 

 to 15, and lasts about two weeks. By July 5 the 

 honey-riow is over so far as surplus is concerned, 

 and we are content if the colonies gather from 

 that date what they need for maintenance and 

 the next winter. What makes the task difficult 

 is that we are about 2500 ft. above sea-level, and 

 quite close to the Alps; consequently we have, 

 late in the spring, very inclement weather; cold 

 nins, and even snowfalls at the time when the 

 dandelion is in bloom, are not uncommon. I do 

 not desire extra- populous colonies, as the surplus 

 from such strong colonies falls very often short 

 of expectation. Medium colonies with a good 

 proportion of field-workers are what I prefer. 

 Bijtween the middle of May and 1st of June I 

 ofien reduce the number of frames allowed the 

 queen for brood-rearing. This would probably 

 be quite wrong iip your country; but with me it 

 I as been satisfactory. The intelligent bee-keep- 

 er must adapt his practice to the flora of his lo- 

 cality — to the sources of nectar in reach of his 

 bees. 



Stoetten, Bavaria, Jan. 13. 



OUEEN-EXCLUDERS. 



Wire vs. Zinc; What Can be Expected of 

 Wire Excluders? 



BY E. D. TOWNSEND. 



For the last few years, in a part of our yards 

 we have been using zinc excluders to quite an ex- 

 tent in the production of extracted honey, and 

 we would use them on all of our extracted-honey 

 colonies were it not for the fact that a season of 

 excessive swarming comes about one year in 

 three, so that at our outyards, where no one is 

 present to hive the swarms, there is considerable 

 loss, even when as large a hive as a ten-frame 

 Langstroth is used for a brood-nest. The loss 

 merely of the swarms is not the total loss by any 

 means, for bees when preparing to swarm do not 

 work with the same vigor as do those colonies 

 that do not acquire the swarming fever during 

 the honey-flow, but keep on piling in the stores. 

 These years of excessive ssvarming have caused us 

 to work out a system of manipulating our upper 

 stories so as to get along without excluders, and 

 still have but little brood in the upper story at 

 extracting time. This system, however, has been 

 described in previous issues so it will not be nec- 

 essary to go over the same ground again. 



We do not think there is much difference in 

 the amount of honey stored, whether an excluder 

 is used or not, with the exception, as I mention- 

 ed before, of the years when there is excessive 

 swarming. It is true that there will be a little 

 more honey in the upper stories where no exclud- 

 er is used; but, on the other hand, there will be 

 more honey in the brood-nest when the excluder 

 is used. This extra amount of honey in the 



brood-nest is the principal cause of the swarming 

 fever, because the queen is crowded This is 

 especially true if the bees are three-banded. Hy- 

 brids carry their stores above more freely than 

 the pure Italians. 



The zinc queen-excluder really amounts to a 

 horizontal division-board; and, although the 

 workers may move back and forth from one 

 "story to the other at will, still there is a division 

 between the two parts. As every one knows, 

 when a queen-excluder separates two stories the 

 bees will build queen-cells and develop a laying 

 queen in the upper story if there is brood present 

 and a fly-hole provided so the young queen can 

 take her mating flight; and if the bees are let 

 alone, two normal colonies will be the result, 

 both of which use the one common entrance. 



This proves to me that the bets regard an ex- 

 cluder as" the top of the hive; but when they get 

 their hive full of honey and brood they will 

 crowd above and store honey in the upper pan, 

 just as they would store honey in combs hung i i 

 a portico; and as long as the honey keeps coming 

 in they might store nearly as much in a portico 

 in front as in the story above. The fact that 

 more honey is stored in the brood nest under an 

 excluder convinces me that, if we put enough ob 

 structions between the brood nest and the surplus 

 receptacle, swarming will be the result in every 

 instance. At any rate, about every third year, 

 as I said before, we have as many as taventy per 

 cent of the colonies swarm where excluders of the 

 zinc type are used, even though there are plenty 

 of drawn combs above. 



The new wood wire excluder has a little more 

 opening than the zinc, but it is a question in my 

 mind whether there are enough more openings to 

 make any difference in the amount of honey 

 ScOred above or in the number of swarms that 

 issue. 



As I mentioned at the first, it seems to me that 

 we do not realize the full value of a wire excluder 

 in the drone-trap entrance-guard, or even in the 

 wood-wire excluder. I think we should use an 

 all-~vire excluder. With such a honey-board we 

 should expect to find no congestion of the brood- 

 nest caused by the reluctance of the bets in work- 

 ing through the excluder, for it looks to me a"» 

 though there would be so very little obstruction 

 that the results would be the same as if theie 

 were no excluder at all between the hive and up- 

 per story. A woven-wire construction, so to 

 speak, the bees would not notice, and it would 

 be so open that they would cluster over it as if 

 there were nothing there, and there would be no 

 cells built above it either, even though there were 

 young brood in the upper story. To my mind 

 this would indicate that the colony was in a nor- 

 mal condition as a whole; in other words, that it 

 would be the same as though no excluder were 

 used. Under these conditions I think there 

 would be no more swarming with the wire-ex- 

 cluder than without if the proper size of brood- 

 nest were used. 



Remus, Michigan. 



[The wire excluder not only gives more open- 

 ing, but, what is of still greater importance, it 

 has no sharp burr-edges like a punched metal. It 

 is these sharp edges in the old excluders that ob- 

 struct the bees to some extent. — Ed.] 



