AUGUST 15, 1913 



579 



As for the time required, I find that, at 

 the close of the honey-flow, when combs are 

 almost capped, that 24 hours is quite prac- 

 tical. I have put the escapes on early in the 

 morning- and found the combs free of bees 

 by evening. As a colony requires seven or 

 eight hours to realize its queenlessness, just 

 so a few hours must elapse before the bees 

 in the super feel their seiDaration. Then the 

 escape works rapidly. 



The peculiar adaptation of the screen oc- 

 curred to me while using a screen frame in 

 connection with cell-getting. I advise the 

 use of galvanized wire cloth on account of 

 its durability. 



To give you what I consider the supreme 

 test of this wire-cloth-escape frame, please 

 note: Through some carelessness in manip- 

 ulating, a queen had possession of two 

 twelve-frame supers in a powerful colony; 

 and as I did not wish to take the time to 

 shake the bees oif the combs, and thinking 

 it would be a most rigid test, I put an escape 

 frame in the place of the queen-excluder. 

 Tliirty-six hours later I found the queen 

 among a lot of newly hatched workers, and, 

 of course, the drones. I have fifty of these 

 escape frames in use, and I intend making 

 fifty more for next season. I am running 

 225 colonies, twelve-frame Langstroth hives, 

 entirely for extracted honey. 



Jarvis, Ont., Canada. 



[See editorial. — Ed.] 



BUILDING COMBS OUTSIDE OF THE HIVE 



BY A. I. ROOT 



Oue of our men who has been out buying 

 honey reports ll:at he found a beekeeper 

 near Columbus Grove, Putnam Co., Ohio, 

 who had over 100 colonies; but he was so 

 ''busy with something else" that he had 

 not had time to look after his bees, and the 

 result was they filled all their supers, then 

 clustered outside of the hive, and there built 

 combs and stored honey. The well-filled and 

 capped sections had been left on the hive 

 until they were so travel-stained that the 

 honey was any thing but first-class. 



The above incident reminds me of some- 

 thing that hai^pened years ago. A beekeep- 

 er with toward a hundred colonies lived 

 three or four miles from Medina. I sold 

 him some modern hives and fixtures, in- 

 cluding an extractor; and one season when 

 we were having our great flood of honey 

 I thought I would run over and see what 

 Mr. Pratt was doing. He had not used the 

 extractor at all, although his liives and up- 

 per stories were crammed full of honey. 

 He gave as an excuse that his farmwork 



was so crowding that he had not had time to 

 " fuss with bees." I asked him what farm- 

 work. He said his corn had to be cultivat- 

 ed. I told him the honey he had lost was 

 worth twice over the produce of his whole 

 cornfield, even if he had a big crop. He 

 could not believe it. Then I showed him 

 what we had extracted from about the same 

 number of hives. Finally he said, " Why, 

 would j'ou advise me to let the cornfield 

 grow up to weeds'?" 



" Certainly," said T. 



" Why, what would the neighbors tlrink 

 and say ? " 



" Mr. Pratt, I would not care a cent what 

 the neighbors say; and, besides, when those 

 same neighbors saw you taking a couple 

 of tons of beautiful honey they might not 

 say any very bad thing's after all." 



The moral to the above is, what is the use 

 of being a beekeeper if you do not " have 

 your dish right side up when it rains por- 

 ridge " ? 



STRAY SWARMS SHOULD BE HIVED ON 

 STARTERS 



Danger of Foul Brood 



BY A. H. SNOWBEEGEI? 



I wish to give a word of caution to bee- 

 keepers about a matter that has given me 

 much concern and uneasiness during the 

 last few months; and that is, hiving stray 

 swarms. 



Late last season a very small stray swarm 

 clustered on a neighbor's hay-loader while 

 he was at the barn unloading hay. I was 

 sent for, post haste. I was glad to have the 

 bees, as my apiary was much reduced by 

 the previous winter's loss. There was not 

 over a quart of bees, and I supposed it was 

 a very late after-swarm with a virgin queen. 

 I hived them on empty combs, and gave 

 them a comb of hatching brood ; but I "soon 

 found that they liad a laying queen and not 

 a \argin. By feeding and giving another 

 comb of brood later, I built them up into a 

 fair-sized colony, and wintered them; but 

 as soon as they commenced brood-rearing 

 in the spring I noticed something wrong 

 with the brood. I kept them under obser- 

 vation, thinking that they would soon be all 

 right. But instead, they got worse. 



I had never seen foul brood; but from 

 descriptions I had read I diagnosed it as 

 foul brood, and a bad case at that. The 

 queen seemed to be a moderately prolific 

 layer; but so much brood died that the in- 

 crease was slow. Finally I shook the bees 

 into a clean hive, having only half-inch 

 starters, and burned their combs, frames, 

 and brood, and disinfected the hive. At the 



