NOVEMBER 15, 1913 



805 



alized to such an extent that it falls an easy 

 victim to robbers, or the smoke may cause 

 the bees to fall upon the queen and kill her. 

 It isn't necessary to get robbing started by 

 performing such a simple operation as 

 smoking in a queen. We want the bees de- 

 moralized. That is why we use smoke ; that 

 is where the success of introducing comes in. 



If you have certain favorable conditions 

 to introduce queens by the method you have 

 been using, you get good results. By the 

 smoke method, I get perfect results under 

 almost any conditions. Even laying work- 

 ers will accept a queen. You can run a 

 queen into a colony that already has a 

 queen by smoke, and the bees will kill the 

 old queen, and accept the newly smoked-in 

 queen. 



Only yesterday, Oct. 27, one of my 

 friends, a beekeeper, said, " Marchant, that 

 smoke plan of introducing is the greatest 

 plan on earth to introduce a queen. You 

 remember that old virgin you gave me? 

 Well, I smoked her into a colony that had 

 laying workers which had refused to accept 

 a laying queen that was given them with 

 lots of her young bees. They accepted the 

 virgin all right. I saw her an hour after 

 smoking her in, and also two weeks after. 

 But, unfortunately, the weather was so bad 

 she could not get out to mate; so I killed 

 her and smoked in a laying queen, which is 

 doing well." 



I conscientiously recommend the smoke 

 method to beginners and amateurs. By in- 

 troducing by this method, which I use en- 

 tii'ely, one will succeed 95 times in 100 under 

 almost any conditions. 



Medina, Ohio. 



NEW PRINCIPLES IN SECTION-HONEY PRO- 

 DUCTION 



BY J. E. HAND 



Section-honey producers have long rec- 

 ognized the fact that bees have a decided 

 antipathy against beginning work in sec- 

 tions, even when full sheets of foundation 

 are given. This trait is so strong in some 

 colonies that they will sulk and loaf, and 

 actually refuse to enter sections, until com- 

 pelled to do so by force of numbers. This 

 is not to be wondered at when we consider 

 that the space in section supers is chopped 

 up into ridiculously small divisions, and in- 

 terspersed with and intersected with pieces 

 of wood in the form of separators, and the 

 vertical sides of sections. 



This abnormal condition breaks up the 

 cluster, interferes with their method of ven- 

 tilation, and breeds discontent among the 

 bees, which is quite likely to result in exces- 



sive swarming since it is during this period 

 of enforced idleness that the swarming fe- 

 ver is usually contracted. When once con- 

 tracted, the fever will usually run its allotted 

 course. While we may, by curtailing their 

 efforts and frustrating their plans, discour- 

 age swarming, the chances are even that 

 we have likeAvise discouraged honey produc- 

 tion, lost control of our bees psychological- 

 ly, and, tlierefore, made serious inroads 

 uiDon our crop. For a condition of discon- 

 tent among bees is not conducive to best 

 results in honey production. 



A NECESSARY EVIL AND A SUGGESTED REMEDY. 



Since the abnormal conditions just de- 

 scribed are imperative, and can not well be 

 dispensed with in the successful production 

 of section honey, a i^owerful influence must 

 be exercised over the bees in order to over- 

 come their antipathy against existing condi- 

 tions within the storing-chamber, as well as 

 an incentive so powerful as to induce them 

 to enter the sections readily and eagerly. 



It is well known tiiat empty combs are a 

 great incentive to induce bees to begin work 

 in sujiers; hence they will enter extracting- 

 supers more readily, and swarm less than 

 with section supers when full sheets of foun- 

 dation are given. Many have profited by 

 this eccentricity by using bait sections filled 

 with partly drawn combs carried over from 

 the previous season, Avhile others use an 

 empty extracting-comb on each side. The 

 objections to this plan, as we see it, are, 

 first, the harvesting of two different prod- 

 ucts in the same super introduces undesir- 

 able complications, and occupies room that 

 should be devoted to comb-honey produc- 

 tion, especially since select colonies are usu- 

 ally chosen for tliis purpose. Second, it 

 does not overcome the antipathy of bees 

 against drawing out foundation. Concern- 

 ing bait sections, while they evidently have 

 some influence in inducing bees to enter 

 sections, the incentive is not strong enough 

 to outweigh their antipathies; hence it occa- 

 sionally happens that the bait sections are 

 the only ones in the super that are finished. 

 In tins case the others present a forlorn and 

 dilapidated appearance as the result of an 

 attempt on the part of the bees to remove 

 the foundation as so much waste matter. 

 This fact, coupled with the knowledge tliat 

 fancy and No. 1 honey are seldom found in 

 bait sections, is sufficient to prohibit their 

 use. After testing each of these methods in 

 turn, we discarded them both as being in- 

 effieient, ineffective, and totally inadequate 

 to our needs. 



ON THE BIGHT TRACK. 



Being thus thrown upon our own re- 

 sources we began to cast about to discover 

 some method that would enable us to over- 



