left, and put in their places either empty 

 combs or frames of comb foundation. Then 

 we put on a queen-excluding honey-board, 

 and above it another bodv, uniform in size, 

 in which all the removed combs, together 

 with the brood and adhering bees, are plac- 

 ed. A ^-inch entrance and exit hole should 

 be made in the upper part; for as fast as 

 these combs become emi)ty by hatching 

 brood, the bees will proceed to fill them with 

 honey, and they soon learn to use this up- 

 ])er entranceand save much time by its use. 

 Besides, it gives ventilation and allows the 

 expulsion of drones, which otherwise might 

 clog the excluder, and smother the inmates 

 of the upper story. 



The queen being confined to the lower 

 story she has plenty of room to go on with 

 her egg-laying, and she will soon have it 

 filled with brood, thus makingfaster increase 

 in numbers and strength than otherwise 

 would have been possible, and the increased 

 room given justat this time will usually dis- 

 pel any intention or tendency to swarm. 



The main advantage given by this system 

 lies in the fact that the bees will invariably 

 proceed to store quicker and more abundant- 

 ly in this upper story than they can be in- 

 duced to do in supers of sections arranged 

 for comb honey. But in this case, of course, 

 this honey must be removed by extracting, 

 and this explains why much more extracted 

 honey may be produced than sections of 

 comb honey. 



This also affords an excellent opportunity 

 to produce some young queens. When the 

 division is made, jilace over the excluder, 

 for twenty-four hours, a complete cut-off, 

 consisting of a sheet of wire netting, or even 

 a cloth or heavy paper. This renders the 

 bees above actually queenless for this short 

 period, which causes them to start queen- 

 cells freely, which they will continue to care 

 for after the cut-off" is removed, and these 

 may be cut out and caged, or given to other 

 colonies or to nuclei on the tenth day, and 

 without any loss of time on the part of the 

 bees or breeding queen. 



Do this only with the best breeders, and 

 put a nice sealed cell in a cell-protector, in 

 place of the black, hybrid, or old and ques- 

 tionable queens, and you will requeen with 

 as little expense and waste of time as is pos- 

 sible. These young queens are always ac- 

 cepted whenever they hatch within a hive, 

 and you are saved the trouble and risk of 

 introducing queens. Then, even if some of 

 these should mate with black drones, if 

 bred from a pure-blooded mother their drone 

 progeny will be pure next year, when the 

 oi)eration may be rei^eated with chances of 

 mismating greatly diminished. Young 

 vigorous queens, raised from selected moth- 

 ers, are a strong factor to success in bee- 

 keeping. 



The process described above has also prov- 

 ed with us a complete cure for European 

 foul brood, the infected combs being cleaned 

 out and tilled with honey, and the queen 

 com])elled to use only new clean combs for 

 brood purposes. 



Factoryville, Pa. 



Gleanings in Bee Culture 



THE SWARMING IMPULSE NOT CAUSED BY 

 ANY ONE CONDITION. 



BY R. F. HOLTERMANN. 



In my estimation the swarming problem 

 will not have much light thrown on it by 

 efforts to confine the causes under one head. 

 I have no doubt that the control of swarm- 

 ing, or, rather, the prevention of the desire 

 for swarming, in powerful colonies, without 

 reducing the numerical strength, either at 

 the moment of or during the future of the 

 honey-flow, is the capstone of successful 

 bee-keeping. 



The successful solution of this problem 

 makes it possible to keep more colonies, to 

 have them scattered, to take a honey crop 

 with less labor and anxiety, and to get a 

 larger surplus crop (if there is a surplus) 

 than can be obtained through swarming. 

 From this I except a tropical country with 

 a honey-flow the year round; but I do not 

 except in our own country an average year 

 with a light and dark honey-flow no further 

 apart than clover and buckwheat. In many 

 localities keeping down swarming makes 

 possible more successful and uniform win- 

 tering as well as, in some seasons, the differ- 

 ence between a honey crop and a failure. 



VARIETIES OF BEES. 



With the black or German bees, Italians, 

 Carniolan, Cyprians, and Holy Land bees 

 there is a marked difference as to disposi- 

 tion to swarm (I will not include Caucasians, 

 as I am acquainted with them only by hear- 

 say and sight. I can not find that they 

 have any superiority over Carniolans. Even 

 a breeder of Caucasians privately advised 

 me to stick to the Carniolans). Of all the 

 varieties mentioned, the Holy Land and 

 Cyprian bees are the most prone to swarm. 

 I know of what I write, for I spent two years 

 with D. A. .Jones, of Beeton, Ontario, when 

 these bees were first imported into America. 

 The Italians, as a variety, are, perhaps, on 

 the whole the least inclined to swarm. But 

 the bees the least apt to swarm are not nec- 

 essarily the best for the bee-keeper who can 

 control swarming. 



CONTRACTED ROOM. 



My first attempt to keep Carniolan bee^ 

 was an overwhelming failure. It was in the 

 days of eight-frame Langstroth hives, and 

 with the contraction of the brood-chamber 

 for comb honey, which is something Carni- 

 olans will not stand, I found that it was use- 

 less to attempt to keep these bees for profit 

 under such conditions. 



SMALL ENTRANCES. 



I have had a, colony of Carniolan bees 

 swarm when they had only about half filled 

 a twelve-frame Langstroth brood chamber 

 having eight combs, and two of these yet 

 empty, and they were headed by a previous 

 autumn's Carniolan queen. A careful study 

 of the conditions did not reveal supersedure 

 nor any thing else, except that we had hot 

 weather while the bees were packed, and 

 thev had a very small entrance on account 

 of the fact that the colonv had been only a 



