May 1. 1912 



We split seven of the strongest colonies 

 right in two in the middle, as nearly as \ve 

 could. Of course the larger part of the 

 brood nearest ready to hatch was placed in 

 the hives on the new stands, with the great- 

 er part of the worker bees. In this case we 

 left the queens at home on the old stands. 

 Of course all the old lield workers would 

 come back to the old places, and that was 

 just what we wanted, because right here we 

 safely introduced seven Italian queens of 

 the J. P. Moore strain. The last colonies 

 divided soon became strong. 



When we had done dividing we found we 

 had ol colonies; but the queen of one of the 

 hives was not laying as well as we be- 

 lieved she ought to, and so we killed her 

 and attempted to introduce an Italian queen 

 but failed. We then united this queenless 

 colony with one of the weakest in the yard, 

 which reducetl the number to 30 colonies. I 

 really believe that, if we had put young 

 queens in the ([ueenless parts as fast as we 

 divided, we could have easily increased to 

 50 strong colonies from one. 



Only 23 colonies can be seen in the pic- 

 ture: but there were thirty in all. Out of 

 21 colonies that Mr. Fort wintered out of 

 doors by my system, 20 were alive last 

 spring, and out of 9 that he put in the cel- 

 lar, 7 lived through. The mice killed the 

 two that tlied in the cellar, and he would 

 have lost all in the cellar if he had not set 

 traps and caught the mice. As it was, he 

 had 27 strong colonies left last spring — a 

 good showing for a beginner. One of these 

 swarmed April 26, 1911. I doubt if this 

 ever happened before in this northern coun- 

 ty of Xew York (Rensselaer). Nineteen 

 colonies were put in non-swarming hives, 

 such as I mentioned, and the remainder 

 were run for increase. Those run for honey 

 had to build all of the surplus combs and 

 half of the combs in the brood part; but 

 they gathered over a ton of honey. 



Troy, N. Y. 



INCH BLOCKS UNDER BROOD CHAMBER DID 

 NOT STOP AN AUGUST SWARM 



BY G. J. WIMMEK 



277 



I am sending you a picture of a swarm of 

 bees cast Aug. 22. You will notice it is 

 quite a large bunch. My hand is complete- 

 ly covered with them, and they extend al- 

 most to the ground. The hive and supers 

 from which the swarm issued was so crowd- 

 ed that I placed inch Vjlocks under the four 

 corners of the hive, and yet they were clus- 

 tering all around the outside in "large num- 

 bers until the swarm finally came out. 



Nazareth, Pa. 



— -^♦-•^ 



AN INGENIOUS EXTENSION POLE FOR A 

 SWARM CATCHER 



BY W. A. PRYAl, 



I am sending you herewith a i)hotograph 

 of our ingenious and witty friend S. A. 

 Niver, now of this city, but until last year 



S. A. Xiver and his telescopic extension-pole 

 swarm-catcher. 



of Colerain, Wis. Mr. Niver worked my 

 apiary last season after the beginning of 

 April, and we secured a fair crop of honey, 

 nearly all of which we disposed of at good 

 prices. The apiary was increased and put 

 in good working order for this season. 



Mr. Niver reminds me much of our old 

 friend the late J. H. Martin, known to your 

 readers about a decade ago as " llambler." 

 Their make-up is about the same, save that 

 the latter was not so tall l)y a good deal; 

 and he is a great joker, as many who have 

 attended Eastern conventions, which he 

 probal)ly graced with his presence, well 

 know. But it is of him as an inventor that 

 I started to write. Last season he brought 

 out a number of new contrivances, possibly 

 because he thought conditions here de- 

 manded some things difTerent from what 

 he used in the Kast. ( )ne of his labor-sav- 

 ing conveniences, and the only one I shall 



