May 1. 1912 



When it appears that the harvest will soon 

 close, the top super is not put down. It is 

 left on top where the bees can work in it if 

 they really need more room. There is less 

 danger then that crowiliiig will induce 

 swarming, and swarming thus late will not 

 interefere .so much with the harvest. 



I have tried j)utting the most advanced 

 super further down from the top in order to 

 have it finished sooner; but I'm not certain 

 there is any thing gained by it. The bees 

 finish about as fast on top, and a sujjer that 

 has from two to five supers under it is not 

 likely lo have its sections darkened by bits 

 of dark wax from the brood-combs. 



Marengo, 111. 



LESSONS LEARNED FROM MISTAKES IN BEE- 

 KEEPING 



The Danger of Trying to Make Increase Too Rap- 

 idly 



BY W. A. DUNTON, M. D. 



Mistakes have often been more instructive 

 for the guidance of others than proper pro- 

 cedures, because, when all the dangrrs are 

 known, it is easy to steer clear of them. 

 That others may profit, I will relate a few 

 of my own mistakes in beekeeping. 



Much of my trouble was caused because 

 of an eager desire to increase the number of 

 colonies too rapidly. I divided one of my 

 best colonies by removing four frames, bees 

 and all, to a new* location. 1 intended to 

 leave the queen on the old stand; but, in- 

 stead, I took her with the nucleus. The re- 

 sult was that the old workers returned, and 

 she was left with too few bees, and it requir- 

 ed a long time to build up again. The hon- 

 ey-flow being good, and the bees in the old 

 colony very numerous, they built drone 

 comb rapidly, even on the lower half of full 

 sheets of foundation. They made ten 

 queen-cells on one comb besides several on 

 another. Here was my o])portunity. I 

 shook off every bee, carefully cut out the 

 queen-cells, fitted two into each of four 

 combs, made five nuclei of two combs each, 

 with all adhering bees, placed each comb 

 containing the cells between the other tw^o 

 in each nucleus, closing the entrance with 

 grass in accordance with the Somerford plan. 



One lot was suffocated; two others lived, 

 but built no queen-cells, while two only, out 

 of the five, raised queens and lived by dint 

 of constant additions of brood and honey. 



Examining them I found all ten of the 

 queens dead (I had shaken them to death 

 while so carefully removing the bees before 

 cutting out the cells). 



HOW LAYING WORKERS WERE GOTTEN RID 

 OF. 



The bees of one of the two that hatched 

 queens became excited one day when I 

 opened them, and killed their queen before 

 she had laid an egg. Discovering this a few- 

 days later I gave them a frame of brood 

 from which they hatched another queen. 



283 



This queen was killed in the same mannei. 

 I gave them another frame of brood, and 

 they capped over all the brood but started 

 no queen-cells. 



On my next visit I found a few eggs scat- 

 tered around irregularly over two of the 

 combs. Thinking this was .something new 

 I examined them again in a week, and the 

 cells containing the eggs had been raised up 

 into drone-cells; and the fact that I had lay- 

 ing workers slowly dawned upon me. I 

 shook every bee out of the hive, 200 feet 

 away, and then gave them another frame of 

 eggs and brood. They refused to raise a 

 queen, and the drone-eggs kept coming. I 

 then united them with another colony, and 

 had no more trouble. 



MUTILATED DRONE BROOD LEFT IN THE 

 COMBS. 



I had a good colony which had been taken 

 from the side of a house with great difficul- 

 ty, and which had been installed in a hive 

 with a superful of full sheets of foundation 

 draw'n out and partly filled with honey. 

 The brood-chamber was full of brood, and 

 every thing was booming. "Now is the 

 time," thought I, "to make two colonies 

 out of one." I gave the super to the colony 

 on the old stand, carefully shook off all the 

 bees except a few young ones, shaved off the 

 heads of all the drone brood, and turned the 

 new hive at right angles to the old hive. 



In two weeks they had reared a queen, 

 and the hive was packed with bees, but 

 there was no honey. The drones had putri- 

 fied in their cells, and the young bees had 

 not been able to carry them out. The odor 

 was suggestive of the smell of a fertilizer 

 factory. However, in time they cleaned all 

 the ceils and the hive was sweet again. .Just 

 at this time the nectar failed and I had to 

 feed both colonies. 



A LARGE SWARM LOST. 



In another apiary five colonies were plae- 

 ed close together, two of them above the 

 other three. I moved one of the upper ones 

 away, and the returning bees went into the 

 strongest of the lower colonies that was al- 

 ready full of bees, and two days later a large 

 swarm departed for parts unknown. The re- 

 moval of three or four frames of brood from 

 the strong colony would have saved my nice 

 sw-arm; but that is another example of one 

 of those touching events in human life men- 

 tioned by Whittier in his poem " Maud Mnl- 

 ler" — "it might have been." 



TOO MITCH ROOM A DISADVANTAGE. 



Shaking all the bees from the combs of a 

 strong colony I placed the brood over a 

 small queenless stock. However, the hon- 

 ey-flow was poor in that vicinity, and the 

 bees had twice as much room as they need- 

 ed all summer. They should have been 

 given four frames of brood, and treated as a 

 nucleus in a single brood-chamber withomt 

 a super. 



I gave supers to several weak colonies, 

 and thereby put the bees back by giving 

 them too much sjiace to keep warm, there- 

 by curtailing brood-rearing. 



