Nov. 16. 190S 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



791 



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 Special drticles 



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Methods of Bee-Management in Idaho 



BY K. F. ATWATER 



MK. tiETAZ, in his mention of my methods and system on 

 page 727, has inferred a little more (from an article in 

 the Review) than the facts, and two more years of ex- 

 perience have somewhat changed my practice. 



About half of our bees are now run for comb honey. We 

 continue to winter them in open sheds facing south, or else 

 pile them up in a long row, and protect the rear and top with 

 tar-paper. In this section (Boise Valley) high winds are rare, 

 and for low average wind velocity there are few places to 

 compare with it. One bee-yard is wintered on the summer 

 stands, as they are in a very sheltered locatioL. 



For comb honey we use the 8-frame standard hive, some- 

 times 1^4 or 2 stories high, but mostly 1 story at all times. 

 For extracted honey we have mostly 10-frame Langstroth 

 hives, but the bee? are often wintered in 114 stories, and what 

 strong colonies they contain in the spring ! 



There are serious objections to the use of a very largo 

 frame (Dadant), but if the use of the 10-frame Draper barns 

 could be relied on to control swarming, I would use them. A 

 friend has 80 colonies in 13-frame Dadant hives, but they will 

 swarm at times. 



I have 2000 plain, shallow extracting frames hanging on 

 nails, but they have not come up to my expectations. My 

 helpers always despise them. 



For comb-honey hives we use Hoffman frames almost en- 

 tirely, and if I were to begin again, I think the Hoffman frame 

 would be best, even for extracting, though I don't know how 

 well they would work in 10-frame hives, where there is no 

 room for the division-board. 



For the past two seasons, I am sorry to say that an 

 abundance of empty comb has not prevented swarming as 

 well as it should. Also, with Langstroth combs in the brood- 

 chamber and shallow combs above full of worker-comb, the 

 need of a queen-excluder is greatly lessened. 



I plead guilty to hauling my extracting outfit from yard 

 to yard, but I hope to have a portable shop at each yard ere 

 long. Ida Co., Idaho, Oct. 30. 



# 



Wintering Bees on Solid Combs of Honey 



BV C. P. DADANT 



I HAVE read with interest the article on this subject, on 

 page 744, by Mr. J. L. Byer. I note his experience and 

 suggestions. It is impossible to write on the same subject 

 for years and not find some one whose experience differs from 

 ours, and whose views are consequently opposite. From the 

 different results thus brought to light the reader can gain 

 additional information which book-reading will not give. 



Mr. Byer and myself have placed ourselves in different 

 positions at the outset. I wrote about colonies that have be- 

 come too heavy with honey. He writes about colonies that 

 have not enough, and must be fed, and his method is to feed 

 till the combs are entirely lilled. This would be entirely un- 

 necessary here, as the bees do not need so great an amount of 

 honey, and it would be as Mr. Hall told him — it would increase 

 the work in fall and spring. 



In a state of Nature no colony will have its brood-combs 

 entirely filled — at least this is my experience — unless the 

 queen has failed in her laying during the latter part of the 

 honey crop. Besides, the bees will always keep the space 

 empty in the center, if they keep any empty space at all. 

 When we open a hive at the end of the last harvest we find 

 the outside combs fuller than the oth(!rs. If the bees enjoyed 

 having the combs on which they cluster entirely filled, tliey 

 would fill these from the outer ones as fast as the brood 

 hatches. But if the old iiuecn has ceased laying, and a young 

 one has been reared, they will, if everything else is full, fill 

 up the honey cells as fast as the brood hatches. A hive thus 

 filled is not in a good condition for winter, as there is no room 

 for brood. I have invariably found that such colonies would 

 d windle down and die out. A little space given to a young 



queen before the season is too far advanced will induce laying, 

 and the colony will go into winter in better shape. 



I have never seen bees winter well with a hive entirely 

 filled by them from the fields, though I am free to acknowl- 

 edge that it may be mainly from their having failed to breed 

 as late as they should have done : but I am yet of the opinion 

 that full combs are not desirable. Whenever I have supplied 

 a needy colony with combs full to the bottom, I have found 

 that they avoided clustering upon them, and showed their 

 preference for combs in which there was a fairly good space 

 of dry comb under the honey on which to cluster. A very 

 powerful colony will winter anyhow, if it has enough food, 

 but a very powerful colony will never have its combs entirely 

 filled, for it breeds to the end of the honey crop. I saw one 

 instance, years ago, where a colony filled every cell and then 

 dwindled to nothing before the winter was fairly begun. 



Mr. Byer relates that he has fed colonies that were needy 

 until the combs were filled to the bottom. In this latitude, if 

 we were to feed a needy colony plentifully, the queen would be- 

 gin to lay. and a portion of the combs in the center of the hive 

 would be occupied witli brood. This brood would hatch and 

 consume enough of the stores to make a fairly good space for 

 the bees to cluster upon at the approach of cold weather, and 

 of course this space would increase as the weather became 

 colder, since the bees begin to consume at once, thus making 

 a sufficient space within a few weeks. But our latitude evi- 

 dently differs from that of which Mr. Byer writes, for we 

 never have seen five months of winter confinement without a 

 flight on the summer stands. That would mean the failure 

 of a single warm day from Nov. 15 to April IS. The bees here 

 would suffer from overloaded bowels before that time. Per- 

 haps this is due to a greater excitement during mild days, 

 owing to the warmth of the sun which shines hotter here than 

 further North. 



I repeat it, I am strongly in favor of placing the bees in 

 the natural condition which they seem themselves to seek — 

 the possibility for them to cluster on dry comb where they 

 can keep the space warm more easily, and breed if so inclined 

 right under the hooey. There is no gain in their having more 

 honey than they can well consume during the cold weather, 

 and for spring use the honey of the outside combs, which are 

 usually well filled, is sufficient for all their needs. Yet it is 

 better to have an excess than a shortage, and too much is bet- 

 ter than not enough. 



Old Bees for Mailing with Queens. 



On page 746, Mr. Hasty wants to know why we prefer old 

 bees to accompany a queen that is sent away. I did not want 

 to be understood as wanting very old bees. But we want to 

 avoid using young bees that have not yet taken flight, because 

 they consume more honey than thi^ old ones, and are therefore 

 more likely to suffer from diarrhea in a long trip. Bees that 

 have been to the fields are just right. They have become 

 mature, and it takes little to sustain them. 



Of course, with sugar feed the age of the bees is of less 

 importance than when honey is used as it was formerly. 



Hancock Co., III. 



Some Experiences with Bees 



BY A. F. FOOTE' 



IN looking over the American Bee Journal for Oct. 12, I 

 came across many things that make me feel as if I must 

 '■ speak out in meeting." In fact, I feel about the same 

 whenever I read any of those papers. 



I had a little experience last summer — something on the 

 line of Dr. G. Bohrer's (pige Til), where there must have been 

 two queens in one hive for 20 days, though 1 actually saw but 

 one. The experience was this : 



On July 2, 2 large swarms came out and clustered to- 

 gether. As has been my custom in such cases, I put them all 

 into one hive, putting on 3 supers to give them plenty of 

 room; but they were not satisfied, and on the third day they 

 deserted the hive in a body and all clustered together again, 

 and I put them into hive No. 2, adding 3 supers as before. 

 This time they went to work with a will, and on the 10th day 

 1 added the 4th super. On the 20th day after putting them 

 into hive No. 2, fully two-thirds of them came out with a rush, 

 and were placed in hive No. 3, with 2 supers added. 



Examining No. 2, I found they had completely filled and 

 capped the first 3 supers, and nearly filled the 4th. I removed 

 the full ones, leaving the partly-filled one, which the remain- 

 ing bees finished up in good shape and still occupy it — a good, 

 strong colony, too. 



