152 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



they came through perfectly. Next 

 season I shall put away a large num- 

 ber of queens in mating-boxes, and 

 shall expect to have early queens to 

 offer in competition with Southern 

 breeders. We made up our mating- 

 boxes late in the season, giving from 

 two to three cupfuls of young bees to 

 each box, as explained in the "Baby 

 Nuclei," and just before settled cold 

 weather came on we slipped in fat, full 

 combs of good, well-sealed honey. On 

 examination in February, the bees yet 

 had honey to spare, but we gave them 

 a full one, to make sure, removing the 

 one having the least brood. We have 

 now placed two of these small lots 

 upon full combs to see if they will 

 build up from this into full colonies. 



If extra queens could be wintered 

 over in nuclei containing even as much 

 as a quart of bees, bj' placing them in 

 the cellar, it would be a big thing for 

 Northern queen rearers. I would be 

 interested in knowmg how successful 

 men have been in wintering small lots 

 of bees in the Northern States. 



HERSHISER, NON-SWARMING PLAN. 



In What Respect it Resembles theSibbald 

 Plan. 



My good friend, O. L. Hershiser, of 

 Buffalo, N. Y., writes me that his plan 

 for preventing swarming is similar to 

 that of the Sibbald plan, and that he 

 published a description of it two years 

 agointhe Rocky Mountain Bee Journal. 

 In that Journal for March, 1903, I find 

 an article by Mr. Hershiser in which 

 he lays down cei-tain principles that 

 we must follow if swarming is to be 

 controlled. Having done this, he pro- 

 ceeds to tell how he puts these prin- 

 ciples into practice, which is as fol- 

 lows: — 



The colony sliould be built up as 

 rapidly and as strongly as possible by 

 the use of an additional brood cham- 

 ber, making the hive two stories high, 

 as soon as the chamber, in which the 

 colony has wintered, is crowded with 

 bees and the spring weather conditions 

 are favorable. At the approach of the 



first surplus honey season — usuallj' 

 white clover in the east and north and 

 alfalfa in the west — and when the hive 

 in both sections of tlie brood chamber 

 is literally full of bees, and when, if the 

 bees swarm naturally, the brood would 

 not chill after the swarm had departed, 

 remove the lower section or portion of 

 the double brood chamber with the 

 queen to another stand which should 

 be along side of the old stand and con- 

 tiguous to it. In fact, a stand large 

 enough for two colonies to be placed 

 upon, side by side, is the ideal ar- 

 rangement for this pupose. 



In place of the lower part of the 

 brood chamber thus removed, substi- 

 tute a brood chamber with clean 

 frames of starters. Now all the field 

 honey gathering bees will return to the 

 old stand, leaving the brood chamber 

 with the queen with sufficient young 

 bees that have not tlovvn, to take care 

 of the brood; and this removed portion 

 of the hive is in the best possible con- 

 dition for rapid increase of bees, that 

 is, rapidly hatching brood and not 

 enough honey being gathered by this 

 colony of 3'oung bees to keep the cells 

 filled with honey as they hatch. Empty 

 combs should be substituted for any 

 combs that are full of honej', in order 

 that the queen may be allowed to lay 

 to her full capacit3'. The bees occupy- 

 ing the hive on the old stand will at 

 once commence to rear queens and in 

 due course of tune a fine batch of queen 

 cells will be found in the upper cham- 

 ber, usually along the bottom bars of . 

 the frames, one cell only of which 

 should be allowed to hatch and the 

 queen to become fertile in the colony. 

 By the time the young queen begins to 

 lay, practically all the brood in this 

 upper chamber on the old stand will 

 have hatched. Now remo\e the colony 

 with the old queen to a new stand, pre- 

 ferably about ten feet to the rear of the 

 stand from vvhicli originally taken; 

 shake the bees clean from the combs in 

 the upper stor}' of the culon3' on the old 

 stand that has reared the young queen, 

 in front of their hive; remove this upper 

 story, with the frames shook clean of 

 bees, and place it as an upper stor}' to 

 the hive with the old queen; jilace a 

 super of sections on the hive in place 

 of the upper story that has been re- 

 moved from the hive on the old stand. 



Now, we have a colony working for i 

 comb hone}' that has a j'oung queen 

 that IT HAS KKAKRD — the first requisite 

 of non-swarming; it is a colony the 

 brood chamber of which is supplied 



