6o 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



March. 



lotli of October removing from two 

 to three combs of honey from strong- 

 est colonies and then had more than 

 enough to winter them. I found that 

 my greatest loss was from hives too 

 full, causing the bees to cluster on 

 combs of honey and thereby chilled 

 to death. Greenville, Miss. 



RACES AND STRAINS. 



As Affecting Swarming Propensities 



in the Production of Comb 



Honey. 



J. J. WILDER. 



SO LONG as location has any 

 thing to do with this subject, 

 and it surely has, nonswarming 

 indifferences will arise, and each bee- 

 keeper will, to some extent, have to 

 solve the problem in his own location 

 and the method that will give the 

 best results in most locations is the 

 one that is likely to be adopted. 



This is a very important subject, 

 and one there is much inquiry con- 

 cerning, and it can not be hoped that 

 bee-keeping in the south will ever be 

 what it should be or developed to a 

 livelihood or money-making industry 

 until this subject is studied and ap- 

 plied. 



It will bring about a deeper study 

 of the needs of the honey bee, and 

 how to supply them. 



We have grown into the above sub- 

 ject, bringing our bees up to the 

 fionswarming point, and the results 

 have been so good from season to sea- 

 son that I will explain how we ob- 

 tained them but I wish first to say 

 something of our honey flow here, 

 as it may help others in other loca- 

 tions who have similar flows. We 

 have three flows; two in early spring 

 and one in summer. The latter is long 

 ■in duration and there is no trouble 

 with swarming, while the surplus is 

 about twenty pounds per colony. 



The first flow is in April, and the 



surplus per day is about one and one- 

 half pounds. The second flow conies 

 on about the time the first is going 

 ofi or about May ist with about two 

 pounds per day, and about 30 pounds 

 surplus. In its duration we were 

 not troubled much with swarming. 



When we desired to spread our bee- J 

 business and had only black or Ger- 

 man bees in the apiary, each hive cast 

 a large swarm every two years and 

 by selecting the colony which gave the 

 best results in honey-gathering and 

 less inclined to swarm, each season, 

 as a breeding colony, we lessened 

 swarming considerably, and results 

 grew better each season. 



Finally we cleared our apiary of 

 drone comb, giving each colony eight 

 frames of worker comb, and giving 

 the queens access to as many of them 

 as possible so that by the time the 

 main flow comes on the hives are full 

 of bees and brood, and contain but lit- 

 tle honey. If there is much honey 

 present around the brood nest they 

 may swarm as soon as the first flow 

 comes on. 



A few days in advance of the flow 

 two supers are put on, the sections 

 well filled with foundation and the 

 bottom super containing four or six 

 sections with the comb over half com- |j| 

 pleted in them. Work in this super is - 

 under full headway by the time the 

 first flow is going off, then the second 

 flow comes on and continues the work 

 in the supers. The bees are not mo- 

 lested during the honey flows and the 

 apiaries are not visited more than 

 three times during the flows and the 

 object of these visits is to give addi- 

 tional supers to the strongest colonies 

 if they need them. 



At the end of the second flow the 

 supers are removed and there is but 

 few unfinished sections, for the bees 

 will nearly always finish what sections 

 they start in the top supers while if 

 during the flows the supers are ex- 

 changed there is likely to be many un- 



