152 



THE AMERICAN APIGULTURIST. 



fiud the queen at night she will be found 

 on the trap the next niorning. In just 

 three days let the new queen run in. 



One other method for Hndini>- a queen is 

 to remove the honey -board, place the cap 

 on and drive the bees up into it by gradu- 

 ally blowing smoke in at the entrance and 

 drumming on the hive five minutes or 

 more. Turn the cap over and look for the 

 queen. If not found, place another cap on 

 and repeat the operation. 



An old queen is rather slow about leav- 

 ing the brood-nest, even when the bees 

 are well smoked, and sometimes it is nec- 

 sary to drive nearly all the bees out and 

 then remove the combs to get her. 



The expert is not obliged to use the 

 above method to tind a queen. He mere- 

 ly blows some smoke in at the entrance of 

 the hive to alarm the bees and in a few 

 moments uncovei's the frames, takes them 

 out and examines each one until the queen 

 is found. It usually requires about as 

 much time for the expert to find a queen 

 as it does for one to read these few lines 

 descriptive of the method. 



The beekeeper who is bound to succeed 

 will soon find plenty of methods to do all 

 the required work about the apiary. If 

 one method fails he tries another. 



Requeening after a swarm has issued. 



This year more swarms than commonly 

 have issued in the Bay State Apiary. Not 

 caring to have so many old stocks queen- 

 less several weeks, all were requeened as 

 soon as possible after a swarm came out, 

 but no attempt was made to do so in less 

 than three days alter the swarm issued. 

 The cells were removed to nucleus colon- 

 ies, and at the same time the new queens 

 were introduced, and so far not one 

 queen has been lost. Thus it will be seen 

 tliat only three days were lost to the bees 

 in brood- rearing. 



It is not so important to re-queen im- 

 mediately later in the season as at the first 

 of it. Our bees commenced early in June 

 to gather honey and swarms soon began to 

 come out. Well, now had any colony been 

 Itift to rear a queen the bees would have at 

 the end of four weeks begun to diminish 

 ill immbers and before tlie harvest ended 

 there would be hardly half as many bees 

 in the hives as there were when they 

 swarmed. When a colony is promptly 

 ri queened there would be no great ditfer- 

 eiicc so far as numbers are concerned. 



I am not a believer in contraction of the 

 bi cod- chamber, nor do I believe in taking 

 away tiie queeu from a colony for any 



great length of time at any season of the 

 year. Experience has taught me that a 

 colony is always in the best condition that 

 lias a good queen, combs full of brood and 

 plenty of young bees. A hive barren of 

 these important requisites is nearly worth- 

 less, and unless a queen is soon put in it 

 will be useless for any purpose. 



Keep the colonies supplied with strong, 

 healthy queens. If a queen fails to keep 

 the combs full of brood whether there is 

 forage or not, pinch her head ofi'and get 

 another. It does not pay to nurse up a 

 colony having an unprolitlc queen. 



Feeding back. 



This is an old sui^ject brought to notice 

 again by the editor of the Revino. What 

 is meant by feeding back is this : Those 

 who practise taking honey both in the 

 comb and by the extractor generally have 

 at the end of the season plentj' of extract- 

 ed honey and a large number of partly 

 filled sections. Some years ago several 

 prominent beekeepers fed back extracted 

 honey to colonies on whose hives the 

 partly filled sections had been placed, 

 supposing of course that the bees would 

 continue to store the honey fed them in 

 tlie caps or boxes, as they were called in 

 those days. No one had made a success 

 of it. 



At the price comb honey was selling at 

 twelve years ago, it would pay to feed 

 back and to have all the honey stored iu 

 sections. Now, when honey is sold at 

 such a low figure, even if practical, it 

 would not pay to feed back. There is a 

 good deal of work about it and much risk 

 of the bees robbing when feeding back is 

 practised. Then, again, every beekeeper 

 knows the value of partly filled sections 

 to place on the hives at the beginning of 

 the honey flow. Colonies having such 

 given tlum will more readily enter the sec- 

 tions and will commence work in them 

 several days before they will in sections 

 having only a small piece of dry founda- 

 tion in them. The only advantage in feed- 

 ing back is in the fact that if the honey is 

 all in the comb it will bring a few cents 

 more on a pound than extracted honey. 

 But the loss of the partly filled sections 

 to the bees in the spring and the trouble 

 and risk of feeding are more than offset by 

 the small gain iu cash taken for the honey. 



Feeding back was practised to a small 

 extent in the Bay State apiary some fif- 

 teen years ago. It was not a success, that 

 Is, so far as having the honey fed the bees 

 placed in sections. We failed for the rea- 



