158 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



Forming nuclei. 



A reader of the Apicultukist wants to 

 know if any issue of our journal contains 

 instructions for forming nucleus colonies. 

 Some two years ago I gave directions for 

 doing such work ; but we now have so 

 many new readers I will describe the 

 process again. For many years I used a 

 one-frame nucleus in my queen-rearing 

 yards and with good success. A pei'son 

 who desires to rear but a few queens will 

 find such a hive all that' is needed. They 

 can be made in this way : Take a full 

 hive of bees and make as many small sin- 

 gle-comb colonies as there are frames 

 of brood, giving to each one an equal 

 portion of the bees. Give the hives 

 plenty of ventilation and place them in the 

 cellar for three days and supply each with 

 plenty of water. At the end of three days, 

 towards night, give the bees a chance to 

 fly and then introduce a cell or a queen. 

 The cell can be placed between the comb 

 and hive at the top, and no cutting of the 

 combs need be done. Let the bearing 

 come against the base of the cell. 



By confining the bees seventy-two 

 hours, very few will return to the old lo- 

 cation when first let out. As the nucleus 

 hives cannot be placed on the old stand, it 

 is necessary to give them a new location. 



Queenless colonies— How to know it. 



There is no way to know that a colony 

 is queenless by outside appearances dur- 

 ing the first few weeks after tlie loss of 

 the queen. The only way to know cer- 

 tainly is to open the hive and make a thor- 

 ough examination. If no eggs or brood is 

 found in the combs, that would not indicate 

 to a certainty that the colony does not 

 Iiave a virgin queen. To know certainly 

 that the colony has no queen of any kind, 

 a frame of brood should be given the 

 bees, and if they are queenless, an at- 

 tempt will be made to rear one from the 

 brood given them, and that is the time to 

 introduce a fertile queen. 



If a colony has been without a queen 

 a long time, it is an easy matter for the 

 experienced beekeeper to know it. When 

 passing through the apiary, if a colony 

 does not seem to be working as well as 

 tlie others there must be something wrong. 

 A queenless colony will carry in more or 

 less pollen, but it does not work with that 

 vigor that tlioso colonies do that have 

 queens or those that have been without a 

 queen but a short time. Bees work just 

 as well the first few weeks after being de- 

 prived of their queen as they did before 

 she was removed. The only positive way 

 to know that a hive is queenless is to in- 

 vestigate as above stated. 



How many frames to a hive. 

 It used to be thought that ten L. frames 

 were about the right number for a hive 

 14J inches wide. But now eight frames, 

 Langstroth size are considered sufficient, 

 or about the right number. None of the 

 hives in the Bay State apiary have over 

 eight Langstroth frames and several have 

 but seven frames, and I think I get the 

 best results from the latter. Not only do 

 they build up more quickly in the spring, 

 but they are somewhat on the system of 

 contraction without contracting any hive 

 for the purpose. I am positive tliat the 7- 

 frame hives winter better than tiiose hav- 

 ing eight or more frames. Then it has 

 sometimes seemed to me that there are 

 more bees in a 7-frame hive than in those 

 having eight or ten frames. 



Late swarms— How to treat them. 

 A swarm that comes off after August 

 25 is about worthless, unless one has 

 combs to place them on ; even then it 

 would be much the best plan to return 

 them to the parent stock. Should any 

 late colonies issue in our apiary, we 

 would do just this with them: they w'ould 

 be hived in a common box of some kind. 

 Three days later the queen-cells should be 

 removed from the hive the bees came 

 from and the swarm returned. The usual 

 amount of smoke required to open a large 

 colony would be used in the operation, 

 much of which should be blown into the 

 old hive to prevent the bees from fighting 

 or killing the queen. This is an operation 

 that should be done just before dark. 



Queenless colonies— How to treat them. 

 A colony that has been queenless four or 

 five weeks or longer should have a frame 

 of capped brood given them at the time 

 a queen is introduced. Unless so treated, 

 the colony would be badly reduced in 

 numbers before any young bees would 

 hatch. By the time the young bees began 

 to emerge the combs shoukl be full of 

 brood. The colony then would increase 

 very last. It is more ditticnlt to introduce 

 a queeu to a colony that has been queen- 

 less a long time than it is to one that has 

 been without a queen but a few days. 



'When to supersede old queens. 

 No queen should be kept over two 

 years. A queen may have been the best 

 in her second year, and in the third sea- 

 son prove to be worthless. Iveep your 

 colonies supplied with young queens, that 

 means success. 



