162 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER 



September 



Heddon hive, or half stories, upon bot- 

 tom boai'ds, to insure a laying queen in 

 each part. But the novice might not 

 realize that it was necessary to know 

 that each pait had a queen-cell. Of 

 course, there would be such a thing 

 possible that a queen-cell might be in 

 each part, left there when the swarm 

 issued, but the probabilities are that, 

 more often than otherwise, there would 

 be queen-cells in only one part, or two at 

 most. And queens come from queen- 

 cells only. Read the article over again: 

 it will pay you well for a careful perusal 

 the second time. 



CONTROLIJNG ROBBERS. 



The article found under this heading, 

 on pages 143 and 144, is without a signa- 

 ture. Who wrote it I cannot even 

 guess. There are many good things in 

 it and many good things left out. For 

 once I will touch on the good things left 

 out. The first good thing left out, as it 

 appears to me, is that robbers are very 

 troublesome only in the spring before 

 either honey or polh-n is to be had from 

 flowers. Moses. Quinby, that pioneer in 

 bee-keeping, once said, "There is no ex- 

 cuse for bees being robbed at any other 

 time than in the spring of the year," 

 and I think he was very nearly correct. 

 After young bees are emerging from the 

 cells plentifully, any colony that is fit to 

 be called by that name, will protect 

 itself from robber-bees, and if it is not fit 

 to be called a colony as late in the sea- 

 son as this, the bee-keeper is at fault, 

 not the bees. The first hot days in 

 early spring are the ones in which every 

 hive is pried into by robbers, and if 

 any colony is weak in old bees, these 

 robbers find it out and pilfer the honey, 

 if possible. If this same persistency to 

 rob was kept up all tiirongh the season, 

 nuclei and weak colonies wonld suffer: 

 and so I say it is a good thing for the 

 apiarist that this only happens in early 

 spring. 



Another good thing is to know in 

 spring on which side of tiic hive (or in 

 the middle) the bcies an^ clustered be- 



fore their first flight, or as soon there- 

 after as possible: and immediately in 

 front of the cluster is the place for the 

 entrance. If the bees are clustered 

 on one side of the hive, and the honey is 

 mainly on the other side of the hive, as 

 is generally the case, it is only to invite 

 th(^ robbers to have the entrance on the 

 side where the honey is. This one item 

 alone, gained by reading TheAmkricax 

 Bee-keeper, is worth more than the 

 price of the paper for a year to anyone 

 who is not already familiar with it. 



Another good thing and. to my mind 

 the best of all, is to fix all weak colonies 

 and all nuclei in any hive as follows 

 (for only weak colonies and nuclei are 

 subject to robbing at any time of the 

 year): Just at night, on some cloudy, 

 cool day (not so cool but that bees can 

 fly), or under a tent, take the combs all 

 out of the hive, then place a frame of 

 honey next one side of the hive. Next 

 to this put the frames of brood they 

 have — one, two or three, and next the 

 last frame a division board, filler or 

 dummy, as they are differently called by 

 different persons when speaking of the 

 same thing. To digress a little: Take 

 a piece of inch or seven-eighths board 

 and make it so it will fit your hive below 

 the rabbeting on which the frames hang 

 loosely, and to the top of this nail the 

 top bar of a frame. Hang it in the hive 

 the same as a frame and you have just as 

 good a division board, filler or dummy 

 as can be made. To return; having 

 your two, three or four frames and your 

 dummy in. say the west part of your 

 hive, make the entrance at the bottom 

 at the extreme east side; and for the 

 two-frame colony give an entrance %'>i% 

 of an inch; for the tliree-frame colony 

 make the entrance % high by % long; 

 for the four-frame colony make the en- 

 tranct % high by one inch long, and 

 you will never have any trouble from 

 robbing at any time of the year, provid- 

 ing said colonies have a queen, some 

 little brood, and bees enough to in any 

 way protect or cover those combs. If a 



