150 



THE AMERICAN APIGULTURIST. 



one is put under it. If there is no 

 crowding of tlie bees at the en- 

 trance of the hive, the first case is 

 left in position till it is about two- 

 thirds filled before it is raised. 



I am not in a big hurry to re- 

 move the finished honey at the top, 

 unless I am scarce of section cases. 

 It improves the keeping quality of 

 honey to leave it with the bees 

 awhile after it is sealed, and honey 

 in the top tiers is not likely to be 

 soiled in a short time. It is a mat- 

 ter of good judgment to know just 

 how long to "tier up," as our sea- 

 sons vary as to length of time. 

 Now comes the nice point. We 

 want as few partly-filled sections 

 at the close of the season as possi- 

 ble, and to reduce the number as 

 much as possible, I must guess at 

 the proper time to begin to tier 

 down^ that is, collect from the 

 cases all partly-filled sections and 

 group them together so as to leave 

 the bees to finish them up, instead 

 of spending their time in starting 

 new work to be left half finished at 

 the close of the season. In tiering 

 down, I reduce the number of cases 

 till only one case is on each hive. 

 For instance, if there are two 

 cases on a hive and one of them 

 will hold all the sections that have 

 honey in them, they are transferred 

 to the one case, and the other case 

 with the empty or merely-started 

 combs, set aside for the next sea- 

 son. 



By this management nearly all 

 the sections are completed. 



Christiansburg, Ky. 



For the American Apiculturist. 



WILL INVERTING THE 



BR OD NES T PRE VENT 



S WAR MING f 



S. CORNEIL. 



I notice that Prof. Cook's article 

 on the above subject is going the 

 rounds of the bee papers. He says 

 that swarming can be precluded by 

 this simple work of inversion, that 

 the bees at once cut away or re- 

 move all queen cells as soon as the 

 combs are turned upside down, and 

 that by thus inverting the hives 

 once a week swarming is prevented. 

 I think it proper to say to bee- 

 keepers who may have confidence 

 in this " innovation," because it 

 is advocated by so high an author- 

 ity as Prof. Cook, that if they hope 

 to run their bees without swarming, 

 by simply inverting the brood-nests, 

 they will certainly be disappointed. 



Last season I ran sixty-four 

 stocks for comb honey. Before 

 any swarming occurred I inverted 

 all the brood-nests except one. This 

 one was allowed to cast a swarm 

 which was returned without the 

 queen, and the brood-nest con- 

 taining sealed cells was at once in- 

 verted as an experiment. Two days 

 later the combs were examined and 

 a living queen was found in a cell 

 which happened to be in a nearly 

 horizontal position between the 

 comb and what had been the bot- 

 tom bar, but now the top bar, of 

 the frame. Another sealed cell, 

 now pointing upwards, was cut 

 open and the queen was found to 

 be dead. At the end of another 

 day the remaining sealed cells were 

 examined and the queens were all 

 dead, but the cells were still unin- 

 jured. In other hives which had 

 been inverted before the cells were 

 sealed, it was found that before cap- 

 ping the bees had turned the points 

 of the cells either horizontally or 



