6 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



with old queens, -which -were filled partly -with 

 worker and partly with drone comb. (He 

 raised drones in the proportion of about five to 

 the hundred.) 



Strong stocks are the sh»et anchor in bee- 

 keeping ; and all worker ^omb in the breeding 

 apartment of the hive is the ver; T foundation of 

 that sheet anchor. Without it, it is impossible 

 to keep strong stocks. Last July I was called 

 to St. Charles, to assist a man and give him in- 

 structions in managing his bees. He had some 

 twenty-five swarms, in chamber hives, with an 

 inch-and-a-half hole on each side at the top of 

 the lower apartment, covered with -wire screen- 

 ing, and the hives raised on blocks at the bot- 

 tom. Under each young swarm that was build- 

 ing combs, there was a large amount of wax 

 wasted. Under some hives it would amount to 

 a double handful. There was evidently wrong 

 ventilation. Again, take a full frame from one 

 of my swarms and insert an empty one in the 

 centre for them to fill, and they will fill it with- 

 out one particle of waste. But insert that frame 

 at the side of the hive, and there will be some 

 waste of wax. Again, when a swarm is filling 

 boxes placed over them, there is no wax wasted. 

 I saw a Kidder hive last summer, in which the 

 bees were wasting wax while filling boxes. 

 Each box had an inch hole communicating with 

 a corresponding one in the outside cap. Here 

 was too much ventilation. We must understand 

 that most of the comb is built in the night, when 

 the temperature is considerably cooler than it 

 is in the day. Consequently the same ventila- 

 tion that suits for the day will not answer for 

 the night, if the wax is all to be saved. Every 

 person knows that wax when cold is hard and 

 brittle, and when warm enough is soft and pliant. 



Mr. Wellhuysen's objections to lumber hives, 

 as he called them, were that they are too cold 

 for the development of brood, the saving of wax, 

 and for wintering purposes ; and I know that 

 for increasing stocks his own hives would beat 

 any hive I ever saw. I furthermore know that 

 I manage to have my hives filled with combs 

 without any waste of wax. The Miner hive 

 was the worst hive I ever saw, for wasting wax. 

 It had crossbars on top, sharpened to an edge 

 on the underside, to prevent the bees from at- 

 taching the combs to anything else. There was 

 a piece cf cheap thin cotton-cloth spread over 

 said bars, and the cap then put on. This, as 

 he claimed, was to compel the bees to build all 

 worker and straight comb. Thus it will be per- 

 ceived that this piece of thin cloth allowed the 

 heat to escape so much, that I really believe 

 that they wasted as much wax as they used in 

 filling the hive with combs. Now, if I had 

 said to Mr. Gardner, in my letter to him pub- 

 lished in the April number of the Bee Journal, 

 " you must ventilate all your hives the same as 

 I ventilate my largest, or the same as I ventilate 

 my smallest," (for I happened then to have a 

 small one, though it was through my own care- 

 lessness or neglect,) and had given him no 

 other directions, he might in either case have 

 ruined his bees. In both winter and summer 

 ventilation, a person must exercise a little dis- 

 cretion and judgment. 



About that two-story bee-house, when I alter 



my opinion I will let you know by the first 

 mail, postage free. 



Now, Mr. Wellhuysen could, in his rudely 

 constructed hives, keep all his swarms equally 

 prosperous. I visited his apiary repeatedly, and 

 when he had more than a hundred swarms, I 

 turned up hive after hive and examined them, 

 because he called my attention particularly to 

 the fact that they were all equal in numbers and 

 prosperity. The question with me was, why 

 cannot I manage bees in frame hives better than, 

 he can, for in these everything is under our 

 control ? If a swarm has too much pollen, we 

 can exchange with one that has not enough ; 

 if one has too much honey, and another has not 

 enough, by a proper exchange both may be 

 benefitted, &c. But the first foundation of this 

 prosperity is, all worker comb in the breeding 

 apartment ; then keep no queen over two years 

 old. Equalization must also be attended to in 

 the summer ; in the fall it will be too late. We 

 must attend to this equalization this summer, 

 and then we shall in the next, with artificial 

 swarming, have everything under our control. 

 We must never allow the bees to get in advance 

 ot the queen ; for if we do, the prosperity of the 

 swarm is checked at once ; that is, if the beef 

 are allowed to fill the combs with honey in the 

 spring, before the queen has filled it with brood, 

 the swarm will be an unprofitable one. Take 8 

 swarm that is nearly destitute of honey and 

 feed it just right, that is so as to promote breed- 

 ing early in the spring, and not to fill the comb 

 with honey, such swarm will almost invarhiblj 

 be a prosperous one. On the other hand, allow 

 a swarm that has honey enough for all purposes, 

 to appropriate all the honey from one or two* 

 other hives early in the spring, and before they 

 consume it, the willows produce honey, then the 

 fruit trees, the white clever, &c. Such a swarm 

 will dwindle down to nothing, because the 

 queen has no place to deposit eggs for brood. 



If from any cause the queen does not com- 

 mence laying eggs as soon as she should in the 

 spring, she must be stimulated, either by feed- 

 ing or uncapping sealed honey in the hive, for 

 whenever the bees are fed they feed the queen. 

 Thus the rousing up of the bees and compelling 

 them to fill themselves with honey, promotes 

 breeding. — Taking bees from another hive and 

 putting them in with a strange queen, causes 

 them to feed her and pay more attention to her, 

 especially if they are young bees. Bees taken 

 from three or four different swarms, insufficient 

 numbers to make a good stock, and put in a 

 hive with a queen, will work nearly as well 

 again as the same number taken exclusively 

 from one swarm, with their own queen. 

 Drumming out a swarm and putting it back 

 again in the same hive, sets the bees to feeding 

 the queen. A person who has never tried the 

 experiment of stimulating, and regularly giving 

 the queen all the room she can occupy with 

 brood throughout the season, will be astonished 

 at the amount of bees that can be raised in one 

 season from one queen. 



The article from Mr. Dathe, in the April 

 number of the Bee Journal, is worth a care- 

 ful reading by every reader of the Journal. 

 He arrives at the result of all worker comb in 



