Jan. 25, 1906 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



69 



r 



^x 



K, 



(£anabicm 



j> 



Conducted by Moklet Pettit, Villa Nova, Out. 



A Rising Canadian Bee-Keeper— Contraction When 

 Hiving Swarms 



Frank P. Adams, of Brantford, is one of our rising 

 young Canadian bee-keepers, who, last season, managed a 

 large apiary exclusively for comb honey and queens. In 

 the December Canadian Bee Journal he has the audacity to 

 rise up and criticise some of the old established ideas about 

 comb-honey production. If he had not produced about 10,000 

 pounds of comb honey in his one yard last summer we 

 might be tempted to advise him to " go away back and sit 

 down." As it is, we shall proceed " to pick his bones." 



Mr. Adams criticises the method of contraction of 

 biood-chambers when hiving swarms for the production of 



FRANK P. ADAMS 



comb honey. Strong swarms, he says, "instead of staying 

 put in the little brood-nest, fool their time away in repeated 

 attempts to change their quarters, and try the operator's 

 strength and patience in an endeavor to get them back to 

 work again." I have had little difficulty on this score where 

 they were given the whole brood-chamber for 3 or 4 days, or 

 even a week, then contracted. Aspinwall recommended, at 

 the National, contracting in a different way by separating 

 the combs with slatted dummies instead of crowding the 

 combs to the center and dummies at the outside. 



That they fill this brood-chamber quickly and swarm 

 again, as Mr. Adams says often happens, is a serious objec- 

 tion to the contracted brood-chamber. But the next ob- 

 jection I can not see how to avoid ; whatever will really in- 

 crease the profits of the apiary I am prepared to do or hire 

 done, if possible. I mean where he says : 



" There is another objection to the contracted brood-nest 

 that becomes serious as the number of our colonies multiply, 

 and that is the work of going through the recently-hived 

 swarms for the purpose of taking out part of the frames 

 and replacing them with dummies, and again after the 

 honey-flow taking out the dummies and putting back frames 

 in their place. The work in a fair-sized yard is enormously 

 increased if we must be constantly tinkering with the brood- 

 nest. In the spring, before the honey-flow is on, it is profit- 

 able to go through the yard and make use of every little 

 kink we know of in order to build up colonies to their maxi- 

 mum strength, but when the flow commences there is 



plenty of work with the swarms and supers to keep our 

 time fully occupied." 



By "swarms" in the last sentence, I think Mr. Adams 

 can not mean natural swarms, but rather shaken or some 

 other sort of artificial swarms. I look back on ray years of 

 experience with natural swarming as on a dismal night- 

 mare. Mr. Adams says further : 



" In many localities the flow shuts off as soon as the 

 clover and basswood is through blooming, and it is only in 

 favorable years that the fall flow is sufficient to keep the 

 bees from drawing on their stores for late brood-rearing. 

 With such conditions, it is evident that winter stores must 

 be secured from the white honey-flow, and unless part of 

 the yard has been put to filling frames to supply the rest in 

 the fall, our only recourse is the sugar-barrel. Under these 

 conditions we might just as well have a few frames filled 

 out in the brood- chambers while the flow is on, so as to sup- 

 ply them from supers." 



This reads well, and often works all right, but when the 

 flow stops unexpectedly we have these brood-chamber combs 

 filled and sections only partly filled. It would seem to me 

 the more cautious plan to allow room for only brood in the 

 brood-chamber, and when sections come off add combs of 

 honey from elsewhere. Mr. Adams continues : 



"Big - swarms mean fast work in the supers, and we are 

 unable to build up our colonies so that the hives are crowded 

 with bees from top to bottom, then it is always possible to 

 unite two weak colonies, so that their combined forces will 

 hustle the honey into the supers much faster than they 

 would have done had they been hived separately, and if our 

 swarms are strong — very strong — it will be found that 8 

 Langstroth frames filled from top to bottom with founda- 

 tion are none too many in the hive-body, and that a colony 

 so fixed, and with a good queen, will go ahead with the 

 work in the supers at a surprising rate, and, having plenty 

 of room below, will go into winter quarters stronger in 

 bees and require less feeding than one that has been con- 

 tracted down." 



After all, Mr. Adams and I are not so far apart, for my 

 idea of a contracted brood chamber is a 12-frame contracted 

 to about 7 frames. All this goes to show the complications 

 introduced, and corresponding skill needed, for successful 

 comb-honey production. 



Paragraphic Comments 



To A. C. Miller's tar-paper- wrapped hives "York County 

 Bee- Keeper" says, "No, siree," for an old-fashioned Cana- 

 dian winter. 



Herbert Kirkham, Vladimir, Russia, writing in the 

 Canadian Bee Journal, says their bees are practically in the 

 cellar 6 months and outside 6 months. About 90 percent of 

 the bees are in log hives. Their principal crop is from 

 buckwheat, yielding 30 to 40 pounds per annum. He con- 

 cludes by saying the principal foods of the Russian peas- 

 ants are " salted cucumbers, rye-bread, sour cabbage, and 

 buckwheat porridge." Is it any wonder they throw bombs 

 at the Czar? 



The Farmer's Advocate, Montreal Witness, and Family 

 Herald, each give reports of a column or more of the Na- 

 tional convention held in Chicago last month. 



A Fraternal Greeting 



Welcome "Southern Beedom" to the columns of the 

 "Old Reliable." "Canadian Beedom" extends to you a 

 fraternal hand. 



(Aside in stage whisper.) Cheer up, Canadian beedom- 

 ites ! Are we going to let any Southern department, or any 

 other, for that matter, get ahead of OURS1 Send in your 

 experiences and ideas. I know Canadians are full of them. 

 Plenty of time for them to grow these long winter evenings. 

 Put them down on paper, and while you are helping some 

 one else you will be helping yourself by crystallizing your 



own thoughts. 



m i ^ 



Weather Forecasts 



In the Canadian Bee Journal R. F. Holtermann gives 

 timely advice on studying weather signs. Our Lord, he 

 says, who never made a mistake, nor spoke lightly, said, 

 " Ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth." So 

 we can by studying " the tenor of seasons, the result of 

 winds from certain directions, the deductions we may draw 



