May 3 14< 6 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



385 



Mr Greiner and I seem to agree on the super question, but 

 my full sheets of foundation do not seem to agree with him, 

 though my customers never object to my honey, and, as M. \ 

 Gill says, "That is all I am producing it for." 



Meridian, Idaho. 



Controlling Increase — Rearing Queens, Etc. 



BY WM. STOLLEY, SR. 



I DESIRE to describe my way of controlling the increase 

 in my little apiary of about 30 colonies of bees, as well 

 as to' outline my way of rearing choice queens. I am 

 well aware that this is of no interest whatever to the apiarist 

 who counts his colonies of bees by the hundreds, or even 

 thousands, but I think it a very good and practical way of 

 managing for bee-keepers who want to keep hist so many 

 colonies of bees, and no more, principally for their own use, 

 or recreation, but Who are often at a loss to solve this ques- 

 tion of increase with satisfactory results. 



1 keep my bees in an open shed, which has 2 tiers of hives. 

 one above the other. The posts in front are 8 feet apart, and 

 the shed itself is 8 feet wide, with an overhanging roof of 2 

 feet in front. My regular double-walled hive (for extracted 

 honey') carries 14 American frames. W/zxWA inches. Thus 

 30 colonies find room on the ground tier of hives — two in 

 each space between the posts. 



The upper tier of hives are not intended to be occupied 

 by bees in winter, but serve as a receptacle for empty brood- 

 combs, or combs partly filled with honey and pollen to be 

 used at the proper time in the early spring, or later when 

 hees are swarming, and when I rear the choice queens for my 

 own use. All hives in the upper tier are "single-walled." and 

 smaller in size, and carry only from 8 to 10 frames each. 



I keep all queens clipped, taking about 1-3 of a right wing 

 off. which disfigures the queen but very little, and the "Mo- 

 nette Queen-Clipping Device" I find to be the most prac- 

 tical implement for that mirpose. 



Now. when a colony swarms, all I have to do is to watch 

 for the queen and cage her as soon as she leaves the hive. 

 As soon as the swarm is in the air I remove the hive from 

 which it issued, and lower the hive from the upper tier right 

 above, filled with emptv comb, and place it on the stand 

 from which the swarm came. After this is done. I ooen the 

 hive from which the swarm issued and take all combs con- 

 taining brood, with all adhering bees and sufficient honev for 

 the voung bees left "out. and put them into another hive. "This 

 is generally so quickly done that almost always the bees are 

 still circbng in the air, or are clustering somewhere on a 

 branch of a tree. 



When this is the case. I put the hive right back on its 



2 i / • , ;"]. " up w,rh nice,v drawn comb, or frames 

 tilled with full sheets of comb foundation, and await the re- 

 turn of the swarm, when the queen is allowed to run in with 

 the bees. 



But the hive containing all the brood taken away is placed 

 right above the hive below, in which the swarm 'has hived 

 itself. Of course, all field-bees return to their old home, and 

 brood and young bees are all that is left in the hive in the 

 upper row. About a week later I shake nearlv all young 

 bees hatched in the upper-tier hive in front of the hive con- 

 taining queen and swarm below, and this I repeat once everv 

 week until the last young bee has hatched and the combs are 

 dear of brood.. Thus I mass all bees on the original stand, 

 and the result is more honey" instead of increase. 



If I desire to rear queens from a favorite queen to re 

 place queens marked for supersedure. I form nuclei of 2 combs 

 of hatching brood and 1 comb of honev (if possible from the 

 colony which is to get a new queen), about 2 davs before the 

 choice queen-cells are ready for hatching. The'colonv from 

 which I want to breed is forced to swarm by crowding the 

 bees, since with my large hives swarming is reduced to a 

 minimum anyway, and after I have thus taken a lot of ma- 

 tured queen-cells for the nuclei, I shake the bees and unite 

 them with the mother colonv on the old stand, as above 

 stated. 



As soon as the young queens are mated and well on the 

 way. their hives are lowered and placed on the hive wherein 

 is the queen to be superseded. After the field-bees have 

 learned to follow the lowered hive, the old nueen is killed or 

 removed, both colony and nucleus are dosed with a few 

 of onions, and the nucleus with the young queen on the 

 center-comb is placed in the center of the brood-nest from 

 which the old queen has been removed. Jn this way I p 

 undesirable increase and rear choice queens. 



The methods, as explained in the foregoing, may be of 



some service to those who wish to restrict their limited num- 

 ber of colonies, particularly when they are beginners in bee- 

 keeping. 



Colonies kept in the open and not in a bee-shed like mine, 

 of course, should be treated in a modified way, accomplish- 

 ing in the end the same result. 



I must add a word of caution : When swarming takes 

 place, almost always the supers are on the hive, and it fre- 

 quently happens, even with my large hives, that some brood 

 and queen-cells are to be found in the suner, and if so, they 

 must be removed, as the brood removed from the brood- 

 chamber prevents repeated swarming, or possibly the killing 

 of the old queen. Grand Island, Nebr. 



(Dur*Stster 

 Bee-Keepers 



j> 



Conducted by Emma M. Wilson, Marengo, 111. 



How " We" Introduced a Queen 



I am wondering if all beginners have the gay time we 

 have had in trying to introduce a queen to a hybrid colony. 

 By we, I mean my husband and myself ; and here let me 

 say 'tis the same old case as " me and Betty killed a bar," 

 I playing the part of me ever since about a dozen bees got 

 under my veil in helping hunt for queen-cells ; so he has 

 had the " work " to do while I stand off a safe distance and 

 cheer him up. But I'm ahead of my " tale of woe." 



We sent away for a 5-banded Italian queen, thinking 

 how we would love some little yellow bees. Well, after 9 or 

 10 days of anxious waiting we one noon received her " royal 

 highness." She was a queer amber-yellow color, and, as 

 my husband remarked, " No great shucks to look at." 



The directions we had read and re-read for introducing 

 queens said, " Make your colony queenless ;" be sure your 

 colony is queenless," etc. So we made sure by veiling our- 

 selves and sallying forth and picking old Mrs. Queen and 

 a small family of slaves out, and putting them in a box 

 with a piece of screen over one side and a big slice of comb 

 honey in one end. Then we patiently (?) waited two days, 

 with the new queen in her cage in the cupboard, then we 

 followed to a dot the directions that came with her, except, 

 as Mr. Root preferred leaving the cardboard over the candy- 

 hole, we left it there instead of taking it off as directed. 



We laid the cage, wire side down, over the top of the 

 brood- frames and shut up the hive. We left it five days, as 

 directed, although it was a great strain on the nerves, and 

 at the end of that time our curiosity was at the bursting 

 point. We hustled into veils, gloves, jackets, etc., and 

 rushed out to the hive about 9 o'clock one morning. My 

 faithful " pardner " cautiously lifted the hive-cover, and I 

 stealthily lifted out the cage, and, lo ! our queen was still 

 therein, and not more than three or four bees paying any 

 attention to her, and not even the pasteboard over the 

 candy-hole was nibbled a bit. Such hateful bees ! I felt 

 that I despised them. I commanded my husband to put the 

 cage back and come away, which he did somewhat sulkily, 

 for, be it known, he has a great fondness for poking around 

 in and out of a hive (not shared by me). 



We retired and meditated over the contrariness of bees, 

 and finally my husband said, "Let's takeout our new queen 

 and see if the bees have started queen-cells." 



I hooted the idea, with this qneen practically in the 

 hive, but consented, and we removed the "Dago," as we 

 called our new queen, and waded in. We found and cut out 

 one queen-cell unsealed, and then the bees got so wrathy 

 we retired to give them time to cool off. After an hour or 

 so we went at them again, and cut out five more queen-cells. 

 One was sealed over. That did disgust us, and the bees 

 seemed to go crazy, and a dozen, more or less, got up under 

 my veil, and by the way I moved and felt, I am convinced 

 bee-stings will cure rheumatism, old age, or any old thing. 

 I haven't moved so lively, nor, I may say, so gracefully, in 

 all my life before — went over pea-fences, potatoes, straw- 

 berry-beds, and raspberry-vines like a bird. They stung 

 me in my hair, on my neck, chin, hands, wherever they 

 could get a toe-grip, and wept because I wasn't larger. I 

 nearly lifted my scalp in my haste to shed veil and hat. My 

 " pardner " nobly stayed with them, and got everything in 



