May 31, 1906 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



463 



* (£ontnbuteb * 

 Special (Articles 



J 



Feeding Bees in Spring— Swarming 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



A CORRESPONDENT writes me that he reads my arti- 

 cles in the American Bee Journal with much interest, 

 and especially the one entitled, "Among the Bees in 

 Spring." Then he tells that he and others may not have 

 the combs of honey to set in colonies not having stores 

 enough, and wishes to know what I would do did I find my- 

 self thus situated. 



In reply, I would say that I should not let another season 

 pass till I did have some of these reserved combs set away 

 for use the next spring. I cannot see the policy of running 

 a bee-yard so close that more or less of the colonies come out 

 near the verge of starvation in the spring; nor of the policy 

 of extracting all the honey out of combs to sell in the fall, 

 and then depend upon "any old way" of getting the bees 

 through the spring. Do things up in a workmanlike way 

 with the bees as well as with other things, and always re- 

 serve enough of those combs of honey from extracting so that 

 you will be sure of carrying the bees safely through the 

 spring. In this way, both you and the bees will be in a 

 great measure independent of what the spring proves to be 

 regarding a yield of nectar. 



But I realize this does not help over the present, when 

 the bees must be fed or starve. There are two ways of feed- 

 ing inside the hive which I have used successfully. Where 

 I wish to feed weak colonies or nuclei for any special pur- 

 pose, or for an occasional feeding in the spring, to coax a col- 

 ony to build queen-cells or rear drones early, I use a division- 

 board feeder, which is simply a feeder made by nailing a thin 

 board to the side-bars of a frame of the same size the combs 

 are built in. These thin boards should lack one-half inch 

 of coming to the top, thus providing a ready access to the in- 

 side of the feeder by the bees. Then a hole should be bored 

 through the top-bar to the frame or feeder, near one end, 

 in which a funnel can be inserted for pouring in the feed, 

 which should be a little more than blood-warm for early 

 spring use, so the bees can carry it, without being chilled, 

 no matter what the weather is outside. 



The other plan is to take a common milk-pan, or any 

 of the cheap tin-pans which are sold for io cents or so, and 

 punch the bottom full of holes, punching from the inside out, 

 so that each hole will form a small separate stream when 

 the pan is filled with sugar syrup. Place this pan in a board 

 having a hole cut out of it so that the pan will "hang" in 

 the hole, and nail the board to a suitable height table or 

 bench. Put a washtub on the floor under the pan to catch 

 any drip, when you will hold an empty comb about 12 to 

 l6 inches under the pan, while an assistant pours the syrup 

 in the pan. The falling streams of syrup will drive the air 

 from the cells which will fill rapidly, and by moving the comb 

 around a little, all the cells will soon be full, when the comb 

 is turned over, and the other side filled. If you have a 

 third person to hand you the combs and take away the filled 

 ones, you can fill them almost as fast as he can handle 

 them. 



These filled combs can then be used in any spot and 

 place where a frame of honey could be, but they are not 

 nearly so pleasant to handle, on account of their being daubed 

 up with sweet, and should be given the bees just at night so 

 that robbing will not be started. 



NATURAL OR "SHOOK" SWARMING. 



The other question he wants answered is relative to 

 swarming, he wishing to know which I prefer, natural or 

 "shook" swarming. Well, unless I except wintering and 

 foul brood, swarming is the greatest bane of bee-keep- 

 ing. Of course, when a person has only 2 or 3 colonies, 

 there comes an excitement and pleasure to natural swarm- 

 ing that is a keen enjoyment to the novice in bee-keeping ; 

 but to the one with his scores or hundreds of colonies, natu- 

 ral swarming is one of the most vexatious things to the 

 bee-keeper. Consequently, when the proper time comes I 

 make all colonies swarm on the "shook" plan, holding the 



strongest ones back till the proper time has arrived, by giving 

 them lots of room by way of an upper story filled with combs, 

 onto which they are shaken when the time for swarming ar- 

 rives. The queens do not have access to these upper combs, 

 they being kept confined below by means of a queen-excluder. 

 The time for doing this shook swarming is when our 

 first harvest for surplus arrives, when all colonies which are 

 strong enough are shaken, and the frames of beeless brood 

 are placed over any not quite strong enough for this time over 

 in shaking. A week later, the colonies to which we gave 

 this brood, will be fairly running over with young bees, 

 when these are shaken, and all combs of beeless brood piled 

 on others which were still weaker at the time of the first 

 shaking. If I have none of these quite weak colonies, or not 

 enough to take 3 or 4 hives of this beeless brood each, small 

 colonies are formed in advance to receive it, till I have the 

 proper number. It would hardly seem possible that such 

 little colonies, with the addition of these 3 or 4 hives of bee- 

 less brood would so build up that in the fall these hives 

 on each colony would be filled with honey ; but such is 

 usually the case, where the queen is kept in her own hive 

 by means of an excluder. And these hives of honey are just 

 the thing needed to carry the bees through the spring in 

 "great shape," without any fussing with feeding or feeders, 

 save the setting in of the combs where any colony is needy, 

 fry it Borodino, N. Y. 



■•'♦*- 



Stimulative Feeding, Increase, Etc. 



BY PROF. A. J. COOK. 



I HAVE been much interested of late to note how general 

 the feeling prevails among even our most successful and 

 wide-awake bee-keepers, that great benefit is sure to come 

 with stimulative feeding. When such authorities as Alex- 

 ander and Holtermann give to this practice a certain regular 

 place in their apiarian management, it has a significance that 

 should not fail to attract attention. This stimulative reed- 

 ing as its name indicates, is not to furnish food to the bees, 

 as they may be well supplied, but is rather to insure activity 

 on the part of the worker-bees, as this is the most aosolute 

 necessity if we would secure the fullest activity of the queen. 

 Storing by the workers, wheresoever the source of the sup- 

 plies, means rapid egg-laying and abundant brood in the 

 hive Of course, populous colonies follow as a necessary re- 

 sult and we have one condition imperative to a large honey 

 harvest We find that the amount fed daily need not be 

 large, and, of course, the time is early in the season before 

 the bees can secure nectar from the flowers. The failure to 

 gather may arise from lack of flowers, or such cold that no 

 nectar is secreted, or from the fact that the season forbids 

 flight, either from cold or rains. 



I am peculiarly gratified at this expression of opinion, 

 as emphasized by practice, as I have been a strong advo- 

 cate of this stimulative feeding for many years, as I have 

 known positively that, wisely practiced, it would pay large re- 

 turns for time and money expended, as I say m my Manual 

 of the Apiary" on page 264: 



"Hence, if we would achieve the best success, we must 

 keep the workers active, even before gathering commences, 

 and to do this we must feed sparingly before the advent of 

 bloom in the spring. For a number of years I have tried ex- 

 periments in this direction by feeding a portion of my colo- 

 nies early in the season, and always with marked results in 

 favor of the practice." 



The old-time readers of this Journal will remember m> 

 account of these experiments away back m the '80s. Colo- 

 nies equally strong were selected, and some were fed a little 

 daily, while an equal number were fed none at all, though 

 they had abundant honey in the hive for their needs 1 he 

 result invariably was a substantial increase of the brood in the 

 hives where the colonies were fed, and, of course, more bees 

 and more honev as the season advanced. I am sure that the 

 wise apiarist will not neglect this among the other details, 

 the regular and faithful performance of which means suc- 

 cess, and the neglect a certain failure. 



INCREASE OF COLONIES. 



E. W Alexander is one of our bee-keepers that we may 

 all be proud to honor. I am pleased with his method to in- 

 crease his number of colonies. He would never permit natu- 

 ral swarming. To build up nuclei is too expensive in time. 

 To transfer queen and bees to a new hive, set on the old 

 stand on frames of foundation, and remove the old hive to a 



