616 



American Ttee Journal 



.Tuly 19, 1906 



son, although most prime swarms will rear more or less 

 drones in these drone-combs, unless the honey-flow is 

 profuse enough to crowd them out. 



But the main trouble comes in having this store-comb 

 filled with drones after the bees have consumed the 

 honey out of it the next winter and spring. I have often 

 seen hives in neighboring apiaries nearly half filled with 

 drone -comb, where good laying queens went out and 

 were hived with swarms. Why I say "good laying 

 queens," is because some seem to think that no drone- 

 comb is built under any circumstances by a swarm, unless 

 the queen is ..Id or beginning to fail. 



The colonies above referred to were all hived in large 

 hives with no surplus arrangements put on until a week- 

 after hiving, so it was necessary that the b( es do all of 

 their work in the body of the hive. 



In the above I have given why swarms build drone- 

 comb, for the majority of bee-keepers who do not use full 

 sheets of foundation for their swarms. Now, how is such 

 astate of affairs to be avoided by the one who wishes to 

 hive his swarms on startered frames? 



The way I manage is to give the colonies which are 

 to build comb, a brood-chamber of only about one-half 

 the size of the one from which the swarm came, this 

 smaller size being made by contracting the chamber of 

 the new hive to the size I wish, by means of dummies or 

 division-boards, and also giving them one of the supers 

 of sections at time of hiving. Or, to be more exact, the 

 swarm is hived in the full-sized hive and left for 24 

 hours, when the frames they have not commenced work 

 upon are taken away, dummies substituted, and the sur- 

 plus arrangement of sections put on. In this way the 

 swarm seems to work to better advantage, and is not 

 liable to desert its hive, as is sometimes the case where 

 the contracted chamber is given them on the start. 



After having their home established by the building of 

 comb, they will stand almost any kind of treatment there- 

 after without deserting. The super put on should contain 

 a few sections having partly built comb in them left over 

 from the previous season, while it is well to have the 

 others filled with full sheets of the very thin foundation 

 for section honey. This gives the bees plenty of room 

 above to store honey, thus not crowding them in tiie 

 brood-chamber, so that only comb of the worker size is 

 built below, and that only so fast as the prolificness of 

 the queen demands it. As her ability for laying increases, 

 more comb is built, so that at the end of the season we 

 have this contracted brood-chamber filled with nice work- 

 er-comb and lots of section honey. 



By the above plan I secure three important items — 

 lots of section honey, no drone-comb, and a hive full of nice. 

 straight worker-comb, the latter costing less, according 

 to my estimation, than it would to buy the foundation, 

 say nothing about the labor and fuss of wiring the frames 

 and fitting the foundation into them. 



I hope those who are troubled with too much drone- 

 comb in the body of the hive will try this plan, on a few- 

 colonies at least, for if it works as well with others as it 

 does for me, it will be quite a saving to them both in 

 vexation and in not rearing a host of useless drones to 

 eat the honey which the industrious little workers gather. 

 Of course, all of the above is applicable only to those 

 swarms which have laving queens with them, and does 

 not apply at all to after-swarms or those having virgin 

 queens. With such colonies there seems to be no dis- 

 position to build drone-comb, unless the swarm should 

 large that comb is built far in excess of what the 

 queen can fill with eggs, in which case a little drone- 

 comb is sometimes built. Neither will drone-comb be 

 built in the old colony after their young queen becomes 

 fertile, because when an old colony gets such a queen. 

 instinct teaches them that she will meet all their require- 

 of a mother-bee for the rest ..I tli.it year, while 

 drones an necessary only when a change of mothers 

 is contemplated by the bees. Hence 11.. eggs are de- 

 ed in drone-comb, even where such is already built 

 in the hive, and much le>> is such comb built. Taking 

 advantage of this fact I often manage to get one or two 

 nice, perfect worker-combs built for future use, while the 

 I... of these colonies are at work vigorously- in the sections, 

 bj taking one or tv\.. full combs out from the center of the 

 brood of colonies having such queens, and inserting empty 



frames with starters of w-orker-comb foundation in their 

 places. These frames are filled, apparently, without the 

 cost of any section honey, while it seems to give great 

 energy to the colony so building comb. The extra combs 

 I secure in this way are used after the harvest of white 

 honey is over, to fill out the hives which have been con- 

 tracted for the prime swarms, so that they may have room 

 in the brood-chamber to store sufficient honey- for winter 

 from the dark or buckwdieat flow, which comes later on. 

 In this way the white honey, which brings the best price, 

 is mostly taken in the sections, while the bees winter on 

 the dark honey, which is often almost a drug on the mar- 

 ket. Borodino, N. Y. 



m 



Gleaned from Foreign Exchanges 



BY F. GREINER. 



GERMANY— The Flower's Nectar. 



DR. 0. FOLLENIUS says in " Die Biene," a German paper, 

 that nectar contains anywhere from 7 to 40 percent 

 sugar, and that the honey-bee can secure only a part of the 

 nectar contained in each blossom. That which is necessary 

 for the full development of the fruit can not be removed. 

 According to the recollection of the writer of this it has not 

 been claimed before that any of the nectar was necessary 

 and appropriated for this development of the fruit. On the 

 contrary, it has been held that the nectar was placed in the 

 blossoms for the sole purpose of attracting insects. 



Black Honey of the Pjne Woods. 



Large quantities of honey are often secured from pine 

 woods in certain parts of Germany. This honey is nearly 

 black in color, still it finds many admirers, and must therefore 

 be of much better quality than the honey-dew gathered 

 here at times. The Emmendingen Bee-Keepers' Society 

 furnishes all the honey for the Grand duke's table (in Karls- 

 ruhe), and it is specified that this honey must be the black 

 honey of the pine woods. — Bztg. for Schlesw.-Holstein. 



AUSTRIA. 

 Feeding Bees A Baked Hen. 



The old-time practice of feeding bees with a baked hen, 

 as has been reported occasionally, has undoubtedly furnished 

 food for smiles and ridicule. Jno. Sponer ventures and ex- 

 plantation of this singular practice in the Dent. .Imkcr for 

 March. He says the occurence of this came at a time when 

 dishes suitable for feeding were extremely rare, and when 

 a steamed hen. still hot, was shoved under a colony which 

 hesitated to take advantage of a good, warm day, to have 

 a cleansing flight. The warm air rising from the hot meat 

 did not fail to bring the bees to their senses. 



The tender meat of the fowl also furnished water to 

 the bees, and probably saved many a one from finding death 

 at the brook. It was a convenient way to "water" the bees 

 when hens were cheap and dishes scarce. These were ad- 

 vantages which did not fail to make their showing in the 

 development of colonies so treated. That mice came later 

 and cleaned away the drier portions of the hen's carcass 

 escaped the observation of these bee-keepers of times gone 

 by. But. then, the hen had served its purpose. 



AUSTRALIA. 



Australian Honey in Britain. 



We are told by the Australian bee-keepers that their 

 honey is of superior quality and most excellent flavor, but 

 others are of different opinions. An effort has been made to 

 induce the Britons to use the Australian product, but with- 

 out success so far. The German people make a similar 

 claim as to the superiority of their honey. It is doubtful, how- 

 ever, that the claim is well-founded, although honey, which 

 I have sent to friends in Germany not interested in bee- 

 culture, was pronounced by them inferior to the German 

 product. 



Honey Season Unfavorable in Australia. 



The past honey season in Australia was unfavorable. 

 August is the spring month, and bees were in good shape, 

 with plenty of brood, but a long-continued cold-spell de- 



