Sept. 20, 1906 



799 



American Hee Journal 



Some Recent Apiarian Expe- 

 riences 



BY EDWIN BEVINS 



Wishing-, a few days ago, to have 

 some queenless bees for cell-building, 

 I went to hives with queen-excluding 

 zinc on them, and supers with full- 

 depth frames for extracted honey. 

 From these supers I took 7 frames with 

 all of the adhering bees and put them 

 in an 8-frame hive, and confined the 

 bees to the hive for 48 hours. Then I 

 gave them a comb from another hive 

 on which the queen had done her latest 

 laying. The next day I had a queen 

 arrive in the mail for which I had 

 made no preparation, and so placed her 

 on the frames of the queenless bees. 

 Five days later I found that she was 

 out of the cage, and also found about a 

 dozen torn-down queen-cells. The ar- 

 rival of this queen prevented me from 

 reaching the goal I started for, but the 

 experience seems to show me how a 

 whole lot of queen cells can be easily 

 obtained, and how a queen may be 

 safely introduced with bees, and honey 

 can be taken from above excluders. At 

 such times increase of colonies is a 

 very simple matter. 



Prevention of Swarming. 



There was a time when I thought I 

 would like to have Mr. Davenport tell 

 us how to control swarming, but I have 

 changed my mind. He seems to think 

 he has something that he will neither 

 sell for cash nor give away, and I, for 

 one, am willing that his knowledge 

 shall die with him. (May the day be 

 distant.) The knowledge, if given, 

 might prove to be the end of experi- 

 mentation. At the present stage of 

 the game the control of swarming, so 

 far as the prevention of increase is 

 concerned, is not a difficult matter. 



I should have been much pleased if 

 Mr. Alexander's plan, as published re- 

 cently, had come under my notice ear- 

 lier. The Stachelhausen plan has been 

 my favorite, and will remain so unless 

 the Alexander plan proves superior. It 

 is not easy for me to reconcile myself 

 to the idea of no swarming at all. I 

 love to see the great, big swarms issue 

 from the great, big colonies, and find 

 a big lot of large queen-cells from 

 which I can get queens to replace my 

 oldest and poorest ones. This swarm- 

 ing is a sign that we are in a living 

 world, and that something in this 

 world is in a prosperous condition. 

 Kept within moderate bounds, it is bet- 

 ter, in my view, than no swarming at 

 all. Mr. Davenport may hug his secret 

 till the end of time. 



One very important item in the re- 

 striction of swarming is an abundance 



of drawn combs at the beginning of 

 the flow, and for some time afterwards. 

 Besides cutting a considerable figure 

 in keeping down excessive swarming, 

 they make, in a poor season like the 

 present, all the difference between al- 

 most no honey crop and one that is 

 fairly remunerative. 



Since about the middle of July, honey 

 has been coming in very slowly. The 

 bees seem to have been making a liv- 

 ing, but only in rare instances has 

 there been any storing in supers. That 

 colony which had completed 120 sec- 

 tions about July 20, and did some work 

 in others, has since that, filled and 

 sealed 8 Langstroth frames put on for 

 extracting or for feeding in spring. 

 One or 2 other colonies have done as 

 well or better than this one, but no 

 record was kept of their work. 



How to Put On Supers. 



A man in Nebraska who reads the 

 American Bee Journal, and has lately 

 started in beekeeping, has just writ- 

 ten me, telling of some of his practises 

 and asking for my opinion of them. 

 His practise in the production of comb 

 honey is to put on empty supers above 

 the one nearest the brood-chamber, 

 citing the fact that the sections in the 

 lower super are always well filled and 

 capped, as the advantage he obtains 

 from this practise. It is my opinion 

 that this advantage is oftentimes 

 gained at the expense of a greater one. 

 With large colonies and a good honey- 

 flow a vast number of bees will stay in 

 the lower super, putting the finishing 

 touches to the sections there that ought 

 to be drawing out the comb foundation 

 and storing honey in another super; 

 and this other super should be put un- 

 der the one next to the brood-chamber 

 when the one next to the brood-cham- 

 ber is about half filled. The practise 

 may be a good one in a slow honey- 

 flow, and near the end of any flow, but 

 not at the beginning or in the midst of 

 a heavy flow. 



This correspondent says that he has 

 at the present time 4 supers on each of 

 8 hives, empty supers being always 

 placed on top of the filled and partly 

 filled ones. This practise seems to me 

 to be wasteful in the extreme. It car- 

 ries with it a great reduction in the 

 amount of honey stored during the sea- 

 son, and great damage to the combs of 

 honey in the lower supers through 

 travel-stain. In my opinion, a better 

 practise would be to put a super with 

 sections and starters under the first 

 one where it is '• or % full; then, if 

 the conditions required it, a third one 

 under the second. One would cot as a 

 general thing want to have more than 

 3 supers on a hive at a time. When 

 another is added, it is quite likely that 



the first super put on is filled, and 

 would better be taken away. 



I work for the most honey and the 

 least travel-stain, and I believe the 

 above is the best way to secure such 

 results. 



Leon, Iowa, Aug. 29. 



No. 18-Dadant Methods of 

 Honey-Production 



BY C. P. DADANT 



Friend Dadant- — Give me a good plan to 

 increase my stock in the spring; that is, a 

 plan by which I may divide without too much 

 of a sacrifice in stocking additional hives, 

 and so as to make all strong for winter. — 

 Jules Belknap, M. D. 



Friend Dadant: — Having an extra-fine 

 queen, and wishing to rear young queens 

 from her and give to other colonies, how can 

 I do this with the least trouble and least ex- 

 pense to the incoming crop? — J. E. J. 



These two queries came almost sim- 

 ultaneously into my hands. I thought 

 that I had given in detail our method 

 of artificial increase, but in looking 

 back over the previous articles, I find 

 that the subject was only broached. 

 As there is need of rearing queens 

 for artificial increase, unless we can 

 afford to buy them, the two queries 

 may be the best answered by putting 

 them together. 



In this reply I will not attempt to 

 give instructions to the man who 

 makes a business of queen-rearing for 

 sale. Commercial queen rearing is 

 represented by two methods— the Alley 

 and the Doolittle plans— and so far 

 nothing better need be recommended. 

 I would give the preference to the Doo- 

 little method, for the greatest number 

 of queens from one mother. This re- 

 ply is intended for those who wish to 

 rear queens for their own use only, to a 

 limited extent, and who wish to control 

 the increase while making it at the 

 lowest possible cost. 



Those who have followed our plans 

 of honey-production have found by this 

 time that swarming is almost entirely 

 averted. The number of swarms is 

 hardly sufficient to make up for occa- 

 sional winter losses. We are then com- 

 pelled to use artificial methods of in- 

 crease. 



I have shown in previous articles 

 (last March) that it is advisable to rear 

 our increase from the best stock, tak- 

 ing into consideration honey-produc- 

 tion, prolificness, gentleness, etc. We 

 have always considered it of the highest 

 importance to select our breeders care- 

 fully. Some of our leading apiarists, 

 including Dr. Miller, select the queens 

 that have furnished the best honey- 

 gatherers, without regard to purity of 

 breed. Whether this is right or not, 

 we have not followed quite the same 

 plan. We have always thought that 

 the traits found in hybrids would not 

 be as fixed and as sure of reproduction 

 in the progeny as the traits found in 

 pure blood, and for that reason we 

 have never taken our reproducers from 

 among the queens that are mismated, 

 no matter how high a record they 

 might have in honey-production. On 

 the other hand, the Italians have been 

 found so very uniformly better in most 

 regards, and especially in gentleness, 



