THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



1?,3 



to one of our nuck-i ami take from it a 

 furtilc queen, which after enclosing in a 

 •wire cage we place between two of the 

 brood combs of the new swarm, tliis (lueeu 

 we can safely liberate after from 24 to 48 

 hours* if the bees have not already done 

 so and tliereby deprived us Of the pleas- 

 ure ; but should we find no queens in pro- 

 per condition we then tiike a sealed queen 

 cell cut from the comb in the form of a 

 wedge, with the broad end above the cell, 

 and this we insert in one of the brood 

 combs in tlie center of the swarm, our 

 only labor after this will be to furnish the 

 hive with empty combs or frames as fast 

 as the bees can cover them iu a similar 

 manner to that directed for brood raising. 

 We have now completed the building up 

 of our new colony, and it only remains 

 to treat it as an old stock, either for honey 

 gathering, or if the swarm has been made 

 early in the season, we can iu turn use it 

 to furnish brood or a portion of brood for 

 another new swarm. We should have 

 stated earlier iu our directions that the 

 brood for a young swarm can be taken 

 from three or four difierent stocks, in- 

 stead of only one and with equally suc- 

 cessful resuls. In this case there will be 

 no visible reduction of any one of our 

 colonies. 



We shall now return to the old hive 

 from which we took the brood for the for- 

 mation of a portion of our swarm and in 

 which we left only two brood combs. The 

 leaving of young brood with the old stock, 

 we consider an essential feature iu artifi- 

 cial swarming, and for the very obvious 

 reason that the young bees are the best 

 nurses of the eggs and young brood which 

 will be set by the queen much more freely 

 than it would have been had the hive re- 

 mained iu the condition it was before 

 depriving it of the greater portion of its 

 brood. We think that none of our bee- 

 keeping friends who have practised the 

 method above given and also the one of 

 depriving a hive of all its brood, will be 

 willing to dispute the position we have 

 taken, but will with ourselves have been 

 forced to the conclusion that young bees 

 as nurses are all important to the future 

 success of the colony. 



It will be seen that by adopting the 

 foregoing directions, if the following sea- 

 son favors us with a good yield of honey, 

 we will now have three stocks in proper 

 condition for gathering a surplus store, 

 and we shall not have spent many anx- 

 ious hours in watching our bees only to 

 witness the unwelcome spectacle of a 

 swarm coming off hite in the season, to 

 leave us per-chance for th ewoods, or at 

 most to be carefully fed to prepare it for 



the winter, and from which we cannot 

 expect an ounce of surplus. 



We have given wliat we have found to 

 be the best manner of increasing our 

 stocks, and should he glad in return to 

 receive the narration of the successful 

 practice of those who have been extensive- 

 ly engaged in this important branch of 

 apiculture, and who are therefore more 

 competent to teach the art than we are. 



"B." 



Beaver, Pa. 



An Essay on the Size of Frames. 



To the Michigan Bee-keepers'' Society. 



Gents : Since the discovery of the re- 

 production of bees by Dzierzon, and es- 

 pecially since our beloved Langstroth has 

 taught the best mode of constructing the 

 frames, the American bee-keepers have 

 made constant progress in the manage- 

 ment of bees, and tlie inventors have 

 struggled to get the most convenient hives 

 considered as homes for our little pets. 

 Among these inventors some have made 

 mistakes, and have done more harm than 

 good, while some more fortunate have hit 

 the nail and are real benefactors of our 

 bee community. But is to be remarked 

 here that nothing has been devised having 

 any value when compared with the long 

 upper bar to support the frame, the ab- 

 sence of contact of the frames with one 

 another and with the hive, and the mov- 

 able honey board. Without these three 

 conditions devised by Langstroth, no easy 

 management of bees is possible. 



If we compare the improvements with 

 those of the old continent we see, in Ger- 

 many, Dzierzon, better in theory than la 

 practice, advising his adepts to cling tO' 

 the movable comb suspended under a top 

 bar in place frame. Berlepsch, the most 

 learned bee-keeper of Germany, using a 

 two or three story hive whose frames are 

 pulled out by the sides ; and the most ad- 

 vanced bee-keepers of Italy trying to im- 

 prove the Berlepsch hive, while in Ameri- 

 ca we are furnished by Langstroth with a 

 hive combining those three qualities 

 without wliich there is no good hive, the 

 frames independent of one another sus- 

 pended at the top, and the movable honey- 

 board. 



Few American bee-keepers would to- 

 day dispute the necessity of these three 

 requisites of a goo J hive. Let us then 

 discard all the inventions which dispense 

 with one or all of these three distinctive 

 features of the Langstroth hive. 



But if we, all, or nearly all, agree on 

 these points, we are yet far from agree- 

 ing as to the size of the frames and their 



