THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



123 



and No. 3 between B and C, both equally 

 distant from B, and after you have watched 

 them a few minutes — if the bees enter No. 

 1 more than No. 3 you shouUl move No. 1 

 a little towards and No. 3 towards By 

 and continue moving tJiem according to 

 this principle until the bees enter each 

 hive equally. 



HOW TO TAKE THIRD AND FOURTH SWARMS. 



No. 1 and No. 3 may be divided again 

 on the next day, making third and fourth 

 swarms. The operation is the same as 

 taking a second swarm, except we put 

 only two combs in each hive. 



When bees are divided thus small, they 

 must have constant care, to insure success. 

 As soon as the young queens commence 

 lajing, these two combs ( allowing one- 

 third for stores) will yield a brood of ten 

 thousand bees every twenty-one days. 

 But these small colonies were formed ten 

 or twelve days before the young queens 

 are ready to lay. During this time the 

 brood all hatches out, leaving the combs 

 empty, and if honey is plenty, tlie bees 

 are very apt to fill the two combs with 

 honey, leaving no place for the queen to 

 deposit her eggs. If left in this condi- 

 tion a short time, your swarms would be 

 failures. Whenever the combs are in this 

 condition, the honey should be extracted 

 from them, and you should continue to do 

 so every two or three days, if the bees fill 

 them. Again, if the weather should be 

 cold and rainy, the bees will not breed, 

 for want of proper food. In this case, 

 they should be stimulated to breed by 

 feeding, everj' evening, a little sugar syrup. 

 As soon as the brood begins to hatch 

 in these stocks, they increase very fast. 

 We now slip an empty frame down be- 

 tween the two combs, so that the bees can 

 retain the heat better and build comb 

 faster, than they could on the outside. 

 Sometimes these weak stocks will fill a 

 frame in three days ; then again, it will re- 

 quire a week. They should be watched 

 very closely at this time, and as fast as a 

 frame is filled, an empty one should 

 be given them, and continue this (giving 

 one frame at a time) until the hive is 

 filled. If any of these stocks should 

 lose its queen while she was out to 

 meet the drone, which is often the case, 

 you should know it at once, and unite it 

 with one more fortunate, and not let it 

 stand until the moths destroy the combs. 



HOW TO TAKE THE FIFTH SWARM. 



When first swarms come early, and the 

 weather is good, they will often fill the 

 hive in a week or two, and swarm. If 

 our bees come through the winter strong, 

 so that we can divide them early, we maj' 

 also divide the first swarm if it fills the 

 hive, before it becomes too late in the sea- 

 son ; and since No. 2, the first swarm, is 

 now in the same condition that No. 1 was 

 when the first swarm was taken — full of 



comb, brood, bees, and has the old queen 

 — the operation for taking tlie fifth swarm 

 will be the same as for the first, and need 

 not be repeated here. If, however, the 

 first swarm does not fill its hive soon 

 enough to be divided, you mny take four 

 combs from it (No. 3), leaving five, and 

 give one of them to each of the stocks, 

 Nos. 1, 3, 4, and 5. (These numbers in- 

 dicate the hives and not the swarms, as 

 No. 5 contains the fourth swarm.) This 

 will enable them to rear a brood of fifteen 

 thousand bees, instead of ten thousand, 

 every twenty-one days. 



"VVe do not generally get any surplus 

 honey after dividing the bees so often. 

 But if the season is good for breeding, so 

 that we can make all of our weak stocks 

 strong and we have a good yield of honey 

 in the fall, we may get more surplus than 

 if we had not divided but once — because 

 we have six stocks to work in the boxes 

 instead of two. This has frequently been 

 the case during the past season. I in- 

 creased one stock to five and they made 

 111 Ifes surplus — another to four and they 

 yielded 160 lbs — another to seven, they 

 gave 120 fi>s surplus. A gentleman, after 

 letting his first swarm go off and had 

 hived the second — sent for me to come and 

 see to his bees. I found the old stock still 

 contained a number of queen cells ready 

 to hatch. I divided it into three stocks, 

 giving each three combs. The four filled 

 their hives and three of them swarmed in 

 September and one of these filled a hive 

 containing nine frames, twelve inches- 

 square, in seven days with comb brood and 

 honey. I would say, for the benefit of the 

 beginners in bee-keeping, that we can tell 

 no more what a stock of bees will do in 

 the coming season than how many bushels 

 of oats we can raise on an acre. The 

 former, depends on the bee-pasturage, cul- 

 ture and weather, the latter, on thf soil, 

 culture and weather. The weather is some- 

 thing we can not control, and is just as 

 liable to make our bees a failure as it is 

 our oats. 



A Chip from Sweet Home. — In The 

 Amercan Bee Journal, Vol. 12, pages 

 15 and 80, I described the sectional frame 

 for surplus box-honey; how to fit the glass 

 in nicely, troubled me. I now use glass 5x6, 

 nail on each end of box two pieces, one on 

 top and one on the bottom, which have 

 just the length the section is wide, I4 inch 

 thick and 1}^ wide, these are rabbeted by 

 a circular saw so as to let the glass slide in 

 from one side— the 1^ inch thin strip 

 projects enough so that the glass cannot 

 slide. D. D. Palmer. 



Eliza, Mercer Co., 111. 



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