1897. 



THE AMERICAN BEE KEEPER. 



available cell filled with brood and 

 that from two to three weekt sooner 

 than she would have done had the 

 colony been left to theraselver By 

 the 20th of June every available cell 

 should be filled with brood and the 

 hive full of bees. By this time white 

 clover ia nearly in full bloom and all 

 the section! should be put on, if not 

 already on. I like to put on sections 

 when the hive is so full of brood and 

 the bees lo anxious for some place to 

 put honey that they will commence 

 work in the sections at once. 



Mr. E. Gallup, who stood first 

 among the bee keepers of twenty-five 

 years ago, gave us the secret when he 

 said : " Get the bees and they will se- 

 cure the honey, if there is any to be 

 had." Keep an eye to business and 

 do things at the right time if you 

 wish success. If we wait about put- 

 ting on the sections, when our bees 

 have arrived at the condition I have 

 supposed them to be on June 20th, and 

 we should have but few days honey 

 yield, we should get nothing. It is no 

 unusual thing to secure from eight to 

 twelve pounds of section honey from 

 a colony per day if we have the hive 

 full of brood and bees and honey is 

 plenty in the flowers. 



Now I will suppose that instead of 

 managing as given above we let our 

 bees take care of themselves, leaving 

 weak colonies unprotected, and if any 

 bees have died during the winter, we 

 leave their stores for the bees to carry 

 away. After carrying off this they 

 will be apt to rob our weak colonies, 

 and thus their combs will bo filled 

 with honey instead of brood. Soon 

 the willows blossom, then the apple 

 trees, and thus the hives are kept full 

 of honey. I'oo much stores in May 



and June gives about the same assur- 

 ance of section honey as would be giv- 

 en in letting the colony starve. There 

 is no such thing as having the combs 

 full of honey during the fore part of 

 the season and then securing lots of 

 sections full of clover honey, for 

 where would the bees come from to 

 gather said honey ? 



Gallup said again: " We must nev- 

 er allow the bees to get in advance of 

 the queen, for if we do the prosperity 

 of the colony is checked at once, that 

 is, if the bees art allowed to fill the 

 combs with honey in the spring, be- 

 fore the queen has filled them with 

 brood, the colony will be an unprofit- 

 able one." Honey can not be obtain- 

 ed without bees. The nine Gallup 

 frames which I use in a hive gives 

 about 45 ,000 worker bees every twen- 

 ty-five days, and a queen that is worth 

 keeping, worked on the plan given in 

 this article, will keep the frames full 

 of brood after they are once full, till 

 the honey season draws to a close, pro- 

 viding the sections are put on at the 

 proper time ; but give the same queen 

 only 5,000 bees and those old ones, or 

 field workers, and they will keep the 

 combs so filled with honey that no 

 surplus will be obtained. If our hives 

 contained 5,000 bees on the first of 

 May, with ten pounds of honey, they 

 are what would be called extra good 

 colonies. Now if we should give 

 them what honey or syrup they could 

 carry during the month of May in- 

 stead of using up the ten pounds in 

 rearing brood, they would store the 

 honey in the brood cells in addition 

 to the ten pounds already there, so 

 we would have about 5,000 bees in 

 our hives all summer. Thus it will 

 be seen it is the bees and brood we 



