CHAPTEE XI. 



THE '* WELLS'' SYSTEM OF KEEPING TWO QUEENS 

 IN ONE HIVE. 



How TO Keep Two Queens in One Hive. 



In the year 1891 Mr. G. Wells, a Kentish bee-keeper, 

 discovered a plan, that has since become very popular with 

 some bee-keepers, by which two queens may be kept in one 

 hive.* Mr. Wells' system is this. In the autumn he gets a 

 hive large enough to take 18 or 20 frames in the body -box, 

 and having two entrances, either both at the same side of the 

 hive (as in the illustration, Fig. 40), or, preferably, one at 

 each end, like an ordinary twin hive. In this he places two 

 strong nuclei, each headed by a fertile queen, or two stocks, 

 divided from each other by a dummy board of thin yellow 

 pine-wood, placed in the middle of the hive, the two stocks of 

 bees being crowded up against each side of this dummy. The 

 dummy board itself must be pierced with fine holes, bored 

 with a bradawl, and afterwards burnt out with a piece of 

 red-hot iron wire of g inch diameter, passed through them. 

 The dummy board should be about | inch thick, and Mr. 

 Wells recommends that the edges should be bound with tin, 

 to prevent it from warping. It must, of course, fit closely 

 and accurately against the sides and floor of the hive, so that 

 the bees from one side cannot pass to the other. In the 

 following spring, when the hive is boiling over with bees and 

 ready for supering, a sheet of queen-excluder zinc is placed 

 over the top of the body-box. A doubling- box is then added, 

 and one large crate of sections is placed over the whole hive, 

 if we are working for comb-honey, while if we are working 



* Mr. Wells has published a little pamphlet on this subject, entitled 

 " A Guide Pamphlet on the Two Queen System of Bee-keeping," which 

 may be had from the Author, Mr. G. Wells, Eccles, Aylesford, Kent, 

 price ^^d,, post free. 



