THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



203 



pelled to feed; but my queens become 

 more and more prolific. The amount of 

 pollen gathered (\vhicli>,I do not com- 

 plain of) is considerable; enough room 

 for honey is not left, and I am often em- 

 barassed to complete the stores. A little 

 more attention is required, but the result 

 is worth the labor. I thus gain large 

 yields."— E. Pinard. 



It is often said that bees need salt. 

 Od. de Pratire says in the Rucher Beige 

 that his apiary is but 10 minutes' walk 

 from the sea, and has salt, brackish and 

 sweet water all accessible, but his l)ees 

 generally go for the sweet water. One 

 year his bees had access to two trenches 

 of manure and one of chaflF and waste 

 straw. They assiduously frequented the 

 trench of straw, but few or none were 

 seen in the manure trench. This, he " 

 thinks, indicates that they are not seek- 

 ing salty matters when seen on manure 

 heaps, but water containing compositions 

 of azote resulting from the decomposi- 

 tion of vegetal)les. 



Propolis taken from a barricade erected 

 by the bees at the entrance was foun i i)v 

 Dr. Planto to contain only 22 per cent, of 

 ])ure propolis, the rest being nearly all 

 wax. 



MoNTRo.SK, Colo., June 5, 1898. 



CONTRACTION OE THE BROOD-NEST. 



It is Done at the Time of Putting on the .Sec- 

 tions, and When Hiving Swarms, 

 and in Michigan, too. 



g 



WM. CR.\IG. 



IvEiNG in the last Review that vou 

 would like to hear whether bee-kee]:)ers 

 practiced contraction of the brood-nest 

 here in Michigan, I will tell you how I 

 manage my bees. 



I use two kinds of hives, the Heddon, 

 and a hive I make myself out of dry 

 goods boxes from my store. These hives 



are of the Langstroth size, except that 

 they are only seven inches deep. 



Here is my plan that I have practiced 

 for the last three years; and I find that it 

 works well. Early in the spring, as soon 

 as a colony begins to show signs of get- 

 ting strong, I raise up the hive and set 

 one of these shallow hives under it; and 

 as soon as I see that the bees are getting 

 this last hiveprettv well filled, I raise the 

 hive up as before and put another one of 

 these shallow hives under; and so on 

 until the honey flow comes; then I take 

 away all of the hives except two. These 

 two hives will contain sixteen frames of 

 solid brood. I put the sections on at once 

 and the bees are all ready for business. 



If one of these colonies should swarm, 

 I hive the swarm in two of these shallow 

 hives filled with foundation, setting it on 

 the old stand. The second day after they 

 swarm, as a rule, I go to the hive and 

 raise the top hive and set it on a bench. 

 Then I pick up the bottom hive and set 

 it to one side. Then I set the top hive 

 back on the stand, and pick up the other 

 hive which is full of bees and shake them 

 out in front of the hive, and they all go 

 into the one hive. I always make this 

 change just at night. I neglected to say 

 that I always transfer the sections to the 

 new swarm when hiving it; and I al.so 

 shake out quite a lot of the bees from the 

 old hive at the time of swarming. This 

 saves the time of going through with the 

 Ileddon method of preventing after- 

 swarms; and I have never had a second 

 swarm issue when the old colony was 

 treated in this way. 



Now, friend Hutchinson, I have written 

 this in an awful hurry, as I am quite 

 busy just now building a cellar, working 

 an acre of land in garden truck, taking 

 c:ire of 1 25 swarms of bees, and running 

 a store that does a business of five or six 

 thousand dollars a year: so you will ex- 

 cuse all mistakes and poo*- writing. 



Luck, Mich., July 9, 1898. 



[My editorial on contraction of the 

 brood-nest was all in type, and I was 



