1894 



(Jl.EANINliS IN HEE ClI/rUllE. 



739 



l|il'i. II lli.M-^nr 



ANSWERS TO 



BY G.M.DO OLITTL&.BOROOINO.N .Y. 



J I in |i L nil iJ iM. I III II im III I ' 1 III n n 111 II in; II ml I II II I 111 ^ 



^^ 



KEAI^ING QUKEKS IN l.AKGE BROOD-CHAMBF.H. 



Qt(c>tti<in.—l use a largii onn-siory liive hold- 

 ing 18 frames, riiiiiiiiig parallel with thf^ en- 

 tranc'^. so I can not very well raise queens in an 

 upper story by the plan given in your book. 

 How would you proceed to rear queens in such 

 a hive as the one spoken of above ? 



An^irer. — Your hive i-; very similar to the 

 one which 1 used when the plan of rearing 

 queens in a hive liaving a laying queen in the 

 same came to my virion. I had made four 

 hives on the ''long-idea" plan, which was 

 brought to public notice some years ago by D. 

 L. Adair, of Kentucky. These liives were used 

 a few years for extracted honey, and laid aside, 

 inasmuch as I found that it was easier to pro- 

 duce e.xtracted honey by the tiering-up plan. 

 Soon after, D. A. Jones, of Canada, came out 

 with his new plan of raising comb honey, as I 

 gave in (rLEAXiNGsa few months ago; and these 

 long-idea hives proved to be just the thing to 

 try thi^ Jones experiment with. I changed the 

 combs and bees from my regular hives back 

 into these hives again, put in the two queen- 

 excluding division-boards, so as to shut the 

 queen on five frames in the middle of the hive, 

 according to the plan, when the first thing 

 which came to my notice in opening the hive a 

 week later was sealed queen-cells wherever 

 there was any unsealed brood left which the 

 queen did not have access to. These I carefully 

 removed, till there came a time when work 

 crowded so that the removing of these cells 

 was neglected till they hatched, went out of 

 the hive, and were fertilized and commenced to 

 lay, so that I had two laying queens in these 

 hives. It will be remembered, from what I 

 wrote a few months ago, that there were wide 

 frames of sections between the combs where 

 these cells were reared and the queen-excluding 

 division-boards which kept the young queen in 

 her place, and these wide frames had separators 

 on them which tended to keep the young queen 

 from going to the perforated zinc and quarrel- 

 ing through it with the old queen. As I soon 

 became disgusted with the whole plan of long- 

 idea hives, eitlier for the production of comb or 

 extracted honey, the upper-story plan was used 

 as given in my book. But I have found, from 

 long experience, that, wherever there is un- 

 sealed brood on which the bees cluster, but 

 from which the queen is excluded by means of 

 perforated zinc, enameled cloth with a hole or 

 two in it, or a division-board with a crack in 

 the same, the bees will build queen-cells on 

 these combs; and if it is so that the young 

 queen hatching from these cells can not "touch 

 noses "with the old queen, and if there is a 



place of exit from the part of the hive in which 

 this (jiieen hatched, she will in due time become 

 fertile, and go to laying, the same as she would 

 if there were no other queen in the hive. 

 Hence to rear queens in such a hive as our cor- 

 respondent uses, all we have to do is to fix ilie 

 sam(^ so that two or three combs of brood ciin 

 be set in one end of the hivt;; and betwe. u 

 these combs of brood and the apartment having 

 the laying (^ueen. put two queen-excluding 

 division boards, these latter ijeing half an inch 

 or more apart, so tliat the queens can not touch 

 each other. From past experience, my way of 

 fixing such a hive would be to keep the laying 

 queen in the rear end, on as many combs as I 

 wisiied her to occupy, placing next her apart- 

 ment a queen -excluding division - board. I 

 would now place two empty combs next this 

 division-board, and immediately in front of 

 these put in another queen excluder. I would 

 now fill out the remaining space between the 

 last excluder and the front end of the hive, or 

 entrance, with combs of brood and honey, and 

 raise queen- cells there, and have them fertiliz- 

 ed from the same, as I gave in my book. Now, 

 while I have told what I would do when using 

 such a hive as the correspondent says he is 

 using, yet I feel it is my duty to say that, in a 

 locality like Central New York, such a hive is 

 not the one for the practical bee-keeper to use 

 if he wishes to produce the most honey with 

 the least capital and labor. 



FEEDING WHEN BEARING QUEENS. 



Qrt estion.— When you rear queens in the fall 

 of the year, or at any other time when the bees 

 are not getting honey from the fields, how 

 much do you feed each day. and how do you 

 feed '? 



Answer. — I feed about a pint a day, or enough 

 so that the bees will store considerable in the 

 combs and start to comb-building, which will 

 be shown by the bees beginning to lengthen 

 unsealed cells, the same as they do when honey 

 is coming in moderately from the fieldsJor a 

 few days. All should know that comb-building 

 does not start at once, as soon as the bees are 

 fed, or as soon as they begin to get honey from 

 the fields; but in three or four days after 

 sweets are obtained, wax secretion begins, and 

 the combs begin to show the same. If the col- 

 ony is very strong in numbers, more should be 

 fed; for a pint of feed would be hardly suflHcient 

 for all hands to obtain a taste were there from 

 60,000 to 80,0(K) bees in the hive. 



For feed, I make it the same as for winter 

 feeding; namely, 15 lbs. of water put into a 

 suitable vessel, and set over the fire till it boils; 

 then slowly stir in 30 lbs. of granulated sugar, 

 so that it shall not settle to the bottom of the 

 vessel and burn (as granulated sugar is quite 

 apt to do if not stirred) while pouring in, and 

 the whole brought to a boil again. Now set 

 from the fire and stir in ^> lbs. of extracted 

 honey; or honey in the comb will do ju»t as 



