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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Fei. 4, 



managed. If there has been considerable brood reared all 

 sumaier and toward the end of the season, the bees may win- 

 ter pretty well, but the uniting must be done early, and it 

 often happens that there is more profit in keeping the nuclei 

 running than there is in uniting them early. 



Genesee Co., Mich. 



Feeding to Rear Bees for the Harvest. 



BY A. F. BROWN. 



This is a subject very few really seem to understand as 

 it should be, or deserves to be, understood. 



On several occasions I have fed on a large scale for the 

 production of brood to give me a fall ivorklng force of flcld- 

 bees at the opening of some given honey-fiow--not 10 or a 

 dozen colonies, but upwards of 200, at seven or eight differ- 

 ent times, and from this experience I find 7 to 8 weeljs to be 

 nearer right than 5 or 6 weeks, as usually given ; and, 

 further, if your flow is of short duration — lO days or two 

 weeks — it pays to cage the queens about a week or 10 days 

 before the flow opens, as the eggs laid from then on produce 

 brood at an expense, providing one has no need of increase in 

 number of colonies. 



We will suppose your flow comes July 1. The eggs laid 

 that produce the actual bees to harvest the bulk of this crop 

 are those laid between May 1 and June 5 or 10. Nine-tenths 

 of the bees produced after this date are at the expense of the 

 crop or net returns from the colony. 



Colonies averaging two quarts of bees and the equivalent 

 of two frames of brood on the first of May, if fed daily for four 

 weeks, will give colonies that will produce twice the amount 

 of surplus honey that the same size and strength colony would, 

 if we had waited until two weeks later to commence to feed 

 them. 



I erred in thinking six weeks was ample, but experience 

 now tells me eight are far better, and the first four are the 

 most valuable. Queens laying an average of 200 or 300 eggs 

 per day with nurse-bees iu the hive to only care for that 

 amount do not jump up to 1,000 or 1,500 per day on a day's 

 notice — it usually means a week or 10 days, with a good force 

 of " nurse," and much longer if the nurses have to be reared. 

 Three quarts of field-bees of the right age at the opening 

 of the flow are worth a peck of little, young, downy chaps that 

 are just hatcht out, and come on as workers about the close of 

 the flow. My experience says, it takes 40 pounds of honey, 

 at the least, to produce a good, average swarm, of say 10 

 pounds; and one's success or failure in honey-production de- 

 pends greatly on the one fact of expending this 40 pounds of 

 honey at the right time. Nature often regulates it very 

 nicely ; still, there are many places and seasons when, if we 

 depended on Nature, the expenditure of this honey, and labor 

 involved, would be at a time wo would derive very little re- 

 turns from the investment. 



The old axiom — " Keep your colonies strong" — would be 

 more profitable to those living in a location where there is but 

 one short flow — if it read, "Get your colonies strong in ample 

 season to take advantage of the flow," and not to be consum- 

 ing all their energy and honey that comes from that flow in 

 producing " bees" for strong colonies after the flow has past. 

 It might not be amiss here to say that when feeding for 

 stimulating brood-rearing, I feed from 4 to 8 ounces per day, 

 each day, according to the strength of the colony ; and I 

 give this just at dusk — good honey diluted with an equal 

 amount of water or syrup made of granulated sugar, 10 to 12 

 pounds of sugar to the gallon of water, and three pints of 

 honey to this amount, as a flavor, and to induce the bees to 

 take it more readily. 



I prefer to feed right over the cluster /com above, but un- 

 der no consideration to keep breaking the sealings of the 

 cover joints if the weather is at all cool. If your colonies are 

 in two-story hives, place the " set of combs " that the bees use 

 as a brood-nest, at the top, until you are ready for the harvest, 

 then put the surplus arrangement above. Combs below the 

 brood-nest are protected from the moths fully as well, if not 

 better, than those above. Volusia Co., Fla. 



Experiences and Conclusions of the Past Year. 



nv KnwiN BKVINS. 



On my return home from a visit to Omaha, In the second 

 week of September, 1 found myself confronted by a condition 

 instead of a theory. The condition was something like this : 

 Along about the middle of August I took most of the supers 

 from the hives workt for comb honey, leaving on only those 



having a good many unfinisht sections. Honey was not com- 

 ing freely then, and I was not looking for any fall honey, as I 

 had never had any since I began to keep bees. In the closing 

 days of August I noticed that smartweed was getting quite 

 abundant, and that the bees were working on it to some ex- 

 tent, but I did not expect much from this source. 



When I got home from Nebraska the weather was a little 

 rainy, but I went out to see the bees. Some of the colonies 

 had increast so much that not all of the bees could find room 

 in the hives. Some of the bees were piled upon the alighting- 

 board at the entrance, so wet that they could not crawl, and 

 some had found shelter on the underside of the shade-boards, 

 which I use to lean against the hives to protect them from the 

 afternoon sun. Almost every hive in the yard was full of 

 bees, brood, and honey, and some, as I have stated, were more 

 than full. One colony, which had done a whole lot of work in 

 the sections without swarming, swarmed while I was away, 

 and the swarm struck out for the woods. When I lookt 

 around among those little 8-frame hives overflowing with bees, 

 I began to wish that more swarms had gone to the woods. 

 Here I was, with thousands and thousands of hands to " hoe 

 potatoes in October," and a strong probability that I should 

 have thousands and thousands of hands to " hoe potatoes in 

 March," and a further probability that about that time, or a 

 little later, provisions will be exhausted. 



Just DOW I am contemplating with a good deal of satis- 

 faction my big hives with 10 Quinby frames, and also my 8 

 and 10 frame hives with frames 11 inches deep. When I take 

 hold to lift one of these, I feel satisfied that the bees will not 

 gnaw into the top-bars before next June. But what of those 

 great colonies of bees in the little hives ? The hives are heavy 

 with honey now, but the space between the top-bars and the 

 bottom-bars is only 8 inches. Ugh ! 



After all, I guess that I shall have to abate something of 

 my hostility to these little hives. If one wants to get a big lot 

 of comb honey, and is able and willing to do lots of work, 

 there is, perhaps, none better for most localities. But the job 

 of feeding that it seems likely that I will have to do, I am not 

 contemplating with any great degree of satisfaction. 



SOME "conclusions" OF THE SEASON. 



Another season of work in the apiary is done, and the 

 work done during the season just past has enabled me to ar- 

 rive at some conclusions. 



1st. I conclude that Dr. Miller's objection to the Hoffman 

 frame on account of unequal spacing is more formidable in 

 theory than it is in practice. 



2Dd. I conclude that I want no hives with beveled or rab- 

 beted edges. Sometimes one wants to use the chisel or screw 

 driver with considerable force, and then one does not want to 

 waste time in beiug careful. 



3rd. I concluded that I want metal rabbets in all hives, 

 except, perhaps, the big hives used for extracted honey. The 

 sliding motion which these rabbets permits is of too much ad- 

 vantage to be dispenst with in the handling of frames. 



4th. I concluded that I will never try to produce any 

 more cimb honey without the use of separators. Perhaps Mr. 

 Abbott can get good work done in the sections without their use, 

 but I can't. I tried this season in a small way, and was made 

 to wish that I had tried it in a great deal smaller way. Mr. 

 Abbott owes me some money for several sections that I was 

 compelled to eat because I could not crate them. You see, I 

 tried to get along without separators because he said he could. 

 Without separators the sides of the sections would be built 

 either convex or concave almost invariably, but occasionally a 

 section would be bulged on both sides so that it would contain 

 a pound and a half, or so, of honey, while the sections adjoin- 

 ing would bo correspondingly light. While most of the sec- 

 tions could be put into the shipping-cases without much 

 trouble, it would require a very careful hand to take them out 

 without spoiling a good many. 



t>. I half concluded that I want no more sections with 

 openings on all four sides, but will let another season's trial 

 settle that question. 



SLOTTED SEPARATORS-;-" GOLDEN BEAITTIKS." 



I sometimes read and hear about slotted separators. Will 

 somebody rise and explain why the ordinary separators are 

 not made with holes in them ? 



I want space here to make Mr. Norton an apology. It 

 wd.t a little rough to suggest any -comparison between the 

 golden beauties and a yellow dog. that should seem to be un- 

 favorable to the bees. I take it all back. Mr. Norton's sug- 

 gestion that the golden beauties bear about the same relation 

 to a yellow dog that gold bears to brass, is well put, and 1 am 

 willing to own to its force and correctness. But I wish to say 

 farther. In this connection, that when I wrote the article re- 



