April 11, 1907 



^^^^J^ ^^^m American Hee Journal 



what is called "fussing." 1 have many 

 times fed, and that lavishly, in the open 

 air, but I never tried daily feeding. 

 The colony must have enough at all 

 times, but better a limited amount than 

 too much if the brood-chamber is small; 

 with a large chamber, that will hold lots 

 of stores and still give the queen ample 

 brood-room, then much stores do no 

 harm. I am an advocate of large bruod- 

 chambcrs. 



The Manipul.mion of Stokes. 



Your colony usually starts the brood- 

 nest near the entrance. If the entrance be 

 the sumiy or warmest part of the hive 

 the brood will almost certainly be there. 

 Now if there be no nectar or pollen 

 coming in sufficient to stimulate, it is 

 best to cause the bees to handle honey 

 within the hive; they ought to "get 

 busy," for a busy colony is the one that 

 "gets there" with breeding. 



Open the hive, and you will find the 

 brood in the front end of the combs, 

 with usually honey, in the back end. 

 If the colony has brood in say 2 combs, 

 or even 3, and about as much brood 

 as they can cover and care for, just 

 reverse these combs, putting the honey 

 forward; this does not spread brood but 

 puts honey to the entrance, and they 

 get busy moving the honey and will put 

 it back from the entrance. The colony 

 w'ill also stretch toward the entrance, 

 both to guard and in getting outside, 

 yet they will not pull from the brood 

 faster than they can do so safely, but 

 as fast as more comb can be covered 

 toward the entrance it will be done, and 

 occupied with brood. The moving of 

 that honey has caused better feeding 

 of the queen, which means increased de- 

 sire to lay ; has also fed the nurses bet- 

 ter, and results in better feeding of 

 brood, and so makes a faster and 

 healthier growth of the colony. The 

 extra effort in moving the honey pro- 

 duces more heat, because of the activ- 

 ity. This, of course, causes the con- 

 sumption of more stores, but the honey- 

 returns later w-ill pay, by far, better in- 

 terest and profit than if you had kept 

 the honey, or than to have sold it and 

 put the money in the bank. Activity 

 and good feeding are the foundation on 

 which rapid breeding rests. 



If my premises are correct in the fore- 

 going, then it is most likely that stimu- 

 lative feeding — that is, daily feeding by 

 supplying feed from without — viiould not 

 be profitable ; but to cause the workers 

 to load their sacs and handle stores ii 

 t>rofitab!e: this latter I do unhesitat- 

 ingly recommend, either by the method 

 recommended above, or by uncapping 

 stores making them run, or in some 

 way cause the bees to load their sacs. 

 Many say it damages a colony to manip- 

 ulate, but I must differ, and say that 

 proper manipulation is a benefit, for the 

 very reason that it loads the bees, and 

 the activity adds heat, and so aids. 



So the foundation of success in brood- 

 rearing is, first, strong, healthy queens, 

 and such are obtained by breeding from 

 colonies that show vigor, and the 

 queens produced under conditions of 

 proper heat, and well-fed and nour- 

 ished in their developing. After this, 

 proper heat and an active hustling, 



working condition of the colony — not 

 too much stores nor too little, but the 

 bees must be handling supplies. This is 

 practically all there is to do until the 

 harvest season arrives. 



If your location is one yielding nec- 

 tar and pollen practically throughout 

 the weeks preceding the harvest, and 

 especialy the short period just imme- 

 diately preceding when the colonies 

 have become quite populous; and if 

 the amount of nectar coming in is suffi- 

 cient to cause the filling of brood-combs 

 at the ends and along the top-bars, to- 

 gether with outside combs, a condition 

 favoring swarming is likely to prevail. 

 Just at this period it is heat — a hive full 

 of bees and great activity causing un- 

 comfortable heal — nurses well fed, and 

 feeding brood and queen well, the combs 

 having few empty cells; with these fac- 

 tors you have swarm conditions, and 

 many will get ready for the act. 



How TO Ret.'\rd Swarming. 



I have just spoken of the brood- 

 combs getting just about full, so that 

 the queen has limited laying room ; and 

 of the activity of the colony, and some- 

 what uncomfortable heat - conditions. 

 Abundant ventilation given at this time 

 will remove one disturbing factor, and 

 will hold part of the colonies, but not 

 all. Give a set of dry brood-combs un- 

 derneath the old one, and in this one 

 put a comb having a little brood in it — 

 give this at or near the center. This is 

 equivalent to ventilation, as it spreads 

 the colony as two persons in a warm 

 bed shifting to positions as far apart 

 as possible, or taking separate beds in 

 a hot night. It also gives both store 

 and brood room, and will by all odds 

 control in the great majority of cases. 

 All this should be done before any 

 queen-cells are started, yet, if cells are 

 building, their removal with the changes 

 indicated will, in most cases, relieve the 

 bees of the swarming fever. But should 

 the colony still show disposition to 

 swarm, they should either be divided, 

 by taking away some of the bees, or 

 some of the brood, or both. The re- 

 moved part may be taken clear away, 

 and added to weak colonies, or made 

 into new ones ; or the queen may be 

 put in that added chamber spoken of 

 to go underneath with one comb of 

 brood in it, and over this an excluder 

 or a board with a hole in it, or a super 

 between the two bodies; the idea is to 

 make the brood-nest proper, which the 

 queen now occupies, seem to be poor 

 in both honey and brood, but specially 

 little brood. If .1 board with a hole be 

 used, the hole should be covered with 

 excluding zinc. Also provide plenty of 

 ventilation or shade so as not to "cook" 

 the upper chamber in a hot sun. Re- 

 member, too. that drones may clog a 

 small zinc; I recommend the use of 

 regular wood-zinc slat honey-boards. 



Keep these principles in mind and ap- 

 ply them, gettiiii; all the bees possible 

 preceding the main harvest flow, and 

 hold or keep these bees in some way as 

 indicated herein, but get them if possi- 

 ble. And if >ou are so fortunate as to 

 have conditions that will keep up the 

 continued activity of the colony, and, 

 above all, if you have them so that with 



the arrival of the main flow you have 

 the brood-combs just about full of brood 

 and honey, you should be happy indeed. 

 I do not have such comlitions, but if I 

 did I should rear early queens, and 

 make small nuclei, and certainly strive 

 to have a large number of nucleus colo- 

 nies that would have young queens lay- 

 ing by the time the harvest flow came. 

 Such nuclei are the foundation for next 

 year's business. Yes, by all means get 

 these early nuclei, if- your location and 

 conditions will at all favor such work; 

 and even go to extra trouble to pro- 

 duce conditions that will enable you to 

 get them. The why for this, and their 

 value, will appear later. Let me repeat 

 and emphasize that early nuclei, when 

 we can have good, well-reared queens — 

 I say well - reared — not bred — will prove 

 one of your very best assets. 

 Loveland, Colo. 



Honey from European Foul- 

 Broody Combs 



BY D. J. WEST. 



On page 133, Mr. J. L. Byer criti- 

 cizes my article (page 47) on the use of 

 formaldehyde on foul-broody combs, 

 and thinks honey from such would be 

 nasty. 



When speaking of foul brood, I had 

 reference to European foul brood, com- 

 monly known as "black brood." Honey 

 from brood-combs where dead larva 

 are dried to the cells is nasty, and i 

 would not like even to taste of it. An 

 apiarist who is so neglectful as to 

 to allow brood-combs reeking with filthy 

 diseased larvae to remain in his apiary 

 will not be very successful in treating 

 European foul brood. 



My object in the article was to show 

 that formaldehyde has been used suc- 

 cessfully on European foul-broody 

 combs. I have cured quite badly dis- 

 eased combs under the treatment, but 

 it does not give very good results on 

 combs badly affected. I use only badly 

 diseased combs to experiment with. 



We go through each colony of our 

 apiaries nearly every 9 days in the 

 working season, and keep good watch 

 for black brood, etc. If a colony is 

 found with one to 10 cells of black 

 brood, it is marked, and if on the next 

 examination they are more badly af- 

 fected, some kind of treatment is given. 

 Weak, diseased colonies are not allowed 

 to exist, and no combs with rotten brood 

 dried to the cells are used for extract- 

 ing-combs. 



The brood of some strong colonies 

 will become diseased and go down very 

 fast, while other colonies with diseased 

 brood will clean all traces of it. Taking 

 the queen away for about 13 davs, and 

 then giving a virgin queen,' will often 

 prove a success. This gives the bees a 

 chance to clean the cells of the diseased 

 brood, and good brood will be reared in 

 the same cells by the young queen. 



I have 2 combs that were badlv dis- 

 eased, which were placed in the brood- 

 nest of a strong, clean colonv 5 years 

 ago, were cleaned up by the 'bees.' and 

 no trace of black brood has been seen in 

 them since. 



My claims are that when the combs 

 are stacked as stated in my first article. 



