1921 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



185 



retinue of about 50 workers, gave 

 better satisfaction than those which 

 are sent now-a-days in cages of lim- 

 ited space with -no comb at all. 



Again, for safe shipping of queens 

 at long distances, Mr. Warner sug- 

 gests a method which he has tried: 

 Make up a strong nucleus a couple of 

 days beforehand, with plenty of 

 young bees, allowing them a flight so 

 as to let all the old field workers re- 

 turn to their home. Then place the 

 queens to be sent (any number of 

 them) securely fastened, in individ- 

 ual cages, in a frame, within the cen- 

 ter of this nucleus, accompanied by 

 only a few bees each, but surrounded 

 with the young bees of this strong 

 nucleus, to keep them warm and feed 

 them. The combs of the nucleus must 

 be old enough and strong enough to 

 withstand rough usage and there 

 must be an ample amount of good 

 honey, or, better yet, sugar syrup. 



The queens sent in this way would 

 be kept warm, they would be well 

 fed. This would enable the shipping 

 of queens earlier in the season than 

 is safe to do under present condi- 

 tions, when they are sent in cages. A 

 nucleus may be boxed so that it will 

 be in a pyramidal shape, with a cush- 

 ion on the underside and a rope han- 

 dle at the top. There is thus no in- 

 ducement to lay the box on its side, 

 and express shipments would be like- 

 ly to arrive safely, more so than mail 

 shipments. 



But for a very valuable queen, 

 Warner is in exact agreement with 

 Alley, Doolittle and Pellett, suspend 

 the laying gradually and keep the 

 queen in nucleus. Ventilation is 

 needed, but darkness should accom- 

 pany it, as the bees and the queens 

 worry much less in darkness than in 

 daylight. 



Mr. Warner told me of having ac- 

 companied a shipment of over 200 

 queens in a single large package of 

 this kind. The package used was an 

 ordinai-y ten-frame hive body. The 

 queens, in small and large mailing 

 cages, were securely fixed on frames 

 hung within, the hive body with its 

 specially prepared population of bees. 

 Ample air circulation was provided 

 for, but the inside was made as dark 

 as practicable. The queens had a 25- 

 mile automobile ride, a two-days' 

 wait for a steamer, a 1,400-mile sea 

 voyage, from Porto Rico to Brooklyn, 

 a taxicab ride across the Brooklyn 

 bridge and up Fifth Avenue, a train 

 ride by express 800 miles, with a 

 final automobile ride to their new 

 home in South Carolina. Most of 

 these queens were introduced 

 promptly, but a few of them were 

 placed in a queenless colony and kept 

 for about a month. These queens 

 were observed once or twice a day, on 

 the sea voyage and also while in the 

 express car; that is, the outside of 

 the package was observed as to sight, 

 sound and smell, as well as for tem- 

 perature. In this form of shipment 

 a small cage is as good as a large one, 

 and takes less space; a half dozen ac- 

 companying bees better than more. 

 Mr. Warner reported the loss as in- 



consequential, with the total elapsed 

 time from caging the queens till their 

 release, almost two full weeks. 



MAKING RAPID INCREASE 



By Frank C. Pellett 



The following is an account of an 

 experiment with fourteen colonies 

 which was designed to test the 

 amount of increase and honey that 

 could be secured in two seasons. 

 Without at any time running the risk 

 of weakening the parent colonies to 

 the danger point in making increase, 

 the first season the colonies were di- 

 vided as often as conservative meth- 

 ods would permit. The second sea- 

 son the colonies were pushed for 

 honey production. Swarming was 

 prevented as far as possible and no 

 artificial divisions were made. At the 

 close of the second season we had in- 

 creased to 67 colonies in good condi- 

 tion for winter, and at pre-war prices, 

 sold $700 worth of honey. In addi- 

 tion to the increase and honey above 

 mentioned we had 180 or more sets 

 of new combs drawn, which at $1 

 each, would be worth $180. This is 

 about half the value at which newly- 

 drawn combs in full depth extracting 

 frames are usually estimated. We 

 also had resei-ved about $100 worth 

 of honey, which had not been ex- 

 tracted, for use in starting new colo- 

 nies the following season. The total 

 net return, in addition to the in- 

 crease in bees, was then nearly one 

 thousand dollars from 14 colonies in 

 two years. 



Right here it should be stated that 

 such a result was possible only be- 

 cause there happened to be two very 

 favorable seasons together. During 

 the first season of the experiment, 

 there was an almost continuous honey 

 flow, which made it easy to increase 

 rapidly. Had it been known in the 

 beginning that the season would 

 prove so extremely favorable, it 

 would have been possible to make a 

 much larger increase in the number 

 of colonies, but we did not at any 

 time increase beyond the point of 

 safety, in case the honeyflow ceased 

 abruptly. The second season proved 

 to be one of the best for several 

 years, so that the crop was much 

 above the average, and very favorable 

 for the success of the experiment. 

 Given the same favorable advantages, 

 a beginner could hardly expect to 

 even approximate such a result, al- 

 though an expert beekeeper might 

 make a better showing. This is not 

 written with any intention of claim- 

 ing any remarkable result, but rather 

 to show the possibilities of beekeep- 

 ing when proper attention and favor- 

 able conditions are combined. 

 Making Increase 



The bees were left in their pack- 

 ing cases until after fruit bloom was 

 over in May. The colonies had been 

 wintei-ed in two-story hives in pack- 

 ing cases. The two-story hives gave 

 them plenty of room for spring brood 

 rearing and the packing cases fur- 

 nished them with good protection 



against the changing weather of 

 March and April. Although the 

 weather was not as warm as it is 

 most years at the season, the packing 

 material around the hives made it 

 possible for the bees to build up rap- 

 idly and the hives were soon full of 

 brood and honey. As soon as the 

 weather seemed warm enough to 

 make it advisable, queen rearing op- 

 erations were started, so that we 

 were prepared to provide each new 

 colony with a queen. Whenever a 

 colony became strong enough so that 

 it could be divided without leaving it 

 too weak, part of the sealed brood 

 was taken away and placed on a new 

 stand and given a sealed queen cell. 

 If the colony had ten frames of brood 

 it seemed safe to take four frames 

 with the adhering bees and use them 

 to start a new colony. By the time the 

 queen had emerged and began to lay 

 there would be a nice cluster of bees 

 and the colony would build up rap- 

 idly. If the weather continues favor- 

 able it is an easy matter to build up 

 a nucleus of only two frames, but if 

 there is a sudden check of the honey- 

 flow such weak divisions will require 

 a lot of nursing to get them through, 

 and it may easily happen that the 

 beekeeper will lose much of his newly 

 made increase. By taking only such 

 an amount of brood as a colony can 

 spare without greatly weakening it, 

 and if necessary combining the avail- 

 able brood from two or more hives, to 

 make a nucleus strong enough to 

 weather unfavorable conditions, one 

 need run little risk of failure. Later 

 in the season, when we did not wish 

 to lose the time necessary to wait for 

 the emergence of queens from sealed 

 cells, and the delay in mating, we se- 

 cured a supply of laying queens. The 

 queens were introduced immediately 

 when a division was made, and would 

 be laying in a very short time. The 

 hives were placed in pairs on cement 

 stands, where they were expected 

 to remain permanently. Ten-frame 

 hives were used, for the most part, 

 and in addition to the frames of 

 brood taken from the parent hives 

 the remaining space would be filled 

 with drawn combs, so that the bees 

 were not taxed to build combs when 

 the colony was weak. Sometimes it 

 became necessary to give full sheets 

 of foundation because of a lack of a 

 sufficient supply of drawn combs, but 

 genei'ally we succeeded in getting 

 combs drawn above the parent colo- 

 nies. 



At the close of the first season we 

 had 59 strong colonies from the orig- 

 inal 14. and at no time during the 

 season had we weakened the colonies 

 seriously. In addition to the increase 

 of 45 colonies we secured several 

 hundred pounds of honey and some- 

 thing like forty sets of newly-drawn 

 combs. 



The Second Season 



Since it was honey we wanted, in- 

 stead of bees, the second season, 

 every effort was put forth to make 

 the colonies as strong as possible and 

 to keep them from swarming. While 

 it is impossible to entirely control 



