1^84 



GLEA^IKgS iK BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 



Thus, when the young- queen is ready to lay she 

 finds every available cell stored with honey. At 

 this point the instinct of the bees teaches thein 

 that they must have brood or they will soon cease 

 to exist as a colony, and a general rush is made for 

 the sections. The honej' from below is carried 

 above, so as to give the queen room, and in a week 

 we have, as a result, the sections nearly filled with 

 honey. I have had such colonies fill and complete 

 section honey to the amount of 60 lbs. in from 8 to 

 12 days, while those to which I had given the laying 

 queen immediately after swarming did little but 

 swarm during the same time. Bear in mind, we 

 are talking about producing comb honey, not ex- 

 tracted. Different locations may give different re- 

 sults; still, I think that nearly all sections give a 

 large flow of honey at a certain period during the 

 season, rather than a steady, continuous honey- 

 harvest the whole season. To such sections these 

 remarks are especially applicable. My second rea- 

 son is, that after basswood we have a honey-dearth, 

 hence the bees from the introduced queen are of 

 no value, but, on the contrary, become consumers. 

 On an average, it takes '^i days from the time the 

 egg is laid, to the perfect bee. Then if the colony is 

 in a normal condition, this bee does not commence 

 labor in the field till 16 days old; hence, the eggs for 

 the honey-gathering bees must be deposited in the 

 cell 37 days before the honey-harvest ends, or else 

 they are of no value as honey-producers. As the 

 basswood is all gone before the eggs of the intro- 

 duced queen become honey-producing bees, and 

 as the larger pai-t of them die of old age before 

 buckwheat and fall flowers yield honey, it will be 

 seen that a great gain is made by letting each old 

 colony, having cast a swarm, rear their own queen; 

 for thereby we save the expensive feeding of the 

 larvfe, which are to become expensive consumers of 

 the honey of the hive. Also the chances are, that, 

 when the colony rears its own queen, they will be 

 stocked with younger bees for wintering In Novem- 

 ber than where a queen was introduced immediate- 

 ly after swarming. 



The one point worth knowing above all others in 

 bee-keeping is a thorough knowledge of the loca- 

 tion we are it\, as to its honey resources, and then 

 getting the largest amount of bees possible at that 

 or those times to gather the honey, having just as 

 few at all other times as is consistent with the ac- 

 complishing of this object. 



In working so that we get the bees out of season, 

 we have to pay the same price for them that we 

 would to get them, so that each one becomes a i)ro- 

 ducer instead of a consumer. If all who read this 

 article will study their location, and then rear their 

 bees in reference to that location, I think they will 

 find their bees will do as well as their more success- 

 ful neighbors'. We often hear it said, that one 

 colony in the apiary did much better than the rest, 

 and, had they all done »b well, a rousing crop of 

 honey would have been the result. The reason 

 that one colony did so well was because it happened 

 to have a large proportion of its bees of the right 

 age to gather honey just in the honey-harvest; and 

 if we can get all in this condition we can secure a 

 like result from the whole apiary. 



G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



Borodino, N. Y., Apr. 2, 1888. 



Friend D., I believe it was father Lang- 

 stroth who first suggested that a laying 

 queen, after the swarm was cast, miglit be 



equivalent to bees enough to make a swarm; 

 and he gave it shortly after his discoveries 

 of the movable-comb hive, as one of the ad- 

 vantages to be secured by artificial instead 

 of natural swarming. Now, although you 

 are right, probably, I think father Lang- 

 stroth is pretty nearly right also ; but, as 

 you say, it depends on what one wants to 

 do with his bees. Where a beginner or any- 

 body else is anxious to increase his number 

 of colonies as fast as possible, I think the 

 plan is usually a good one. although it may 

 not secure all that frieml L. claimed for it. 

 Where a bee-keeper gives most of his time 

 to his bees it seems to me he ought not to 

 put all his eggs in one basket. I mean by 

 this, that 1 do not believe it pays for him to 

 restrict himself to comb honey solely, any 

 more than it pays a farmer to raise just one 

 crop. The wide-awake honey-producer ought 

 to be watching the market, and holding 

 himself in readiness to produce bees, 

 queens, extracted or comb honey, whichever 

 the demand or season may make conven- 

 ient. For a season like the last, when there 

 are many localities that secured absolutely 

 no honey, a good many could sell bees, 

 queens, nuclei, and whole colonies, and I 

 think they could do this at a profit, even if 

 they were obliged to buy feed. I do not be- 

 lieve many localities have such a tendency 

 to overswarming as you often have. In om- 

 locality, second swarms are the exception, 

 and occur only during occasional seasons ; 

 and a great many colonies will almost every 

 season work right along, storing honey 

 without getting tlie swarming-fever at all. 

 I'our conclusions are right. Every bee- 

 keeper should study his location and make 

 the best of every peculiarity ahout his loca- 

 tion and surroundings. 



GEO. 



GRIMM'S METHOD OF PRODUC- 

 ING COMB HONEY. 



HOW HE MANAGES WITH A MINIMUM OF L,.\BOR. 



T SEND you to-day by express a sample section- 

 (mP rack. What do you think of it? It is adapted 

 ^t to my purpose, and gives me better satisfac- 

 "*■ tion than any thing else that I have tried or 

 seen. It will not require explanation for a 

 bee-keeper to understand it. If you think there 

 are many pieces, just imagine that the honey-flow 

 is at its best, and tiering up must be resorted to, 

 and see how easily it is done; or imagine that it is 

 about over, and that there are two or three or 

 more unfinished sections in the lot, which must be 

 left on, and see how easily it is arranged. The top 

 boards fit into the space occupied by a ring of sec- 

 tions; you can leave on one or two or more rings 

 full, or reduce to half a ring or less. In tiering up 

 you can add one or more rings as you may desire 

 and circumstances warrant. No matter how few or 

 how many sections you have on a hive, every thing 

 is closed and snug at all times. To appreciate, one 

 must see it used. 



Now let me tell you why I said, in an answer to a 

 former question, that raising comb honey is more 

 profitable than raising extracted, and I think I can 

 do this only by telling you the manner in which I 

 now " keep bees." I keep only about one hundred 

 colonies, and at present have even less. My prac- 



