1891 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



357 



again they arc of but little use, and they are 

 worth no more as a colony if means ai'e pursued 

 to prevent swarming. Hence I want to get all 

 the bees I can into the swarm. I then shall 

 have recruits there to take the place of the old 

 ones as they drop off. But in place of setting 

 tlie new swarm on the old stand, I carry it to 

 the stand of some other colony that has lately 

 swarmed, or that of some weak colony. In 

 either case I set the displaced colony down be- 

 side it. with the entrance turned at right angles 

 to it. I adopted this method in the effort to 

 prevent absconding of swarms. Now. please do 

 not laugh at me. but I do believe that bees look 

 up a location before they go off. From the evi- 

 dences. I think this is often done, if not usually, 

 after the swarm issues. While I find the expe- 

 dient does not always prevent them from com- 

 ing out of the hive where they are put. so far 

 in the two seasons I have practiced it, none 

 have shot right off for the woods. Removing 

 the swarm to another stand gets them where 

 the prospectors can not find them to lead them 

 off. 



Having disposed of the swarm, I remove the 

 case or cases of sections to the new colony. If 

 the swarm is very large, or the cases pretty well 

 filled. I put on an empty case underneath. 



The size of brood-chamber into which we put 

 our swarms is an important item. My verdict 

 is emphatically for contraction. I am "troubled 

 much with absconding of swarms: but while I 

 have suspect(>d. I can not find any good evi- 

 dence that contraction has any thing to do 

 with it. I generally hive on five frames, with 

 foundation starters. I have not tried frames 

 filled with foundation enough to know whether 

 that would affect the honey-yield. Hutchinson 

 has tested both methods, and he says use only 

 starters. Wired fi'ames and full sheets have 

 objectionable features to me. I like my system 

 — contraction— so well that I should "be" very 

 loth to give it up after six seasons" practice. 



The above I believe to be in detail the two 

 great essential principles of the only profitable 

 system of comb - honey production Avhere 

 swarming must take place during the honey- 

 flow. For me, swarms thus treated give as* 

 much honey as colonies that do not swarm at 

 all — the latter, however, being greatly in the 

 minority. 



Now. what do I do with the old colony? Well, 

 if I do nothing else with them I remove them 

 in a few days to another stand, or set them on 

 top of another colony. I take a great many of 

 them to pieces, and use them by frames to form 

 nuclei, or to build up other nuclei or weak 

 stocks. But more than any other one thing. I 

 carry the fi-ames or hives to the upper story of 

 some other colony, and run it for exti'acted 

 honey. 1 find it necessary to raise honey in 

 botli forms to supply my trade. But I keep 

 veiy few empty conibs for that pui'pose. I 

 think it much belter to do as I have stated. It 

 keeps down increase to some extent, and I get a 

 benefit of the combs I could not othei'wise. I 

 confess it is slower work to uncap these combs, 

 as the surfaces are more or less uneven. Some- 

 times I unite two old colonies, after a queen 

 gets to laying, by shaking the bees off one set of 

 combs on to the other hive, then put on sections 

 when thei-e is a pi'etty good pi'osjtect of getting 

 something from them. But more often I go 

 through these old colonies some three oi' more 

 weeks after swarming, and extract the honey 

 from all combs half or more full, and they have 

 usually gathered considerable by that time. 



After the clover harvest is over and the sur- 

 plus cases are all off. I take out the dummies 

 and fill ui> with fraiues from these upper stories, 

 nuclei, and old colonies that I have yet left in- 

 tact. The bees then have full breeding capaci- 



ty, and room to store honey for winter. And. 

 by the way. I can not see but that my bees win- 

 ter as well on fall honey as that gathered early 

 in the season. I unite more or less in the fall, 

 as conditions seem to demand it. 



CLOSED-END FUAMES; WHY NO BEE-SPACE IS 

 WANTED BACK OF THEM. 



Ernest, on page 211. hardly states just the 

 reason why I want no bee-space back of closed- 

 end bars. It is simply this: I do not want 

 them there when manipulating frames. They 

 are of no use there, and they are a nuisance. 

 In removing hanging frames, especially with 

 one hand, it is a wearying effort, when a hive 

 is pretty full, to avoid crushing bees, and then 

 I can not always do it. One end is pretty apt 

 to be heavier than the other, and then they 

 will not hang even: and even if they would, to 

 raise or lower a frame in exactly the right line 

 to retain the true bee-space is the hardest mat- 

 ter of all. Now. if I can just slide the end 

 along the end of the hive, especially if one end 

 overbalances the other very much, it makes it 

 more easily and quickly done. 



COST OF TIN AND ENAMET.ED - CEOTH HIA'E- 

 COVEKS. 



I have just been figuring up the relative cost 

 of the two styles. I find that, exclusive of paint, 

 the enameled-cloth covers will cost about 33^ 

 cents, and tin about 6H each, aside from freight 

 charges. The former will take more paint and 

 more time to fix, which may make it cost from 

 f to 73 of the latter. In addition to that, paint 

 will not adhere to tin or any other very smooth 

 non-porous surface very well: whereas, spread 

 on the wrong side of enameled cloth it is a fix- 

 ture, making the latter much more durable. 

 Still, 1 have have not actually tested tin. In 

 the main I have nothing over my covers, just 

 because I do not need any thing. 



Geo. F. Robbins. 



Mechanicsburg, 111.. Mar. 23. 



FLOATING APIARIES. 



FURTHEB TKIALS OF THE SCHEME, AND THE 

 KESUETS. 



Several facts in regard to the ups and downs 

 (especially the clown.s) of migratory and non- 

 migratory bee-keeping have recently come to 

 my kno\\iedge that may be of interest to those 

 inclined to try the experiment of obtaining more 

 than one crop of honey in one season. Some 

 time in December. IS'.K). friends Stevenson and 

 Deemas. of near St. Charles. Mo., started with 

 aljout 12.5 colonies of bees, mostly Italian, in ex- 

 cellent hives, and well equipped for gathering 

 a fine crop of honey, and increasing to any de- 

 sirable extent, with some imported and Doolit- 

 tle queens, for New Orleans or vicinity, on the 

 steamer City of Baton Rouge. By the way. 

 that is the very boat on which I. on several oc- 

 casions and on different trips, shipped from 3(X) 

 to 400 colonies of bees at a time fi'om New Or- 

 leans to St. Louis. On the way the steamer 

 struck an obstruction, and boat and bees went 

 to the bottom, our bee-friends barely escaping 

 with their lives. I sincerely sympathize with 

 our unfortunate friends, fori have been through 

 the mill myself, and know just how it is and 

 how they feel; for, among other great losses, 

 one of thes(> same Anchor Line boats was the 

 cause of the loss by fii-e of neai-ly .3(X) two-story 

 Simplicity hives filled, with fine Italian bees, 

 witii 20 frames to each colony. Nothing daunt- 

 ed they procured a fine lot of about 150 colonies 

 of bees from friend D. McKenzie, of Camp Par- 

 apet. La., and took them to .a point on the 



