1891 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



741) 



nuisance of bees. An ordinary observer would 

 have said that not a single bee made its ap- 

 pearance during the two days. The whole 

 secret lies in not letting the bees have a start. 



HANDLING HIVES MORE AND FRAMES LESS; 



HOW TO PRODUCE A TOX OF HONEY FOR 



LESS M()Nf:Y AND LABOR. 



On page 727 of the cnn-ent issue we promised 

 to say something further on this subject. The 

 older a bee-keeper grows in experience, the 

 more he will handle hives rather than frames; 

 and especially so when his colonies increase to 

 such an extent that they have gone beyond his 

 individual care, and there is a prospect that 

 hired labor has got to come in and assist. To 

 illustrate what we mean, we will give a few 

 manipulations that are, pei'haps, to a greater or 

 lesser extent practiced by the more or less ad- 

 vanced bee-keepers. 



At an out-apiary it is seldom necessary to 

 hunt the queen to see whether the colony is 

 queenless or not. The pulling-out of a single 

 comb, with eggs' and brood in all stages, will 

 show pretty well the condition of a hive. 

 " But," you say. ■' how are you going to know 

 about the other combs?" A single comb drawn 

 from the center of the hive will, to a practiced 

 bee-keeper, pretty accurately tell the condition 

 of all the other combs with reference to brood. 

 If it is well tilled, and has brood in all stages, 

 the inference is pretty strong that at least four 

 or five other fi'ames have brood in. to a greater 

 or lesser extent, depending on the season of 

 year, and whether the queen is a young or old 

 one, which the record should show. If it is in 

 the fall of the year and there is only a small 

 patch of brood in the comb from the center of 

 the brood-nest, very little or no brood may be 

 expected in the other combs. For experiment, 

 in the last few weeks we have been diagnosing 

 colonies as to the extent of their brood in just 

 this way, and then verifying the result by look- 

 ing at every comb. We seldom missed our 

 guess. 



A practical bee-keeper will tell, when first 

 lifting a cover, almost unerringly whether a 

 colony is queenless, by the behavior of the bees. 

 For the benefit of beginners we will say that 

 queenless bees have a sort of nervous hum, 

 which can be very readily learned after it has 

 been heard a few times; and this nervous hum, 

 while by no means infallible, is tolerably safe to 

 go by, especially with Italians. Sometimes hy- 

 brids and blacks, more particularly the latter, 

 will hum just from mere disturbance, even 

 when they are not queenless. In going through 

 our out-apiaries when time is limited, we very 

 often lift olf only the cover. If the bees appear 

 quiet, and seem to be populous in numbers, we 

 replace the cover after blowing a little smoke 

 down between two or three of the frames, to 

 see how the brood -combs look. Some three 

 weeks ago we went through the whole Shane 

 yard in just about this way, and removed the 

 frauies from only eight or ten colonies, which 

 we found to l)e queenless, one of them having 

 fertile workers. These we supplied with un- 

 sealed larvie oi' queen-cells. A few days ago, to 

 prove whether our former diagnosis had been 

 true or not, we looked carefully through the 

 whole apiary, and found by the record on each 

 hive that we had not in a single instance mis- 

 interpreted the condition ol^ the hive. Bees 

 will sometimes hum when they have a virgin 

 queen; but an examination of a single comb 

 will probably reveal the presence of one or two 

 cells that have been gnawed into in a way that 

 indicates that a virgin queen has recently been 

 thereabouts. We say "recently" advisedly, 

 because in three or four days more, these cells 

 will have a very different appearance, the bees 



having smoothed them over the ragged edges 

 of the cell. We seldom look for a virgin queen; 

 and about the time we expect her to be laying, 

 we look for eggs, bur not for the queen. If she 

 happens to be on the first comb we pull out. all 

 well and good; otherwise, if we see the eggs 

 laid regularly, and the frame pretty well tilled 

 on both sides we infer she will continue in this 

 sort of business until she has gone over six or 

 seven combs, depending on the season of the 

 year, and whether honey is coming in slowly or 

 not. If the virgin is lost during the wedding- 

 flight, the bees are pretty apt to make the fact 

 known by a peculiar hum; then we give a cell. 

 If she is not lost the cell will do no harm. 



The amount of stores in a colony can largely 

 be told by hefting the hive, or. at least, by pull- 

 ing out the two outside frames and blowing 

 smoke down through the rest so vou can look 

 down between the frames. During the woi'k- 

 season you can tell what colonies are doing well 

 and are prosperous, largely by the entrances. 

 These things are familiar to veterans. 



So far the handling of hives more and frames 

 less applies equally to both loose and fixed 

 frames. Where fixed frames give us an advan- 

 tage on the subject of handling hives more and 

 frames less is, that we can pick up two. three, 

 or four frames at a time. This is specially ad- 

 vantageous in forming nuclei; and if we do not 

 have very much time we do not wait to see 

 which half the queen is in. The slate is put in 

 a certain position on the cover; then in about 

 24 hours we ^ round and lift the covers and 

 wait for the hum. If not satisfied we pull out 

 one of the combs and look for initial cells. The 

 queenless hive is then supplied with a caged 

 queen, according to the diagnosis. 



There is one feature that seems to be peculiar 

 to the Hoffman fiaine; and that is, when it is 

 necessary to pull a frame out it is not required 

 to finger over four or Hve to get I'oom for the 

 one to be removed. Draw out the division- 

 board, crowd over from the center three or four 

 frames just next to the one you wish to remove. 

 This will leave nearly two inches of room in 

 which to move the frame in question, and there 

 is no needless rolling-over of bees. You can 

 examine as many frames as you like, either in 

 pairs or singly, replace any, and. with one or 

 two shoves with a screwdriver, push them all 

 to their place, and all are equally distant. But, 

 as I have before said, smoke must be blown 

 down between the uprights before this shoving- 

 over is made. 



In giving room to colonies, we have frequent- 

 ly picked up four frames of foundation out of a 

 hive, can led them just us they were, and set 

 them down in their place, without even dis- 

 turbing their position. Thus the four can be 

 i^andled in the time that one could be on the 

 old loose plan. Again, the fixed frames do not 

 have to be fussed with; i. e., stuck up for ship- 

 ping or moving. 



It can very often be determined whether a 

 colony needs moi'e super room by the flight of 

 the bees at the entrance. We found, by exam- 

 ining into all such hives as we thought needed 

 more room, that our entrance diagnosis was not 

 far from I'ight. Now, the fact is. we want to 

 learn to do as little work as possible in han- 

 dling frames, and as much as possible in diag- 

 nosing hives. 



We have given only a few of the many ways 

 in which a colony may be diagnosed on the 

 scheme of handling hives more and frames less. 

 We should be glad to have this subject thor- 

 oughly discussed by our readers, because it will 

 help to solve the problem of how to handle 

 whole apiaries with less labor- in short, pro- 

 duce a ton of honey for less money. Now, Mr. 

 Manum, we are all on tiptoe to hear from you. 



