260 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



April 1. 



brood on hand by this practice is the best 

 property to be had to build up weaklings, 

 form nuclei, etc. 



I am no literary man, and make no pretense 

 to rhetoric, but a close hard worker in the bee- 

 yard and workshop ; and what little I know 

 for sure is what the bees taught me, and much 

 of that is to some extent at variance with what 

 I read in some of the books ; for instance, 

 Prof. Cook's book taught putting supers }i in. 

 above brood-frames, when the bees say, "If 

 more than 3 v in. we will build in combs." 

 Friend Doolittle, that veteran and esteemed 

 t -acher, never told us the ^-in. entrance is too 

 small until the bees raised a fuss about it, then 

 he said %-\n. was right ; but my bees say one 

 inch. W. B. Ranson. 



New River Depot, Va., Feb. 6. 



There are points of excellence in this system 

 of management that might well be considered 

 by those so situated as to allow natural swarm- 

 ing. The gist of the affair is in keeping the 

 whole force of the colony intact, thus having 

 a powerful colony, and then avoiding the dan- 

 ger of such powerful colon}- swarming by hav- 

 ing a young queen reared in the hive at or 

 near the beginning of the harvest. Whether 

 or not Mr. Ranson is correct, that no drone- 

 cells will be built with such young queen, it is 

 certain that the tendency toward building 

 drone-cells will be thereby greatly lessened, 

 and the strong force of bees crowding the su- 

 pers makes a sure thing of pretty straight 

 work in sections, whether separators are pres- 

 ent or not. It is certainly an advantage to do 

 without separators if they are not needed 

 Mr. Ranson does not specially dwell on the 

 point that he secures very strong colonies, but 

 it will be seen that that is an essential and 

 very important part of his plan. He says he 

 feeds, unites, and in ever}- way encourages 

 brood-rearing so as to get the colonies to 

 swarm early, which is only another way of 

 saying that he does all he can to get colonies 

 strong, uniting those not otherwise strong 

 enough. 



His plan of getting all the bees into the 

 swarm is radical. Brushing all the bees off 

 the combs of the old hive, he closes the combs 

 in the hive so no robbers can get in, and leaves 

 the remainder of the brood to hatch out with- 

 out any bees clustering on the comb. This, he 

 says, is " in a comfortable place," which may 

 be outdoors generally, but would need to be 

 in some warmer place if nights were chilly. 



Without any experience in the matter I 

 should say that it is unnecessary to be at the 

 trouble to have perforated zinc at the entrance 

 to strain out the young queens ; that there 

 would be no danger of swarming, no matter 

 how many young queens there were, and 

 that the bees could be trus ed to make the 

 best selection, but it is possible that Mr. Ran- 

 son may have sufficient reason for the prac- 

 tice. 



Marengo, 111., Feb. 14. 



[While I believe there is a good deal in Mr. 

 Ranson's plan of working, yet there are very 

 few, if I may judge by the past, who get any 



thing like satisfactory results in securing comb 

 honey without separators. We know that 

 with honey-buyers and commission men (and 

 it is certainly true in our own case) as a rule 

 non-separator comb honey goes at a discount. 

 In our own experience it has to be crated a good 

 deal as it comes off the hive ; for if two fat 

 sections come together, then there is trouble. 

 The fat one must be set aside until a lean one 

 is found, then the two faces are put together. 



Now, understand that I do not say that comb 

 honey can not be produced, and very nice hon- 

 ey too, without separators; but I do know that 

 the average bee-keeper does not succeed with 

 it ; and if I read correctly between the lines, 

 Dr. Miller would not use it, even if he could 

 do just as well as friend Ranson. — Ed.] 



FORMING NUCLEI. 



A New and Very Practical Method of Doing it; an 



Ingenious Scheme for Making the Bees 



Stay at Home. 



BY W. W. SOMERFORD. 



" Expansion," or how to increase with the 

 greatest certainty of success with the least la- 

 bor, is a problem that I have been reading 

 about and experimenting on for more than a 

 dozen years. I have read hundreds of articles 

 on the subject, and have questioned many 

 prominent bee-keepers minutely as to the best, 

 surest, and easiest way to get increase. I was 

 even told by Mr. A. W. Osburn, of steam-ex- 

 tractor fame, exactly the way he increased 

 from 25 to 500 in Cuba, in one season ; but as 

 he had money behind the scheme, by the 

 thousands, I consider it no very remarkable 

 feat. I even believe it could be done here in 

 the States with Miller feeders enough and the 

 continual buying of feed in enormous quanti- 

 ties, so as to keep one on each hive well sup- 

 plied with honey; for with plenty of feed, and 

 by pouring it into the feeders at night, nice 

 and warm, increase can be easily run geomet- 

 rically. But the cash backing is what nine- 

 tenths haven't got ; and if they did have, the 

 honey that it would take to have those Miller 

 feeders always plentifully supplied would cost 

 so much that it would put a man to dreaming, 

 and figuring to see if the bees couldn't be 

 bought cheaper than the feed. So I'll come 

 back to my way of increasing — "the poor 

 man's way " in one sense of the word, and 

 necessity's in the other; for bees are generally 

 kept now in a number of apiaries, and conse- 

 quently can not be tinkered with every day. 



I now have six apiaries, and of necessity I 

 had to invent a way of increasing rapidly and 

 satisfactorily, with but little attention given to 

 each division. To begin with, remove the 

 queens or cage them in all of your fancy stock. 

 After getting the brood-nest well filled with 

 brood ( the more brood the better — 8 or 10 

 frames in a hive if possible) wait ten days aft- 

 er removing the queen, when the bees will gen- 

 erally have cells on each and every comb, and 

 be in a broody or listless condition, waiting 

 for cells to hatch. Dive, and remove the 



