442 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 1. 



chamber. The plan of putting a few combs 

 with ihe starters, or frames of foundaiion, is 

 objectionable, as the bees are very apt to 

 bulge them into the adjoining frames, thus 

 making combs of very uneven thickness; so I 

 adopted the plan of putting sections of foun- 

 dation or starters on newly hived swarms, 

 and, after a few days, when combs had been 

 built, the partly filled sections were moved 

 from the parent hive to the new one. 



South Haven, Mich. H. D. Burrel. 



[There is no doubt that in some localities 

 (perhaps in the majority of them), when bees 

 are hived on starters, and the queen confined 

 below by a perforated zinc honey-board, 

 pollen would be crowded up into the sec- 

 tions ; but in telling how you remedy the 

 trouble, either you do not say what you 

 mean or else I do not understand j'ou. You 

 speak about putting the sections of founda- 

 tion on " newly hived swarms," and then you 

 tell about moving the sections from the parent 

 hive to the swarm. Don't you mean that the 

 sections are put on the parent hive in the first 

 place, and then when the swarm has got its 

 starters or foundation drawn out in the brood- 

 nest sufficiently to catch all the pollen, you 

 then put on the sections which are now on 

 the parent hive? — Ed.] 



A FRAME OF UNSEAI^ED I,ARV^ TO HOLD A 

 SWARM. 



Once I had a swarm of bees alight. I hived 

 it. Tht. next day it swarmed again. I hived 

 it. The following day it swarmed the third 

 time ; then it occurred to me that its queen 

 might be a virgin, and, in going out to seek a 

 drone, the bees followed because they had 

 no means of replacing her if she failed to re- 

 turn. I then put in the hive a frame of eggs 

 and brood in all stages from a colony I was 

 willing to raise a queen from, and hived them 

 again. I had no further trouble with it. 

 Afterward I always, in hiving a swarm, put 

 in the hive such a frame, and never had any 

 more re-swarming. J. \V. Jackson. 



Opelousas, La. 



[Your experience is quite in line with our 

 own, and we have recommended, when hiv- 

 ing, to give a frame of young brood, especial- 

 ly if the swarm is hived on foundation. — Ed.] 



"FLORIDA white;" CAN 3000 COLONIES BE 

 SUPPORTED IN ANY LOCATION? 



Away up here in Western Florida is a bee 

 country you hear little about. The present 

 season we began with 200 colonies, and to-day 

 have our extracting-supers three deep on 

 many of the hives, and none but that have 

 two on. On our hives devoted to comb honey 

 we have supers three deep, but are removing 

 Iho&e. that are filled, and putting on empties. 

 Tupelo is the main source from which our 

 surplus comes, and the main flow will not be 

 here for ten days. 



Ernest, you speak of no place in the world 

 that will support 3000 colonies of bees. Per- 

 haps there is not; but I will bet you a penny 

 that I can keep 3000 colonies of bees here on 



a paying basis, and not have an out-apiary 

 more than 15 miles from home. Buyers are 

 very anxious to get our honey. We don't 

 have anv " Southern strained." It is " Flori- 

 da ec/z/Vd'." M. W. Shepherd. 

 Marchant, Fla., Apr. 12. 



[You must have a fine location, and we here 

 in the North envy you such big averages per 

 colony. 



With regard to 3000 colonies, you misunder- 

 stand me. There are localities already that 

 have that number within a radius of 15 miles, 

 some of them in the United States. What I 

 meant was that there could not be 3000 in one 

 apiary, so to speak, or, we will say, within a 

 radius of half a mile. The newspaper article, 

 if I remember correctly, reported that there 

 were .3000 in one place in California, and this 

 I regarded as a fake newspaper yarn. — Ed.] 



contraction ; its ADVANTAGES AND DIS- 

 ADVANTAGES. 



It has appeared to me that by using only 

 five frames in the eight-frame hive, and dum- 

 mies on each side, I get more honey in my su- 

 pers. Is this reasonable, or do you suppose it 

 depended on special conditions at the time I 

 tried it? Chas. A. Peple. 



Richmond, Va., May 11. 



[The practice of using only five frames in 

 an eight-frame brood-nest, and filling up the 

 space with dummies for the purpose of forc- 

 ing what honey does come in into the supers, 

 is called "contraction." This was extensive- 

 ly practiced a few years ago, but is now gen- 

 erally abandoned. It is far better to have the 

 colonies so strong that, when the first honey 

 comes, it will be rushed right into the supers. 

 It is better to use a full-sized brood-nest than 

 to putter away with weak colonies with a con- 

 tracted brood-nest. But if the honey-flow is 

 short, and colonies are not overly strong, then 

 contraction may be practiced sometimes to ad- 

 vantage. But in this case it will be necessary 

 to watch closely for swarms, as contraction 

 has quite a tendency to encourage the swarm- 

 ing propensity, because the bees seem to need 

 more room for brood-rearing. — Ed.] 



1. How much drone comb should bees have 

 in their brood-nest ? 



2. How can I put up chunk honey here in 

 the South to prevent the moths from destroy- 

 ing it? August Pfeffer. 



Kenney, Texas. 



[1. This depends on whether you desire to 

 rear queens If not, the fewer drone-cells in 

 the hive the better. In any case I would 

 make an effort to have worker comb in all 

 hives except where there were breeding 

 queens. To such we sometimes give a whole 

 frame of drone comb, just for the purpose of 

 getting choice drones. 



2. If the chunks of comb honey are swim- 

 ming in, or are fairly covered with good ex- 

 tracted, putting the whole, immediately after 

 it came from the hives, in pails with covers, 



