874 



GI/EANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 15. 



printed first, but stated that I had not copied 

 from him in my method. However, I do not 

 think that either of us had been the first to 

 put it into practice. Many writers had told 

 at various times how to dispose of increase 

 and how to get surplus from young swarms. 

 But with such instructions in the abstract, I 

 had been sufficiently original to apply them 

 to a way of my own in the concrete. This 

 method is not merely to get surplus, but in 

 addition to prevent increase beyond what one 

 wants to keep in his apiary. I have liked the 

 way very well. It does not differ essentially 

 from Mr. Lathrop's. I use shallower hives 

 than he does. 



My hives for surplus are only half the depth 

 of my regular hives, which are closed-end 

 Langstroth-size 12 -frame hives, the frames 

 suspended at the middle something like the 

 Danzenbaker frame, yet different from it. My 

 surplus hives take any kind of shallow frame 

 I may happen to have. Hoffman half-depth 

 frames do me first rate ; and your Hoffman 

 Dovetailed shallow supers would make excel- 

 lent bodies for this method as I practice it. In 

 some seasons I have no trouble at all about 

 the queen's going up into the sections to lay, 

 even without excluders. In other years, with- 

 out excluders, the queens have gone in, some- 

 times quite badly. I have all of my queens 

 clipped. As swarming-time approaches I en- 

 deavor to keep track of the condition of colo- 

 nies. I do not wait for them to swarm if I 

 can help it. When queen-cells are just read}'^ 

 to seal over, the colony being consequently 

 about ready to swarm, having the fever well 

 upon them, and being populous, if honey con- 

 ditions are equally favorable I shake the bees 

 with their queen into a shallow hive. As the 

 queen will have slacked up in laying by this 

 time if it is just as cells are sealed over, the 

 bees can be taken very liberally from the old 

 colony, leaving but a comparatively small 

 force in the hive. The queen-cells will be so 

 far along that good queens will result there- 

 from ; and the bees that are left will soon 

 have young larvae past the need of feeding. I 

 put the shallow hive in the place of the old 

 one, which is removed but a short distance at 

 first, then further, to let young bees go into 

 the shallow hive (if needed there), then grad- 

 ually nearer some time in the future, with a 

 view to the final reuniting. I have the shal- 

 low hive furnished with starters of two-inch 

 depth or more, with two or three empty combs 

 for the queen to begin laying in. I regulate 

 the supers for sections by the conditions of 

 the season, etc. 



It is surprising, to one who has not noticed 

 it before, how the few bees in the parent colo- 

 ny, being relieved of nursery cares and the 

 drain of feeding young larvae, will accumulate 

 honey. They will, in a good season, soon 

 have their combs fat with treasure. The new 

 colony will begin at once in the sections, and 

 will build the shallow brood-combs in time to 

 keep the queen laying, though she will not 

 have all the room she could occupy. In my 

 locality the seasons are not long enough to in- 

 duce danger of swarms from the shallow hives. 

 After sage bloom is over in Central California, 



the honey-flow is barely more than will ena- 

 ble bees to make a living. There might, in 

 localities of longer periods of plenty, be dan- 

 ger of swarming from the young colony as the 

 brood became crowded, necessitating hives an 

 inch or two deeper to begin with, or a modi- 

 fied management with the very shallow ones. 

 At the close of the season, or whenever I am 

 ready to reunite them, I kill the queen that is 

 least desired ( often the young one, as she was 

 mated with a black drone, while the old one 

 may be one that has cost me money to get); 

 place wire cloth or even porous burlap over 

 the shallow hive, and set the deep hive on top 

 of it. Mr. Kloer recommended setting the 

 shallow hive above the deep one ; but I find 

 that bees will carry their stores upward more 

 readily than downward, besides having less in 

 the shallow hive to move. When they have 

 become somewhat acquainted with each other, 

 and have acquired a common scent, I gradu- 

 ally make open communication between the 

 stories, or sometimes leave the bees to gnaw 

 through the burlap themselves, and the two 

 colonies become one. Minor details I need 

 not take space to mention, such as seeing that 

 queen-cells are not sealed before union takes 

 place succ^sffully. They might be torn down, 

 or might cause trouble. Such things will 

 readily occur to any common-sense bee-keep- 

 er. After the shallow hive is removed from 

 under, the dry combs may be saved for future 

 use, may be sold, perhaps, to buyers of empty 

 combs, or, if one is accumulating them every 

 year, thej' can be sold as wax. Some may 

 like to use the same each j^ear, giving a shal- 

 low brood-nest full of empty combs to the 

 young swarms. I have been able to get sur- 

 plus honej' by the plan given above when I 

 could not by any other, and I think the meth- 

 od is a permanent success. 

 Monterey, Cal., Sept. 11. 



[In localities where the honey-flow is short, 

 it looks decidedly as if we might get more 

 honey by contracting the brood-chamber, pro- 

 viding we can also at the same time keep 

 down swarming. Both Mr. Lathrop and Mr. 

 Norton have been successful to a great degree. 

 No matter what the shape of the brood-cham- 

 ber is, putting bees on mere starters has decid- 

 edly a tendency to check swarming, and to 

 force the honey, if it does come in, into the 

 sections with a rush. The scheme of reunit- 

 ing, either gradually or all at once, by the 

 plan spoken of by Mr. Lathrop or by Mr. 

 Norton, is an important feature of this meth- 

 od of producing comb honey. 



Now, it would be folly, it seems to me, 

 to drop the discussion at this point, and I 

 should be glad to hear from a number of our 

 readers who have been working along these 

 lines. — Ed.] 



«»>««»■ • ■ 



CLOSED-END FRAMES AND HIVES. 



The Bingham and Heddon Compared. 



BY J. O. SHEARMAN. 



There are three forms of closed-end frames 

 familiar to me for years, and now in use in 



