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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



May 1 



The rainy season is a sore trial to the 

 queen-breeder if the rains are too heavy — 

 that is, if they fall for too large a portion of 

 each day. Usually the rain falls for an hour 

 or two, then clear weather follows, and all 

 is well. In excessive rains, however, it is 

 hard to get queens mated, and the colonies 

 are dull and inactive; build few or small 

 cells, and are unsatisfactory generally. At 

 such times pollen is scarce, and bees abso- 

 lutely refuse to breed. The dragon-fly, or 

 mosquito-hawk, is a very serious menace to 

 young queens on their nuptial flight. At 

 such times the eager queen-breeder will 

 search in vain in his nuclei for the laying 

 queen he expected to find there. In some 

 years these pests destroy at least 75 per cent 

 of the virgins; in others they seem to affect 

 the mating very little. Of course, the larger 

 the apiary the smaller number, relatively, 

 of mating virgins is lost. Two years ago 

 the writer lost about every other queen from 

 this cause; since then, hardly any. I have 

 yet to communicate with a bee-keeper in 

 this State who admits that he is free from 

 the danger of these flies. Mr. Case tells me 

 that he has lost as high as nine out of ten 

 virgins from them. Toward nightfall they 

 may be seen darting back and forth before 

 the hives, and now and then darting this 

 way or that to snap up some returning bee. 

 By day their flight is high over the apiary. 

 Their flight is exceedingly swift, and their 

 wings and jaws are very strong. I know of 

 no way to combat them, nor have I ever 

 heard a method proposed. 



It might seem almost ridiculous to say 

 that bears are still troublesome in Florida; 

 but the experience of Mr. S. S. Alderman, 

 Wewahitchka, makes it necessary to men- 

 tion them. Mr. Alderman lives near the 

 dense swamps of West Florida. The bears 

 live in these swamps, and are inaccessible. 

 Mr. Alderman lost fourteen hives by bears 

 one night last summer. Formerly they 

 were bad on the East Coast; but of late 

 years they have disappeared before advanc- 

 ing civilization, till now they seldom molest 

 any of the hives in that section. In 1900 

 bears destroyed over $400 worth of bees 

 along the Hillsborough River, East Coast, 

 and wrought no little damage in 1904. The 

 late Mr. Cornelius Longstreet, of Coronada, 

 used to tell thrilling experiences that he 

 had with this honey-loving "varmint." 

 They have almost become a matter of mere- 

 ly historical interest in the annals of Flori- 

 da bee-keeping. 



De Land, Fla. 



To be continued. 



THE HAND SYSTEM OF SWARM CONTROL. 



BY J. E. HAND. 



On page 207 Mr. Crane calls the attention 

 of the readers of Gleanings to what he evi- 

 dently considers some of the objections to 

 the Hand system. It is true that this sys- 

 tem is not adapted for use with hives hav- 



ing a stationary bottom; but when we con- 

 sider that there are comparatively few of 

 this class of hives in use, and that such hives 

 are no longer listed in any of the supply cat- 

 alogs of this country, this certainly can not 

 be regarded as a serious objection. 



He assumes that all intelligent bee-keep- 

 ers recommend very strong colonies early in 

 the season. I hardly think Mr. C. would 

 wish to go on record as saying that such 

 men as G. M. Doolittle and E. D. Townsend 

 are not intelligent bee-keepers, and yet if he 

 will take the pains to inform himself he 

 will find that neither of these men is in fa- 

 vor of such a practice, for the reason that 

 such colonies will likely swarm before the 

 main harvest, which, every well-informed 

 bee-keeper should know, would result in 

 disappointment and loss in honey produc- 

 tion. The Hand system not only prevents 

 the issuing of premature swarms, but it goes 

 a step further and compels all colonies to 

 swarm just when we want them to, regard- 

 less of whether they have made preparations 

 or not. We can separate the bees from the 

 brood by shifting them into a new hive in 

 less time than would be required to make 

 the weekly examination after the supers are 

 in place. 



Again, he assumes that the giving of a 

 super of empty combs above a queen-exclu- 

 der can be depended upon as a means of 

 swarm control except prior to the main hon- 

 ey-flow, since such combs must be removed 

 shortly after work has begun in the sections. 

 While this, as well as providing shade and 

 ventilation, will have a tendency to check 

 and delay swarming, none of these things 

 can be depended upon as a means of abso- 

 lute swarm control. His third error, and 

 perhaps the greatest one of all, is in magni- 

 fying the difficulty of finding the queen at 

 the time of making the shift. 



Now, I did not deem it necessary to ex- 

 plain that the bees could be shifted just as 

 well without the queen if the frame of brood 

 were given, after which any one should 

 know there would be little difficulty in lo- 

 cating the queen. Three minutes' time is 

 sufficient to place the top story down on the 

 vacant side of the switch-board, and ex- 

 change the central comb for a comb of brood 

 without looking for the queen, owing to the 

 hives being so close together that the ma- 

 nipulation is performed without moving 

 from one's tracks; and surely three minutes' 

 time should be amply sufficient to locate 

 and remove a queen after the bees have been 

 practically all removed. When we consider 

 that this slight manipulation, jequiring less 

 than six minutes' time, settles the swarm- 

 ing problem during an ordinary honey-flow, 

 it seems to us there is little ground for a 

 claim of excessive manipulation. It is true 

 that bees may be shifted from one hive to 

 another by exchanging heavy hives, shak- 

 ing and brushing bees, etc., all of which en- 

 tails a great amount of useless labor that is 

 entirely out of proportion to the results 

 gained It is equally true that swarming 

 may be controlled by removing the queen » 



