1911 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



295 



Conversations with 

 Doolittle 



At Borodino 



TOO MUCH POLLEN IN BROOD-COMBS. 



A correspondent writes: "The combs in 

 my hives are badly filled with pollen at a 

 time when they should be filled with brood. 

 Can I remove it ? Why do bees store so 

 much pollen and honey in the brood-combs 

 just before the main honey harvest? " 



In this locality two things generally in- 

 cite the storing of too much pollen and hon- 

 ey in the brood-combs at the beginning of 

 the season, or as soon as the bees become 

 numerous and active during May and early 

 in June. The first is, a poor queen; or, it 

 would be better to say, one which does not 

 lay enough eggs so that the increasing lar- 

 vae from those eggs will consume the pollen 

 and honey as they come in from the fields. 

 In other words, the old or field bees are too 

 numerous for the laying capacity of the 

 queen. The remedy in such a case is to 

 change the queen for a younger and more 

 prolific one. And this is a matter that 

 should have been looked after during the 

 latter part of the season before, for it is far 

 better for a colony to have a prolific queen 

 when spring opens than it is to try to intro- 

 duce such a queen to take the place of a 

 failing one in May or June. The change 

 will generally consume a period of from five 

 to ten days; and this, with the slowness of 

 the failing queen earlier, sometimes makes 

 such a difference in the number of bees at 

 the time when they are most needed that 

 there is a partial failure in the honey crop. 



The other cause for the storing of too 

 much pollen and honey in the brood-combs 

 is, too large a hive or brood-chamber. Such a 

 colony is in nearly the same condition as is 

 the one having the failing queen in a small- 

 er brood-chamber; for if the season opens 

 with a large amount of comb unoccupied 

 with brood, the bees will begin storing in 

 the empty comb rather than enter the sec- 

 tions, either to build comb or to draw out 

 foundation. Having once commenced to 

 store honey and pollen in large quantities 

 in the comb immediately surrounding the 

 brood, the bees are very apt to continue do- 

 ing it to the detriment of the honey crop. 



But even with a good queen and a hive 

 of the right dimensions to accommodate her 

 prolificness it will often happen that she 

 does not breed up to her full capacity when 

 pollen is coming in very freely. This is 

 something I have never been able to account 

 for satisfactorily, although I have spent 

 much time in making experiments for the 

 purpose of trying to find out. We have an 

 excess of pollen here from the hard maple, 

 which comes between the willow and apple 

 bloom, or at just the time I have always 

 been the most anxious for an abundance of 

 brood; for the bees from such brood are those 

 which work to the best advantage in the 



clover harvest. During hard-maple bloom, 

 if the weather is good, some colonies will 

 fill combs almost solid with pollen, with 

 more or less honey along the top-bars to the 

 frames. Many times I have removed these 

 and have put empty combs in their places, 

 with the result that they were as full as the 

 others in a few days without a single egg. 



Having found that I did not gain much 

 in this way, I next put in dummies in place 

 of the frames taken out, in colonies strong 

 enough for the sections. Thus, with a great- 

 er force of the bees above, what honey did 

 come in was used for making a start in the 

 sections, thereby removing the honey part 

 of the pressure from the brood-combs, while 

 at the same time a great gain was made 

 toward a good crop later, in the sections. 



Some years after this, I filled frames with 

 brood foundation and took out those which 

 contained honey and pollen, using these 

 foundation-filled frames in place of those 

 which had been removed. I discovered that, 

 where honey enough was coming in from the 

 fields to cause the bees to draw out this foun- 

 dation, the queen would fill it with eggs be- 

 fore the cells seemed deep enough for much 

 honey or pollen to be stored in them. I then 

 had brood where I had bad only honey and 

 pollen before, when I used empty combs. 



All observing apiarists know that, when 

 queens are laying at their best, the bees 

 give them food every few minutes. But at 

 these times, when the combs are being 

 crowded with pollen, I have rarely noticed 

 the bees doing this. For this reason I have 

 always felt that the fault lay with the bees 

 rather than with the queen, and that, if 

 any plan could be devised whereby they 

 could be caused to feed the queen during an 

 excess of pollen to the amount necessary for 

 her greatest prolificness, or, in fact, at any 

 time when an excess of eggs is desired, we 

 would have the "key" to the situation, for 

 this pollen and honey could be changed into 

 brood at will. But the dummy (or founda- 

 tion) plan, as given above, seems to be about 

 the only thing in sight so far. 



There is always something about drawing 

 out foundation or the building of comb that 

 sets the bees to feeding the queen more 

 abundantly, and she in turn lays more than 

 when no comb is built. This seems to be 

 their instinct when building comb. Where 

 combs can be drawn from foundation, or 

 built from starters during the breeding sea- 

 son, they are usually filled with brood later; 

 and where young brood is maturing rapidly 

 much honey and pollen are used, thus keep- 

 ing the combs from becoming overloaded, 

 and assuring a lot of bees for the harvest. 



But we are often more scared than hurt 

 over this pollen matter; for in most places 

 there comes a scarcity of pollen a week or so 

 later, at which time the bees seem to become 

 suddenly anxious for brood, so that combs 

 apparently nearly spoiled because they were 

 so full of pollen very soon assume a differ- 

 ent appearance by being filled with brood; 

 and by the time the harvest from clover is 

 on, very little more pollen appears in the 

 hive than is actually necessary. 



