Aug. 1, 1911 



471 



HOW TO PREVENT ABSCONDING AND SPRING 

 DWINDLING. 



To stop this great loss the bee-keeper 

 should stimulate feeding in September or 

 October in order to get the queen to bring 

 on a new batch of brood that would develop 

 into young and vigorous bees in the spring. 

 Then in the spring the keeper should feed 

 some substitute for jwllen; otherwise spring 

 dwindling will result. Don't expect bees 

 from four to six months old to take care of 

 themselves during the cool weather of the 

 early spring months, as one or two trips are 

 all they can stand. Suppose two or three 

 thousand old bees in an apparently strong 

 colony should perish on the wing on some 

 fair day, would you call it absconding or 

 spring dwindling? 



BLACK OR EUROPEAN FOUL BROOD; WHO 

 IS RESPONSIBLE? 



The State of California has been "handed 

 a lemon " in the shape of this deadly disease. 

 Some unscrupulous queen-breeder certainly 

 did hand it out to the San .Joaquin Valley. 

 Selma, Fresno County, where it broke out 

 in 1909, was the starting-point, and it was 

 there that in 1908 several of the most prom- 

 inent bee-keepers ordered several hundred 

 queens in lots of three or four hundred from 

 those Eastern breeders; and, as sure as fate, 

 they sent other stuff than bees and queens. 

 Those queens came from three different 

 breeders in the East and South. 



I take the following from the California 

 Cultivator: "County Bee-inspector Christ- 

 mam, of Fresno, reports a total of 2664 colo- 

 nies inspected during the month, of which 

 922 contained European foul brood." Over 

 thirty per cent in one county with foul 

 brood! I call that going some. Tulare 

 County's ordinance, as published in Glean- 

 ings for April 15, p. 255, is all right as far as 

 it goes, but it does nut touch the real source 

 of the disease in that locality. It has a ten- 

 dency only to check. Stop the importation 

 of bees, queens, and queen-traps from a dis- 

 eased yard, within 30 feet of the disease, in- 

 stead of 30 miles, as Sec. 5 reads. 



Pasadena, Cal. 



SWARM CONTROL BY SHIFTING BEES IN- 

 STEAD OF HIVES. 



The Various Methods for Doing this Compared. 



BY J. E. hand. 



The Simmins turnover method of control- 

 ling bees, as described in the March 1st 

 number of Gleanings, is especially inter- 

 esting, because, when compared with mod- 

 ern methods as practiced in this country, it 

 clearly denotes that the i)ursuit of apicul- 

 ture has taken advanced ground during the 

 past decade. The shifting of bees from one 

 liive to another for various jiurposes by 

 changing the position of the hive entrance 

 is as old as bee-keeping itself; and it is doubt- 

 ful if any man living to-day can lay claim 

 to priority of invention of the basic principle 



of shifting the flight of bees from one hive 

 to another. 



While Mr. Simmins was introducing his 

 turnover system in Europe in 1893, an Amer- 

 ican bee-keeper by thenameof Barnett Tay- 

 lor, of Forestville, Minn., introduced a hive 

 and system that was the exact counterpart 

 of the Simmins hive excei)t the portico. 

 This was in 1892, if I remember correctly, 

 just one year prior to the time that Mr. Sirn- 

 mins says he introduced his system in Eu- 

 rope. During the same year, H. P. Lang- 

 don, of New York, came out with a method 

 of shifting bees by means of a tube that con- 

 nected the entrances of two independent 

 hives. The operation in both these cases 

 consisted of closing the entrance of one hive 

 and compelling the bees to find the entrance 

 to the other, exactly as practiced by Mr. 

 Simmins. 



My system precludes the necessity of hav- 

 ing two entrances on a side in dangerous 

 proximity, as shown in the illustration on 

 page 132, March 1st Gleanings. When 

 bees become accustomed to a particular hive 

 and its surroundings, especially to the posi- 

 tion of the entrance, any disturbance of the 

 hive in respect to these matters is ]:)roduc- 

 tive of no little trouble and disturbance to 

 the bees on their return from a nectar-gath- 

 ering flight. This interval of excitement 

 and disturbance consequent upon the chang- 

 ing of the position of the hive entrance will 

 cause the bees to set up a search that may 

 lead to the discovery of the entrance to their 

 former home, even though it be on the oth- 

 er side of the hive. 



The system that is carried out in connec- 

 tion with my bottom-board equipment is as 

 different from the Simmins system as is my 

 method of shifting bees. I have found that 

 the promiscuous intermingling of strange 

 bees at swarming time has a tendency to 

 create discontent among the bees which is 

 almost sure to result in swarming. I wish 

 to go on record as saying most emphatically 

 that, if two colonies are to be united, and 

 the working force of both combined in one 

 set of supers, with no swarming, the bees 

 must be imited in an emj^ty hive on the 

 stand previously occupied by the parent col- 

 onies. The most practical and economical 

 method of accomplishing this is to place one 

 hive upon the other on one side of a double 

 switch-board, the two hives separated by a 

 queen-excluder. At the beginning of the 

 harvest, shift the flying force of both hives 

 over into a new hive, in the center of which 

 is placed a comb of brood and the queen 

 from the top hive. All that is necessary is 

 to throw the switch, and the bees returning 

 from their nectar-gathering flight will enter 

 the new hive through their accustomed en- 

 trance without a moment's hesitation. 

 There is no intermingling of strange bees, 

 the swarming instinct is satisfied, swarming 

 is controlled, and our bees are placed in con- 

 dition to do the best work that bees are capa- 

 ble of performing under the most favorable, 

 conditions. 



Birmingham, O. 



