368 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



CONVEMSATIONS WITH DOOLITTLE 



BEES MOVING HONEY ; A HONEY-BOUND BROOD- 

 NEST. 



A con'espondent writes tlins : '' I should 

 like to have you take up the subject of bees 

 moving' honey in your Conversation depart- 

 ment in Gleanings. You advocate such in 

 your " Management of Out-apiaries," where 

 you speak of shaldng a colony on to its own 

 combs of honey that had been placed above 

 a queen-excluder in an upper hive till the 

 white clover begins to yield honey in suf- 

 ficient quantities for work in the sections. 

 You say that, when this upper hive is placed 

 on the stand the parent colony has occupied, 

 and the bees shaken from their combs of 

 brood into it, they will carry the honey 

 from these combs intO' the sections so as to 

 give place to the eggs and brood the queen 

 will fill them with. Now, I have never been 

 able to get one colony to do such a thing. 

 I note that Editor Root speaks of colonies 

 getting honey-bound, and I have had many 

 such cases myself, and that with i^lenty of 

 room in the sections above. The past sum- 

 mer I placed heavy combs of honey right in 

 the middle of the brood-nest to see Avhat 

 they would do with this honey. They shifted 

 the nest and let the honey alone. If there 

 is room, bees will move the brood-nest. If 

 there is no room, they are " honey-bound " 



I have no reason to doubt what our cor- 

 respondent states. I have passed through 

 just such experiences several times myself. 

 But I found the removal of honey from the 

 brood-combs to the sections in the supers 

 depended on conditions, such as whether the 

 bees wished to swarm, whether the queens 

 were poor, or whether they were anxious 

 for the queen to lay eggs, and feeding her 

 for that vei-j' purpose. If the first two, 

 then apparently nothing would cause them 

 to remove honey. If the latter, notliing 

 would hinder them from removing it from 

 the combs in the brood-chamber, except no 

 place to put it. 



I well remember one colony which had 

 commenced to work in sections nicely, when 

 all at once they stopped and commenced to 

 store more in the brood-chamber than in the 

 sections. As this was a " pet " colony, and 

 one I had made my " brags " on, I opened 

 the hive to see what the trouble was. I 

 found nine queen-cups started, and eggs in 

 every one of them. I knew that swarming 

 Avould blast all my hopes, so I determined 

 on vigorous treatment. I cut out all the cell 

 cups I could find, whether having eggs or 

 not; put the frames having the most brood 



at the outside next either side of the hive, 

 and those having honey in the center, be- 

 lieving I had things my own way. 



Right here allow me to say that I have 

 never had any success in stopping swarm- 

 ing through the cutting of queen-cells after 

 the queen had laid in them and the "broody" 

 fever had taken possession of the colony. 

 After nearly half a century of this work I 

 now consider such only a waste of time. 



To return : Two days later I found "noth- 

 ing doing " in the sections — opened the hive, 

 found some twenty or more cell cups with 

 eggs in, and the honey in the center combs 

 untouched. I became desperate, cut out the 

 cells again, and uncapped every cell of hon- 

 ey the brood-chamber contained, cutting the 

 combs down even with the wood to the 

 frames. Did they carry the honey to the 

 sections'? Not at all. It ran out at the en- 

 trance ; and had it not been a time of a good 

 flow of nectar I should have had a fine case 

 of robbing on at the apiary. To clean up the 

 " muss," they stored evei-y available cell in 

 the brood-combs with honey, started more 

 cell-cups, and swarmed the next day with 

 over forty cups with eggs in them. I now 

 took out all the combs they had in the brood- 

 chamber, filled the same with empty combs, 

 hived the swarm back in their old hive, 

 shook all the bees off their combs with the 

 swarm, put the sections back on, and closed 

 things for two days. I then looked in, 

 found three combs cleaned for eggs, witli 

 eggs to the amount of perhaps a thousand 

 in these combs. T next took out the other 

 seven combs, and replaced them with seven 

 combs containing solid sealed honey. Three 

 days later the bees were making the combs 

 in the sections gi'ow like magic, and two 

 weeks later I took off two sujjers of 44 

 sections each, and left another super of 44 

 sections well under way, while an examina- 

 tion of the brood-chamber found evei'y cell 

 filled with brood except those containing 

 from five to seven pounds of honey and 

 those necessary for pollen. 



From this it will be readily seen that, 

 when any colony is in a condition that 

 makes them desirous of brood, they will 

 feed the queen for the purpose of having 

 her lay ; and when they thus feed her they 

 ai'e sure to prepare the cells for those eggs 

 if there is room in the supers for the storing 

 of removed honey. 



Now, if you will read " Management of 

 Out-apiaries " carefully you will see that 

 each colony, as far as possible, is brought 



Continued on page 392 



