JUNE 1. 1914 



CONVEMSATIONS 'WITH BOOLITTLE 



At Borodino, New York. 



SHOOK 



SWARMING AND SECTION HONEY. 



Mr. G. W. Babcoek, Brockport, N. Y., 

 AVTites that he considei-s the " Doolittle 

 plan " of shook swarming the best of any so 

 far given to the public because by this plan 

 all after-swarms are clone away with, tlie 

 new colony does well, and the colony in the 

 parent hive on top can be absorbed by the 

 new colony, or it can be set off, given a new 

 queen, and thus made into a good stock 

 colony for the next season. He says that h.e 

 lias obviated the only trouble which he him- 

 self and others have found with that plan, 

 by using what he styles a " gauze board," 

 the same being a thin board with an eight- 

 inch-square hole through the center covered 

 with wire screen. There is also a hole near 

 the front end which will allow two or three 

 bees to go down at a time to the colony 

 below. This gauze board is for the purpose 

 of allowing the heat from the colony below 

 to come u]) into the brood from which the 

 bees were shaken, now on top, so that there 

 will be no chilling of the same, as some find 

 to be the ease where enameled cloth is used 

 as was given in an article of mine written 

 some fifteen years ago. 



During the past I have used the old Lang- 

 stroth honey-board which had six openings 

 through it, to corresi^ond to the openings in 

 six honey-boxes, these openings being about 

 one inch wide by five long, the same being- 

 covered with window-screen wire; and I 

 have also used a rim of the same size of the 

 hive with the whole surface covered with 

 wire cloth, the same being put on top of a 

 strong colony when it was to receive the 

 beeless brood from another colony.* 



Some of these boards were used with a 

 hole in the end next to the entrance of the 

 hive. Then, when woi'king for section hon- 

 ey on the shook-swarming plan, the bees 

 emerging from the brood above could run 

 down through this hole and through the 

 space made by wedging the sections togeth- 

 er to the colony below, so that they could 

 fly from the entrance when they go out for 

 the first time to take their airing. This 

 hole in the wire cloth was fitted with a 



* Here let me say that there is no "absolutely sure" 

 plan of introducing a queen equal to turning her 

 and her attendants loose in a hive of beeless brood 

 so placed over a strong colony. A laying queen 

 taken from one hive to another in the same apiary 

 can generally be introduced by almost any plan ; but 

 a valuable queen which has come through the mails 

 is too often missing when the majority of the so- 

 called snfe plans of introduction are used. Of course, 

 in such introduction with beeless brood there should 

 be no holes anywhere from this upper hive where a 

 single hee can get either out or in. After six days 

 this hive should be set on the stand it is to occupy. 



queen-cell protector, point down, so that it 

 was easy for the bees from above to run 

 down to the colony below. Many would 

 not find their way back through the small 

 hole in the lower end ; and in this way, at 

 the end of 24 days, the upper hive could be 

 taken off with few bees and little honey, 

 while these emerging bees from the brood 

 above kept the colony in good strength for 

 storing honey in the sections in much better 

 strength than in case of a natural swarm, 

 as with such swarm fully a third if not a 

 half of the bees in the swarm would die of 

 old age before any young bees would emerge 

 to give strength to the colony. 



How did it turn out? The sections were 

 filled and completed as was expected; but, 

 alas! the dirt and bits of cell cappings 

 gnawed off by the emerging brood rattled 

 down through the wire cloth and Avere mixed 

 in with the sealing of the honey to such an 

 extent that nice clover and basswood honey 

 would not bring the price of good sections 

 of buckwheat, and much more profit Ava,s 

 obtained from prime swarms on the old 

 ]ilan than was secured from this third great- 

 er yield of miserable-looking sections. 



Next I tried making wide frames with 

 tight tops to hold the sections, hoping that 

 enough heat might come up through the 

 space made by the wedges so that no harm 

 would come to the brood should a cold spell 

 come on immediately after shaking. Th's 

 kept the brood all right, but allowed so 

 large a space for the bees to go up, as well 

 as down, that when all the brood had emerg- 

 ed I had these brood-combs pretty well 

 filled with honey, and the sections not so 

 well advanced as by the old way. 



After this T used the open-topped sec- 

 tions, and over these spread a sheet of 

 enameled cloth, the same having a hole in it 

 above the space made by the wedges, the cell 

 protector being used point down, as was 

 done when the wire cloth was used. This 

 lilan gave the best results of any thing up to 

 that time, as much more heat would come 

 up through this sheet of enameled cloth by 

 way of the openings, where the open-top 

 sections were used than was the case with 

 the closed-top w^ide frames. But sometimes 

 there Avas a loss of brood, as Mr. B. says. 



Next I went about perfecting the plan as 

 given in the book " Management of Out- 

 apiaries," which not only makes shook 

 swarming a success, but puts every pound of 

 honey, not consumed by the bees, in the 

 sections, in good marketable shape, 



