468 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



cinder, clearly indicating' that the bees car- 

 ried an egg up there to occupy a cell. No, 

 in all my journeyings and reading I have 

 found no one to tell me to my satisfaction 

 any way to tell if a colony has the swarm- 

 ing impulse unless the brood-combs are ex- 

 amined carefully. I can tell some colonies, 

 but they are not kept and looked after as 

 mine are. 



GIVING ROOM IN TIME. 



Then, as Mr. Byer says, the bees must be 

 given surplus room in time ; and it must be 

 largely, at least, drawn comb. The critical 

 period is when the colony has a nearly full 

 brood-chamber, and before it enters (or, let 

 me say, accepts) the super as a part of the 

 hive; and let me say to the inexperienced, a 

 comb-cell is full, so far as room is concern- 

 ed, as soon as the queen deposits an egg in 

 it. 



SHADE. 



Many good beekeepers are opposed to 

 shade for the hive. Let jne say unmistak- 

 ably that, in my estimation, and in the esti- 

 mation of the bees, the statement that the 

 sun shining on a hive in summer brings the 

 bees out earlier in the morning is absurd. 

 It may have that effect early in the season 

 when the leaves are not on the trees; but in 

 summer, after warm nights, this is an ab- 

 surdity; in fact, I have seen bees at work 

 long before sunrise, and I have heard them 



al work from ray bedroom window when 

 scarcely daylight. But shade after the leaves 

 come out on the ai^ple-trees distinctly tends 

 to non-swarming. I know one must be 

 careful about accepting apparent results 

 from isolated cases; but after over thirty 

 years of extensive experience with bees I 

 k')iow shade tends to decrease the swarming 

 impulse. 



CONCLUSION. 



Like Mr. Byer, I know of no absolute 

 way of preventing sv/arming in the locali- 

 ties in which I have kept bees. There have 

 been seasons where it would not have paid 

 me to grf through colonies every week to 

 look for the swarming impulse ; but I have 

 to go through them once a week just the 

 same, for I did not know this until after- 

 ward. To lose a swarm early in a good 

 honey-flow means the loss of the season's 

 profits from that colony. Then, too, in mv 

 estimation a colony requires looking through 

 about once a week to see that matters are 

 progressing right in every way. As long as 

 we do this, foul brood is not likely to get a 

 very serious start in an apiary. A colony 

 will not die out from queenlessness, and 

 other evils can be prevented, provided the 

 examiner is awake and his mind is on what 

 he is doing. In this phase of the work a 

 good rule is not merely to think every thing 

 is right, but to know it is so. 



Brantford, Canada. 



AN EXPERIENCE IN WORKING BEES ON SHAMES 



BY LE EOY LINCOLN. 



Early last spring, wishii:g to make up for 

 a heavy winter loss, I advertised that I 

 would work bees on shares. A beekeeper 

 four miles distant requested me to call. The 

 day was quite cold, so I didn't open any of 

 the hives. In answer to my query if the 

 bees were in movable-frame hives he said 

 that all of them were but five. That satis- 

 fied me, so we made an agreement to the 

 effect that, when those five swarmed, and if 

 any of the others should happen to cast a 

 swarm, he was to hive them at the rate of 50 

 ets. per swarm, and, if possible to notify 

 me in time, he was to do so. 



On a nice warm day early in April I 

 thought I would look the bees over to see 

 how they were fixed for stores, etc. I took 

 the cover otf the first hive, and, whew ! mov- 

 able frames? Well, they were movable all 

 right, but one had to take the whole hive 

 to move them. The second, third, fourth, 

 and so on all through the apiai*>' were just 

 the same — combs built just as bees delight 



in building them — crosswise, lengthwise, 

 and every wise. 



I called Mr. B., and he explained that the 

 frames were movable, because he put them 

 in one by one. No, he didn't use founda- 

 tion. What was the use when the bees 

 could build comb without? His father al- 

 ways kept bees, and never used a bit of 

 foundation. I saw that I had gotten a 

 " pig in a i>oke," and went home to think it 

 over. On the way I had visions of streams 

 of fifty-ce^it pieces leaving my pockets for 

 those of Mr. B. 



That evening I hit on a plan which I 

 thought would hold back some of those 

 coins and still give me a crop of honey. 

 Early the next morning I again visited the 

 yard and picked out the two strongest colo- 

 nies and placed them side by side. The two 

 next strongest were placed side by side 

 fbout six feet from the first two, and so on 

 throughout the apiary. Of course, this 

 sldfting caused some confusion among the 



