554 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



tion, then your plan will increase the total 

 harvest. Generally it is possible, in a well- 

 managed apiary, to make all colonies strong 

 enough for the harvest, whether that be long 

 or short, so that experienced beekeepers 

 would generally work your plan at a loss. 

 In some cases a compromise would be advis- 

 able, bringing the largest number possible 

 to full strength, and weakening a few by 

 your plan. 



The second factor in the case (and the 

 two factors are independent of each other) 

 is the taking away brood. Having no babies 

 to putter with, the bees devote their whole 

 energies to gathering honey. Of course, they 

 ought to gather more than bees Avith divided 

 interests. It may be worth while to do a 

 little figuring as to what the gain really is. 



The time fixed for taking away the brood 

 is not very definite. It is " when the queen 

 gets well started in these empty supers, and 

 new honey starts coming in." That may be 

 in a week or less. Let us say it is three days 

 after the queen begins laying in empty su- 

 pers. At this time about 28 per cent of the 

 brood in the brood-chamber will be unsealed, 

 becoming less each day, until at the end of 

 five days it is all sealed. By taking away 

 this brood we save feeding this more than a 

 fourth of the brood for 2^/2 days (averaging 

 from five days to nothing). 



Now let us see about the brood left. At 

 the time of removal of old brood-combs the 

 queen will have been laying three days in 

 the super, and in five days more she will be 

 in full swing, and there will be as much 

 unsealed brood to be fed as there was at the 

 beginning. Almost surely there will be more. 

 For the queen, previously I'estricted to the 

 brood-nest, is now given unlimited territory. 

 Just as full a force of nurses as before will 

 be needed to feed the babies, and as no new 



nurses are being born, none of the force at 

 work will be freed to go to the field. So 

 from the day of the removal of that old 

 brood we may count on a diminution of 

 fielders by the amount of the daily deaths 

 from old age. If the old brood had been 

 left, even though the flow should be so short 

 that not a bee from that brood should take 

 part in the harvest, yet each bee born would 

 be ready to take up the work of nursing, 

 thus releasing an older sister to go afield. 



So it begins to seem that we have lost 

 enough in our field-force to balance the gain 

 of 2^/^ days of feeding. Indeed, the loss 

 may considerably overbalance the gain. The 

 trouble is that, when we took away that 28 

 per cent of the brood that needed feeding, 

 we took away with it the 72 per cent of 

 sealed brood, and the fallacy is in thinking 

 that that sealed brood could make no differ- 

 ence in the field-force in a short flow, while 

 in fact, as already said, each bee that 

 emerges from its cell allows another to be- 

 come a fielder. If the queen had been stop- 

 ped entirely from laying, the case would be 

 different. But that's another story; and 

 although it isn't worth while to go into it 

 here, it may be worth while to say in pass- 

 ing that it doesn't generally pan out all 

 right. 



There is still left the advantage that 

 taking away the brood stops all notion of 

 swarming. That may again make the bal- 

 ance come out on the right side. But we 

 may have that advantage almost if not quite 

 as surely without taking away that sealed 

 brood. Simply put it above an excluder, 

 leaving the queen below, which is neither 

 more nor less than the Demaree plan of 

 preventing swarming. 



Marengo, 111. C. C. Miller. 



A LITTLE IMPROVEMENT IN SUPERS 

 Using a Super Slightly Wider to Allow a Bee=8pace on Each Side 



BY E. S. MILES 



Some fifteen or twenty years ago the elder 

 Mr. Pettit, of Ontario. Can., who was one of 

 the wideawake, practical, observant bee- 

 keepers of those days, had a special arrange- 

 ment to allow the bees to go up the outside 

 of the brood-nest and into the supers at 

 each side by means of extra bee-space left 

 on each side of the hive and supers. With- 

 out going into the merits of such an ar- 

 rangement, which, of course, Avas discussed 

 pro and con at the time, I wish to say that 

 it led me to obsei-ve that, on the side of the 

 super where the follower was, and where a 



lot of bees congregated, owing to the extra 

 space there, the sections would be built out 

 and finished a little quicker than on the side 

 where the comb had to be drawn out next to 

 the side of the super, and only one layer of 

 bees could congregate there. This was with 

 a solid board follower, while Mr. Pettit, if I 

 remember, used a perforated or slatted fol- 

 lower, which allowed the bees free passage 

 from the clustering space to the comb. I 

 noticed this, and thought an improvement 

 on the common super easily possible for 

 several years before I did any thing. But 



