DECEMBER 1, 1916 1129 



ECHOES OF THE ILLINOIS BEEKEEPERS' CONVENTION, NOV. 15, 16 



BY K. R. ROOT 



The Illinois State Beekeepers' Associ- 

 ation is the only one in the United States, 

 except one, that enjoj's the distinction and 

 the favor of having state aid. The only 

 exception, so far as we know, is the New 

 York State Beekeepers' Association. The 

 Illinois organization firbt started out with 

 a state approprintion of only $500, but is 

 now receiving $1000. A part of the fund 

 is us?d for slate bee-ins^Dection work under 

 the direction of the inspector, Mr. A. L. 

 Kildow, and the rest is used in getting out a 

 stenogTaphic report of the " Annual Pro- 

 ceedings " of the convention, bound in cloth. 

 The organization is making plans to enlarge 

 its scope of usefulness. It is stronger than 

 the National Beekeepers' Association ; but 

 numerically it is not so strong, probably, as 

 the Ontario Beokeepers' Association of Can- 

 ada and the state organization of New York. 



The president, Emil J. Baxter, of Nau- 

 voc. 111., and the secretary, J. A. Stone, of 

 Springticld, were re-elected. The morning 

 session of the first day was occupied by the 

 usual routine, while the afternoon session 

 consisted of reports of A. L. Kildow, state 

 inspector, Putnam, 111., and a talk by E. 

 R. Root, on establishing a trade-name on 

 honey. 



Mr. Kildow, with his score of inspectors, 

 is doing some excellent work, not only in 

 the line of elimination of disease but in 

 educating beekeepers on how to keep bees. 



The question-box was a strong feature 

 of the convention. Mr. J. E. Pyles, assist- 

 ant state inspector, received all the ques- 

 tions, which were then answered by various 

 ones of the convention. 



DAPAXT-'S REMARKABLE SUCCESS IN SWARM 

 CONTROL. 



On tlie afternoon of the second day the 

 editor of the American Bee Journal, Mr. 

 C. P. Dadant, delivered an address on the 

 subject of swarm control which attracted 

 more than usual attention. The Dadants 

 have for years operated their ten-frame 

 Quinby hives; and while they produce 

 large crops of honej^, the amount of 

 swarming they have is phenomenally low. 

 See " Hives " in any edition of A B C and 

 X Y Z of Bee Culture. During the past 

 yeai', with 525 colonies in such hives, they 

 produced 125,000 lbs. of extracted honey 

 with only 25 natural swarms. The sur- 

 prising thing is that this low percentage 

 was due not to cutting out cells, but rather to 

 the large hives, plenty of super room, 



plenty of ventilation, shade, young queens, 

 exclusion of drones, and spacing the combs 

 iy2 inches from center to center. While 

 Mr. Dadant admits that in the production 

 of extracted honey the swarming problem is 

 less complicated than with comb honey, yet 

 when we consider their crop of honey, and 

 the fact that they waste no time in cutting 

 out cells, we must admit that they have gone 

 away beyond the average beekeeper in 

 swarm control. 



A neighbor of his about two miles away 

 operated the regular ten-frame Langstroth 

 hives, and had thirteen swarms from 

 eighteen colonies. While the difference in 

 liives of com S3 does not account for this 

 difference, Mr. Dadant makes the point 

 that a twenty-frame two-story Langstroth 

 hive usually requires a queen-excluder to 

 keep the queen out of the upper story. 

 When the egg-laying povv'ers of a queen are 

 hampered, the colony is more inclined to 

 swarm, he says. With their ten-frame 

 Quinby hive they have little or no trouble 

 from the queen going up into the extract- 

 ing-sui^ers, for the simple reason that the 

 large capacity of the brood-nest with its 

 large combs is able to take care of a good 

 prolific queen. Such a queen will usually 

 require more than a ten-frame Langstroth 

 brood-nest, and, unless held down by the 

 perforated zinc, she will go above. Mr. 

 Dadant sets forth seven reasons for swarm 

 control. 



1. An ample brood-nest and super room. 



2. Ventilation, by raising the hive up on 

 four blocks. 



3. Providing ample shade by moans of 

 shade-boards or roofs. 



4. Plenty of empty combs. 



5. Young queens. 



6. Elimination of drones by cutting out 

 all drone comb and by using only worker 

 foundation. 



7. Spacing the combs iy2 inches from 

 center to center in the brood-nest rather 

 than i'%- 



On this last point Mr. Dadant said they 

 had been for years using ll'o-inch spacing, 

 not supposing that it had any particular 

 influence on swarm conti'ol; but when Mr. 

 Allen Latham called his attention to that one 

 point he began to thiivk there might be 

 something in it, because others using large 

 hives with narrower spacing had a larger 

 percentage of swarming. 



President Baxter, who had been for years 

 using the Dadant system, stated that he 



