96 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Febkuaby, 1917 



prepared hive body just described, making 

 sure that the bee-escape board is inverted 

 — that is, is placed in position just opposite 

 the usual method. The reason for this will 

 be explained later on. Remove the ex- 

 tracting super or supers from the colony, 

 as the case may be, and find the queen. 

 Remove all of the combs of sealed brood 

 from the brood-chamber, and in their place 

 insert empty combs. Place the combs of 

 brood in the prepared hive body, making 

 sure that the queen is left in the brood- 

 chamber. If any combs of sealed brood are 

 present in the supers, set them out against 

 the hive. Shake the bees from most of 

 the combs of unhealed brood into the pre- 

 pared hive body which has the bee-escape 

 board attached to it. Fill the remaining 

 space left with more combs of sealed brood. 

 See to it that the original brood-chamber 

 is filled with combs of unsealed brood or 

 empty comb, and attach an Alexander feed- 

 er. Place a queen-excluder over this brood- 

 chamber and set the prepared hive body 

 containing most of the bees and all the 

 sealed brood on top with the one-inch 

 enti-ance opposite the front entrance. This 

 hive body will be more than filled with 

 bees. The old bees will leave by way of 

 the small entrance and return to the origi- 

 nal front entrance of the hive. 



ADVANTAGES OF THIS PLAN. 



Queen-breeders all know that the great- 

 est number of finished cells can be secured 

 if the cells are started in queenless colonies. 

 The great question that arose in the mind 

 of the writer is, " How can a condition of 

 queenlessness be had without in any way 

 reducing the strength of the colony, or how 

 can a condition of queenlessness be had 

 without dequeening?" The procedure just 

 described is the solution to the problem. 

 If brood is present in a super, and a bee- 

 escape board is inserted, some bees will pass 

 thru the escape, but the brood will not be 

 deserted. Consequently there is a sufficient 

 force of bees present in the brood-chamber 

 of the cell-builders at all times. It is known 

 that young bees will pass into the supers 

 quite readily, especially if the colony is 

 strong. Consequently, each day a large 

 force of nurse bees pass thru the excluder 

 and bee-escape and find their way into the 

 hive-body above, where the queen-cells are 

 to be accepted. These young bees can- 

 not return to the brood-chamber below ; and 

 knowing no other entrance than the small 

 hole at the back of the hive body, they 

 return to this entrance after they have be- 

 come field bees.* The sealed brood in the 



* I will admit that bees will not pass nearly as 

 readily up thru a bee-escape as down, yet some will 



frames above the brood-chamber soon be- 

 gins to emerge and this brood-chamber is 

 " boiling over " with bees all the time. 



FURTHER MANAGEMENT OF THE CELL- 

 BUILDERS. 



If the honey-flow has not begun, the 

 cell - builders mu&t be fed a little each 

 evening. A separate Alexander feeder 

 must be used for each half of the hive, care 

 being taken to close all openings made in 

 attaching the feeders. Every two weeks 

 frames of scaled brood are taken from the 

 brood-chamber and transferred above the 

 excluder, filling up the space there left with 

 empty combs. As soon as the main honey- 

 flow is on remove combs of honey once a 

 week from both hive bodies, filling the space 

 left in the brood-chamber with empty oomb 

 and the upper hive body with sealed brood. 

 Since there is always a large amount of 

 empty comb present in the brood-chamber, 

 the queen will be kept laying to her full 

 capacity, and the colony also will have no 

 intention of making preparations to swarm, 

 even tho confined to one hive body. As the 

 honey-flow draws to a close, the colonies 

 should be fed in order that no risk be 

 taken, and the maximum number of cells 

 will always be accepted. 



ADVANTAGES OF THIS METHOD. 



Not all colorvies are cell-builders, and by 

 this simple plan the queen-breeder can con- 

 fine his entire efforts to one, two, or three 

 colonies during the entire season, and secure 

 an ample supply of cells at all times. It 

 may be well to state here that these colo- 

 nies are not used to " finish " the cells, and 

 this will be mentioned again in detail. 



The upper hive body is always overflow- 

 ing with nui'se bees. The small entrance 

 keeps the bees in a very crowded condition, 

 bringing about the " swarming fever " at 

 all times; but having no queen, they will 

 never swarm. All beekeepers will concede 

 that the best queen-cells are secured under 

 such conditions. At times a peck or more 

 of bees would be clustered outside around 

 the small entrance at 7 A. M. During the 

 middle of the day the entire back of the 

 hive was sometimes covered. Tlie great 

 advantage and beauty of tliis system is 

 that the cells are accepted every time, even 

 during rainy weather and when the nights 

 are cool. It does not seem to make any 

 difference, and the cells are accepted every 

 time. 



PREPARING THE WAX CELL CUPS. 



Heretofore it has been advocated by 

 many queen-breeders that the artificial cell 



pass thru. But even tho not a single bee passed 

 lliru the escape-board the entire summer, the plan 

 would work equally well. 



