354 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



May, 1917 



FROM THE FIELD OF EXPERIENCE 



be well to try it out before adopting a plan 

 involving so much trouble. 



It looks as if your plan should be effec- 

 tive, and 3'et until a plan is submitted to the 

 bees one never can feel sure just how it will 

 (urn out. 



At No. 2 you say, " Main brood-cliamber 

 is set next to old stand, and shifted weekly 

 to throw workers into original colony." I 

 suppose that means that the main brood- 

 cliamber will be jumped each week from one 

 side to the other of the stand on which the 

 queen is. Then no doubt your expectation 

 is that all field-bees from the old brood- 

 chamber will join the queen, while none of 

 her fielders will desert her. May be it will 

 pan out that way; may be it won't; de- 

 ]iends somewhat on surrounding objects. 

 On an open plain, with no surrounding ob- 

 jects within two or three rods, T should ex- 

 jiect that when you make the first jump the 

 jumper will gain more by it than the 

 jumpee. 



The queen is confined for about 3 weeks 

 to the shallow story while the main brood- 

 chamber is jumping. If the shallow story 

 is shallow enough, some strains of bees 

 might conclude to swarm from being too 

 crowded. 



As already said, you can tell only by try- 

 ing; and if your plau doesn't turn out as 

 well as expected, it will be only one more to 

 keep me company in the many times I've 

 been fooled. But there's lots of fun in 

 trying. C. C. Miller. 



How Young Queens Help 



Our scheme for SAvarm control when run- 

 ning for comb honey in out-apiaries will not 

 work in all localities, for it failed for us in 

 San Diego County, Cal., also jn Ken- 

 County, Texas, where the honey-flow is 

 slow and long drawn out. It has been a 

 success with us in Mesa County, Colorado, 

 also here in northern California where our 

 surplus comes the last two weeks of June, 

 July, and August, and mostly from sweet 

 clover and alfalfa under irrigation, and 

 where bees live from hand to mouth until 

 the honey-flow begins in earnest. 



During the first part of May we start 

 queen-cells as per Doolittle's plan in " Sci- 

 entific Queen-rearing," that is, in grafted 

 cells in upjier stories of very strong colo- 

 nies with queens below and queen-excluders 

 between. Not less than 100 cells are started 

 for 150 stands of bees, so we are sure to 



have plenty. We do not dequeen, but in 

 about eight days we go out again and place 

 empty hive-bodies on one hive of each pair 

 of hives in the apiaries. This hive-body is 

 placed over the hive containing the fewest 

 bees and the poorest queen. Wie try to have 

 all our hives in pairs. Two frames of brood 

 are raised from lower story and placed in 

 the up2>er story with queen-excluder be- 

 tween. The next day. if the weather is fine, 

 we put a queen-cell between each two fram^e^ 

 of brood raised, and go to the next apiary, 

 which we work the same way. Four or five 

 days later, we return and take out the queen- 

 excluder from each hive that has hatched a 

 perfect queen, and that perfect queen or the 

 bees (we do not know which) does the de- 

 queening. From those that have not per- 

 fect queens, or for any reason did not hatch 

 at all, or were destroyed, we change the 

 upper hive over to the other hive of that 

 pair and try them with another queen-cell 

 which has been brought from home. Not 

 many fail the first time, but there are always 

 a few. 



In this way by the first of June every 

 other hive in our apiaries is two-story and 

 we see to it that each has a young laying 

 queen. This time is about our swarming 

 season ; but we always feel quite sure of tliese 

 young queens, so we look after only the old 

 queens at the side. This we do every trip 

 which is about evieiy eight days. As soon 

 as we find a colony that has started cells or 

 eggs in cells we pick it up and set it back 

 ten or fifteen feet, throwing all the worker- 

 bees into the hive with tlie young queen 

 with her double story. This cures the old 

 colony's swarming-fever by robbing it of 

 most of the field bees. By this time the 

 honey-flow is on in earnest; and when it does 

 come in earnest, all old queens are moved 

 back whether they have coiitrtaeted the 

 swarming fever or not, throwing all their 

 field-workers in what we are pleased to call 

 our comb-honey colonies. They are sure 

 some colonies, but their upper hive-bodies 

 have been taken oft' and placed over the old 

 queen ; and from two to four (it takes this 

 many to hold all the bees) comb-honey su- 

 pers put over the young queen ; and as the 

 bees have been used to going above, they 

 go right to work. In a good season they 

 make from four to thirteen supers of comb 

 honey each, twenty - four sections to the 

 super. They average about seven su]:)ers 

 each, while our old queens give us from 

 one to three supers each of comb lioney, 

 for we remove that upper story as soon 



