Skptkmbiok, 1917 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



675 



several years ]\Ir. Klwood had put into win- 

 ter quarters 1300 to 1400 colonies of bees, 

 and for eight or ten years he beg'an the 

 honey season with soniethin.u' like 1000 colo- 

 nics. H<3 has run 11 apiaries witli 100 or 

 more colonies in each. Now he has seven 

 apiaries with a less number of colonies. In 

 fact, he prefers to have not more than 7C 

 colonies in an apiary. When he had his 

 largest yields he had only 40 in an apiary. 



SWARM PREVENTION. 



Mr. Elvvood is an advocate of a large en- 

 trance, two or three inches wide by nearly a 

 foot in length, and still practices artificial 

 increase, obtaining the same when the 

 colony has the swarming impulse. He 

 takes away the queen, one or two cards of 

 brood, and enough bees to protect them. 



The bottoin'.ess l.ags prevent robbing, but laerniit (he 

 few b€es in the supers. to escape. 



Into the nucleus he puts at least four 

 frames of brood with the queen, getting the 

 additional combs from another colony. 

 Sometimes on the next round he adds brood, 

 bringing the number up to seven combs. The 

 colony which has been left queenless, with 

 (lueen-cells started under the swarming im- 

 pulse, are gone into on the next round, 

 which is nine or ten days later, and all but 

 one cell broken down. Sometimes ths 

 colony will swarm out when the young 

 (jueen goes out to mate, leaving the narent 

 hive liopelessly queenless. That is the one 



objection to Mr. Elwood's plan, for on an 

 axerage about five per cent will thus swarm 

 out. However, he prefers to lake his 

 (liance on this. 



REMOVING SURPLUS HONEY. 



The bee-escaiie board is not used for the 

 removal of surplus honey, and just here I 

 can not help wondering if in this respect 

 Mr. Elwood has not got a little of the old 

 fossil sticking to him the same as I had 

 when ] ])ut the wire-cloth bee-escape be- 

 tween a brood-chamber and six supeis with 

 bees. But, never mind. The bees did not 

 smother, but came out of the supers before 

 I went back next day to remove them. And 

 Mr. Elwood is equally successful with his 

 jilan. He finds the neatest way of removing 

 supers is by smoking and shaking the bees 

 (lut, but mostly smoking, giving a shake at 

 last by striking the super on his legs to get 

 rid of hanging bees. The comb-honey su- 

 pers are piled near the wagon-track, and 

 stacked twelve to fifteen high. A bottom- 

 less bag (see illustration) made of duck is 

 slipped over the piles of supers, protecting 

 them against robbers yet allowing the bees 

 to collect and pass out into the bag. The 

 tops of the bags are folded well to keep the 

 robbers out. The same kind of covering is 

 used over the horses' heads to protect them. 



CARNIOLANS IMMUNE, 



When European foul brood was bad, Mr. 

 Elwood got 100 Carniolan queens, and he 

 and Capt. Hetherington found these re- 

 sisted the disease better than any other bees 

 they tried. The greater the vigor of the 

 bees the better they could resist the disease, 

 altho all could become in a measure immune. 



WINTERING IN THE CELLAR. 



Mr. Elwood winters his bees entirely in 

 the cellar. He used to winter outside; but 

 in his section of country bees sometimes do 

 not get a fly for four or five months, and 

 tliat is hard on bees wintering outside. In 

 what is called their "barn cellar" he once 

 wintei-ed 1000 colonies, but that was too 

 many. A colony which winters badly will 

 often disturb others in the immediate vicin- 

 ity. He would like to put just enough bees 

 in a cellar to keep up a proper temperature. 

 The building, or cellar, is 20 feet wide, 60 

 feet long, 7 feet high, and the colonics were 

 tiered four high. Going up from the cellar 

 is a large chimnej^ with three flues, the cen- 

 ter one for fire, the outside ones for flues. 

 Artificial heat can be applied, but there hss 

 been no occasion for its use. The object in 

 having heat in the center flue was to create 

 a current of air in the others, but this object 

 he accomplished by means of a fire up- 

 stairs. 



Brant ford, Canada. 



