GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE May, 1920 



FROM THE FIELD OF EXPERIENCE 



the brood left in the hive will not be neg- 

 lected. The frame containing the queen is 

 set at the side of the hive, and after the 

 swarm box is filled she is placed back in 

 her hive again. This box is filled -just be- 

 fore noon and the cells grafted about four 

 p. m. Usually, the bees confined in a swarm 

 box will not take sugar syrup, but if honey 

 diluted with one-fourth water is given they 

 take this readily. This is given in a Mason 

 jar with perforated cap and is placed in 

 the hole that was used for filling the box 

 with bees. A swarm box prepared in this 

 manner will accommodate 60 cells. It has 

 not been an uncommon occurence to have 

 every cell accepted and every one finished 

 into long perfect cells. As a rule, however, 

 we get about 55 accepted and, when given 

 to a finishing colony, they usually find one 

 or two more that do not suit them and they 

 tear them down. The bees should be left 

 in the swarm box till noon the next day, or 

 they may be released any time during the 

 afternoon of the following day. In the 

 cellar or basement the bees should be kept 

 in the dark. I had a basement made of 

 concrete, and we stacked up extracting su- 

 pers to the ceiling to keep out the light. A 

 room was made in this way with the open- 

 ing facing the wall so that no direct rays 

 of light could enter. In this ' ' dungeon ' ' 

 the bees remained quiet and kept right at 

 the task in hand. The best way to get cells 

 completed is over a queen-excluder in a 

 two-story hive, with a good laying queen in 

 tlie lower hive. But in order to get the best 

 results, this hive must be rousing sti'ong. It 

 is well to have both hive bodies completely 

 filled with brood. Extracting-supers may be 

 ]iut on top of all. This will necessitate some 

 lifting at times, but it is well worth it. One 

 bar of from 15 to 20 cells is given to a colo- 

 ny to be finished. The cells should be left 

 witli this colony that finished them until 

 tlie tenth day after they were grafted. They 

 will then be ripe and will hatcli some time 

 late in the afternoon of the eleventh day. 

 These cells should be handled very carefully 

 on the tenth day or cells will fail to hatch 

 01 crippled queens will be the result. The 

 colonies you wish to requeen should be made 

 (jueenless at least 24 hours before giving 

 them a cell, and, if any trouble is experi- 

 enced from the bees tearing down the cells, 

 tliey should be made queenless 48 hours. 

 However, if the nectar is coming in- and the 

 weather is fine, 24 hours will be long 

 enough. But I can almost hear this ques- 

 tion asked, "Why not use a cell-protect- 

 or?" Because if you wish to get the hest 

 lesults in rearing the best queens, you 

 should not use them. 



After conducting some experiments along 

 that line, I believe that many do not realize 

 that one of the cardinal points in rearing 

 the best of queens is "proper incubation." 

 To secure perfect incubation of queen-cells 



the bees must have free access to the cells 

 at all times. Cells will not hatch perfect 

 queens at all times, if they are allowed to 

 hatch in cages or cell-protectors, for the 

 reason that the bees cannot cluster around 

 tlie cells and keep the temperature just as 

 it should be. Where the bees have the op- 

 })ortunity, they will closely cluster about 

 the cell, and just before the queen is to 

 hatch they will remove the wax, leaving 

 the bare thin cocoon thru which the virgin 

 queen may be seen moving about. The cell 

 cannot have this care if placed in a cage or 

 cell-protector. Again, it is of the utmost 

 importance to have the virgin queen hatch 

 among the bees, for a virgin that has just 

 hatched is a very frail, weak affair and 

 needs all the nursing and attention she can 

 get if queens of the first quality are to be 

 secured. The method just described, if 

 properly carried out, eliminates all doubtful 

 features. If it is desired to use nuclei, the 

 same method is employed, except that the 

 cell is given to the nucleus instead of to 

 the full colony. This will necessitate in- 

 troducing the laying queen to the colony, 

 which is another story. 



THE BIG NEED IN THE SPRING 



An Abundance of Stores Means an Abundance of 

 Workers 



The importance of plenty of room for 

 queens to lay, and especially the need of 

 abundance of stores for the bees to turn into 

 bees in the spring, is not fully realized by 

 those who keep bees. For some years it has 

 been my practice, when extracting in the 

 fall, to save combs only partially filled and 

 capped; and in the spring, after taking 

 away the winter packing, to raise the brood- 

 chamber and place a hive body containing 

 these frames of honey under it. The abund- 

 ance of room sujiplied held back swarming 

 till the flow of honey from white clover, and 

 the honey given stimulated the queens to 

 lay to their utmost capacity. 



In the fall of 1918, when packing my bees 

 for winter, I gave six colonies each an extra 

 brood-body containing ten of these partially 

 filled combs of honey. When I took off the 

 winter packing late last spring, I found one 

 of these colonies with the upin-r brood-body 

 well filled with brood, and six frames be- 

 low with plenty of brood. This colony last 

 year (1919), which one of my neighbors who 

 has long kept bees said was one of the poor- 

 est seasons he had ever seen in Indiana, 

 gave about 120 pounds of extracted honey. 



If it requires a frame of honey to produce 

 a frame of brood or bees, then hives with 

 six frames of honey can not produce more 

 than average colonies of bees; while 16 

 frames of lioney, with the right queen, may 



