Jl'LV, 1920 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



397 



running over several years, that queen- 

 breeders are never able to fill in full all of 

 the orders that they are given, especially 

 if a very rigid time limit is placed on the 

 order; so we find it pays better to order 

 heavily and then we can let some of the 

 other beekeepers have the extra queens 

 if we get more than we need. We order 

 quite a number of virgins and requeen with 

 them, the virgin queens being mated in 

 the colonies where they are introduced. 

 This saves the beekeeper a great deal of 

 time and is practically as good as mating 

 the queens in nuclei, for which we have 

 little time. 



Cleaning the Hive. 

 In May and June we spend considerable 

 time cleaning up the frames, the hive bot- 

 tomes and the hive bodies. We find that a 

 general overhauling of the brood-frames not 

 only does the beekeeper a lot of good in 



brood than when we were operating for 

 comb honey exclusively. However, we treat 

 nearly all our foul brood in a hospital yard 

 and by the time the surplus flow begins 

 we aim to have everytliing treated and 

 ready for the honey flow. We pay little if 

 any attention to maintaining the usual 

 number of colonies in the hospital yard. 

 We unite until we have every colony strong, 

 as it is useless to keep the number of colo- 

 nies at the expense of strength. In fact, 

 we pay very little attention to the number 

 of colonies in an apiary yard, but aim to 

 have everything good and strong for the 

 honey flow; then when things are going 

 nicely we can make whatever increase is 

 necessary to maintain the ordinary number 

 of colonies. We, however, make practical- 

 ly no increase by division, most of our in- 

 crease being made by purchase, and what 

 increase we have made among our own colo- 



r>--g:-: 5M > pJa> -ggi ~ 



3.^>^ 



Wesley Foster's Iieadquarters, and one of his auto trucks in the foreground. 



keeping things clean, but it also builds up 

 the colony to renewed energy. We shake 

 off the bees in front of the colony as we 

 clean the frames, taking from five to fif- 

 teen minutes for each hive, but the time 

 is well spent. Feeding is essential soon 

 after, as the colonies breed up so rapidly 

 after this overhauling that many may be 

 short of honey. The main difficulty in 

 overhauling the colonies is that it takes 

 so long to do it that robbing is often in- 

 duced and the overhauling has to be 

 stopped . 



The Treatment of Foul Brood. 



We are located in a district where foul 



brood is prevalent, and as we are running 



for extracted honey we find that we have 



more difficulty in controlling American foul 



nies has been made either at the very first 

 of the season or at the end. In our treat- 

 ment of foul brood we use orthodox meth- 

 ods and do not take any of our time in ex- 

 perimenting. We use the brushing or shak- 

 ing treatment and leave the bees on foun- 

 dation for 36 to 48 hours and then put in 

 full drawn combs, filling the colonies with 

 bees and brood, if necessary, just as fast 

 as possible, as we want everything to be 

 in the honey-producing class at the earliest 

 possible date. Our diseased combs are ren- 

 dered, and, if there is any brood of value 

 in them, we stack these on top of the dis- 

 eased colonies until most of the brood is 

 hatched, and everything is then taken away 

 and rendered into wax. The hive is dis- 

 infected with fire. The honey is boiled and 



