GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



July, 1920 



FROM THE FIELD OF EXPERIENCE 



swanii. If I decide any are thinking of 

 swarming, I give them a body of combs to 

 relieve the crowded condition. As soon as 

 they begin sealing honey, I give more room 

 at once next to the brood-nest. Then as the 

 flow continues, instead of opening the hives 

 I lift them and thus estimate the amount of 

 honey and whether another super is needed. 



Bees should never be smoked when the 

 flow is on, as the young bees that are wax 

 workers will go down and in most cases 

 stop work. This causes swarming, and stops 

 storing considerably. I don 't have 5 per 

 cent swarming since using this method, and 

 the photo shows how well I succeed. When 

 running for comb honey I use an entirely 

 different way. I notice that many bee- 

 keepers have trouble in getting bees to 

 work in the comb-honey super. This never 

 bothers me, for this reason: If a colony 

 will only crowd the brood-nest full of honey, 

 no matter how good the queen, presto, off 

 goes her head, and another one is given. 

 Here is where raising your own queens pays. 

 Dr. Miller is one man that is also, I think, 

 producing bees that get the most honey for 

 his management. 



I find that introducing new stock is detri- 

 mental in some cases. You have to try any 

 new blood one season before getting the 

 cross in your stock. If there proves to be 

 an undesirable trait, it may sometimes take 

 as much as five years to breed it out, and 

 this is just an upset for all the work you 

 have done for many years. 



As shown in the picture my yield is 

 pretty good. Note some of the hives have 

 a guy wire running over the tops with 

 stakes to hold them from being blown over. 

 My total yield last year was 13,500 pounds 

 of extracted and thirty-three 24 - section 

 cases. A. A. Clark. 



LeMars, la. 



ao^ep 



LARGE HIVE with NO ADDED COST 



How to Try Out Deep Hive with Present Stand- 

 ard Equipment 



A method for those who wish to try a 

 deep hive, a method which, I believe, has 

 not been mentioned, is to use a 10-frame 

 Jumbo body with 9 frames, l^^-inch spac- 

 ing, in connection with a shallow super 

 which is to be considered as a part of the 

 hive the entire year — for a reserve supply 

 of honey and not to be used for producing 

 extracted honey, unless it may become nec- 

 essary to remove from these shallow supers 

 honey unfit for winter stores. 



The following suggestions serve to show 

 its advantages in many ways: Until furth- 

 er exppiinuMit;il work has been done along 

 the line of large liives, some beekecpeis 

 may like to try this plan and still continue 

 the use of standard fixtures. During the 



honey flow the shallow super should be on 

 toji of the brood-chamber to be filled with 

 honey for winter stores. If in a buckwheat 

 location, the shallow super could remain be- 

 low the brood-chamber all summer, and then 

 at the beginning of the buckwheat flow be 

 placed on top of the brood-chamber to be 

 filled for winter. Promptly at the end of 

 the honey flow in the fall, the shallow 

 super with its 25 or 30 pounds of honey 

 should be placed below the deep hive. There 

 will be at this time more or less honey in 

 the deep combs — depending on the strain of 

 bees and age of queen, as well as on the 

 quality of combs (absence of sag and drone 

 comb). The bees will move some or all of 

 the honey above before cold weather. In 

 far northern localities it may be advisable 

 to give each colony 10 pounds of thick feed 

 a little later, which will make a total of 50 

 to 60 pounds of winter stores. 



Placing the shallow super of honey below 

 the brood-chamber in the fall, and making 

 it necessary for the bees to move the honey 

 above, may seem an unwise move and ex- 

 hausting to the bees ' energy, but it has 

 compensations very valuable to Northern 

 beekeepers. This honey when placed above 

 is put in the center of the brood-nest in 

 cells rapidly being vacated by the hatching 

 bees. Transference of the honey also causes 

 the queen to continue laying somewhat 

 longer; and, further, another very import- 

 ant point not to be overlooked, is that, ow- 

 ing to the shallow body being below the 

 brood-chamber, the bees are offered an op- 

 portunity to form their winter cluster at a 

 lower point than is possible in a single story 

 deep hive, affording the bees, as is natural 

 with them, a chance to place a larger per- 

 eentaoe of their winter stores in thick 

 combs directly above them. In the spring 

 after protracted spells of low temperature, 

 bees in tall box hives and in trees have 

 been found alive, while to the beekeeper's 

 sorrow many (too many) of his colonies 

 were dead — with "millions of honej^" eith- 

 er side of the cluster. Making larger hives 

 either Jumbo or Langstroth style by adding 

 additional combs to the sides is not going 

 to help the bees in the winter, should there 

 be no chance for them to break cluster and 

 reach the stores in the outside combs. 



At the proper time in the spring the shal- 

 low super can be placed above to catch any 

 early flow and prevent the brood-chamber 

 fioni being flooded with new honey. In 

 mild climates the shallow super may remain 

 above the brood-chamber the entire year. 



In locations where there is a heavy short 

 flow of white honey, comb honey may be 

 produced by moving the hive a few feet at 

 the right time, turning its entrance at an 

 angle of about 45 or 90 degrees away from 

 its former position and placing the shallow 

 body on a bottom on the old stand. Then 



