O [, K A X T X O S I N n K E CULTURE 



•iTir.v, 1920 



c 



GLEANED 



lona 



QUESTION. — 

 When I ran 

 my bees for 

 comb honey 

 a n (1 p r a c t i c e d 

 " shook swarming" 

 I placed the two 

 outside combs o f 

 the colony that was 

 to be shaken, con- 

 taining honey and 



pollen, in a new brood body and by using dummies 

 contracted the brood-chamber and forced the honey 

 above. I found that if there was any unsealed 

 brood in these outside combs the bees would rear 

 queens and supersede, or the queen M'ould dis- 

 appear. In running for extracted honey and plac- 

 ing the queen below with one frame of brood and 

 the rest of brood above an excluder, I find that a 

 large per cent of queens placed below disappear. 

 I keep my queens clipped so I know they do not 

 swarm. May it not be on account of the un- 

 sealed brood that the queens become missing, and 

 would it not be better to place, below, a frame of 

 sealed brood too old to rear queens from? What 

 has been the experience of others? 



Indiana. D. F. Rankin. 



Answer. — Our experience has been that 

 queen-cells are not usually started on the 

 unsealed brood in the instances which you 

 mention, unless such unsealed brood is in a 

 chamber apart from the queen. In the ex- 

 tracted-honey plan that you mention we 

 wonder whether you left plenty of super 

 room immediately above the brood-chamber. 

 When we have done this there have not gen- 

 erally been queen - cells started below. 

 Queen-cells are, however, more apt to be 

 started in the brood-chamber if sealed brood 

 is left there, for as soon as the sealed brood 

 hatches there will be a good many young 

 nurse bees, which are more apt to cause 

 queen-cells to be started than are the older 

 bees. In a colony that has already made 

 preparations for swarming we would great- 

 ly prefer to keep the hatching bees far 

 above the brood-chamber. 



Questions. — (1) Are the queens that are raised 

 by the bees in a good swarming season just as 

 good as queens that can be bought, provided a 

 man has good Italian bees to commence with? I 

 bought six queens last July from a good breeder 

 and last June raised four (jueens myself by a 

 queenless colony. Now the colonies that have the 

 queens I raised myself are much stronger than the 

 six for which I bought queens. (2) Lately I have 

 been raising a few more queens ; but a day before 

 the cells were hatched, I opened six of them and 

 found that there wasn't a lit of jelly left at the 

 bottom of the cell. Will these queens be all right 

 or is it better to destroy them and try to raise 

 others? I have only 20 colonies of bees and would 

 like to have only the very best and strongest queens 

 in every one of them. 



Texas. ('. G. Wuthrich. 



Answers. — (1) We believe so. Others, 

 however, contend that the progeny of queens 

 raised under the swarming impulse are more 

 likely to swarm than are those raised under 

 the supersedure impulse. If one has good 

 Italian bees to begin with, there is no rea- 

 son why he cannot raise fine queens himself, 

 and in time he may learn to raise queens 

 even better than any he will be apt to buy, 

 for queens, after they go thru the mails. 



BY ASKING 



Fowls 



1 



are not ii 

 as good 

 tion as 

 sending, 

 daughter 

 however, 

 be very 



1 (|uite 



condi- 



before 



Their 



queens, 

 would 

 good 



and would, per- 

 haps, be a better 

 strain than your 

 own. (2) Just before the hatching of the 

 queen the cells are often found with little or 

 no royal jelly. We think you will find those 

 queens are all O. K. We certainly would not 

 destroy the cells. 



Questions. — (1) In my new hives there are no 

 division-boards. Is it necessary to buy a division- 

 board? I have a swarm of about four pounds 

 that I hived in a ten-frame hive with full founda- 

 tion in the frames. They cover about four frames. 

 Should they be confined to these four frames or 

 allowed the run of the whole hive? (2) These 

 hives have a space at the side almost large enough 

 for an eleventh frame. Is a large space like that 

 proper? (3) Should the bee-escape in the inner 

 cover be kept there when no sections are on — just 

 the brood-chamber and coveir? (4) Should swarms 

 have full foundation or will they remain with inch 

 starters only ? 



Virginia. S. C. Wolcott. 



Answers. — (1) In case of full colonies it 

 is not necessary to have a division-board, 

 unless you wish to contract the brood-cham- 

 ber when putting them into winter quarters, 

 and even in this case you could easily make 

 a division-board of thin boards yourself. 

 It would be well to have a few such divis- 

 ion-boards on hand, no matter how you pre- 

 pare for winter, because there are times 

 when one has a weak colony and does not 

 wish to give them the entire hive. In case 

 of weak colonies it is best to give them only 

 as many combs as they can conveniently 

 occupy, and then place a division-board be- 

 tween the outside frame and the vacant 

 space. Then as fast as the nucleus in- 

 creases in size more frames may be added. 



(2) When the frames are new there is quite 

 a space at the side, but after they have 

 been in use for some time the bees propolize 

 them to such an extent that this space at 

 the side is taken up, and there is just 

 enough room to remove the frames easily. 

 While the frames are new it would be well 

 to space them evenly, so that the bees will 

 draw out the combs equally in each frame. 



(3) The bee-escape should not be left in the 

 inner cover, but the opening for the escape 

 should be covered by a piece of section or 

 other thin strip of wood. (4) Swarms 

 should not be given inch starters, but should 

 have full sheets of foundation, or, better 

 still, drawn combs. In case you have a few 

 drawn combs we would suggest replacing 

 two or three of the frames of foundation 

 with drawn combs, since the bees will be 

 much more contented with a little drawn 

 comb toward the center of their hive. 



Questions. — (1) On the 18th of May I cut a 

 beetree, a big tulip tree, six feet in diameter. I 

 left the hive at the tree for over a week when I 

 found the bees had built queen-cells and seemed 



