January, 1921 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



21 



hole connecting the nucleus with the mother 

 hive. Here I can have a young laying queen 

 ready to replace a lost one in the mother 

 hive; or the whole three combs with bees 

 and queens may be shifted to a new loca- 

 tion to be built up into a full colony, while 

 the returning old bees and others that will 

 enter the empty side-nucleus thru the con- 

 necting zinc will care for new combs of 

 sealed brood and a cell replacing the frames 

 taken out to form the new colony. There is 

 never any lack of bees to care for the brood 

 in the side-nucleus and any surplus bees 

 reared there can find their way into the 

 main hive. In this way young queens may 

 always be ready, so far as I can see without 

 any loss to the working force of the ajjiary 

 and with little disturbance of the produc- 

 ing colonies. 



This side-nucleus may be examined with- 

 out interfering with the mother colony, and 

 if a young queen should be lost in her mat- 

 ing flight, there is no dwindling nucleus 

 with laying workers; but the workers sim- 

 ply move into the main hive, a few staying 

 there to care for the combs, even filling them 

 with honey. Nor have I seen any of these 

 nuclei robbed out, since they are defended 

 as a part of the main colony. 



This side-nucleus plan gets rid of another 

 trouble we have with weak colonies or nu- 

 clei — the bothering by ants until they swarm 

 out. In one apiary this spring (not ours) I 

 saw 30 small colonies so pestered by ants 

 that they swarmed out at the same time 

 and tried to get into one single-story col- 

 ony. It became a strong colony, to say the 



A Dominican "barrile," used on the side as shown 

 and the combs cut from half the length. 



least, but two weeks later most of those 

 bees had died and there was only a weak 

 colony left. 



In Poor Condition for Honey Flow. 

 So it isn't all play beekeeping in the 

 tropics, and we must find how to manage 

 those instincts . or actions common to bees 

 in all lands so that we may have the best 

 results here. Ordinarily, not half the colo- 

 nies are producing honey on account of 

 some of these occurrences that throw them 

 out of normal: A crowded brood-chamber 

 and little brood; a poor queen or one miss- 

 ing at a critical time; a colony swarming 

 because of being honey-bound or because 

 j^'oung queens emerge after \he ■ old one is 



lost; or colonies badly weakened by spring 

 dwindling — yes, and how the moths do like 

 to get into these two or three stories of 

 combs that were the home of a big colony 

 at the end of the honey season, but which 

 later dwindled to a handful. 



Why not remove those combs when the 

 colony becomes weak? Very good, but to 

 break the sealing of a hive, especially a 



Side-nuclpus cspcci.-ilh- :hU .;!i; ;ijv ui- ilm iim- the 

 robbing season. 



weak one, during the robbing season, even 

 if it is done in the evening almost at dark, 

 will almost surely precipitate a robbing 

 furor next morning, not only of the colonies- 

 handled, but also of every colony in the 

 yard. Each will be thoroly investigated and 

 no weak one will escape. It surely is the 

 survival of the strong. 



This "locality" business sometimes seems 

 to be a bit of a joke; but, believe me, dif- 

 fering conditions do require adjusting of 

 methods. Where bees fly and rob all "win- 

 ter," one has a different problem from that 

 where the good little bees keep their nicely 

 packed hives at the proper temperature of 

 57 degrees all those chilly months. Some 

 days I have longed for a big refrigerator, 

 big enough to chuck in a whole apiary. 

 Crude Equipment Used by Natives. 



These Dominican "barriles" are used ly- 

 ing on the side and not standing on end as 

 is usual with log "gums." The new combs 

 built in one end of the log are cut out an- 

 nually or oftener and the honey pressed 

 out, a considerable quantity of honey being 

 obtained in that way. The drouths of the 

 last few years in this region around Monte 

 Cristi, have wiped out many of these na- 

 tive apiaries, also causing great loss among 

 bees in modern hives, and many beekeepers 

 are much discouraged. 



Usually the apiarist and his family live 

 in a small house near the honey-house — 

 sometimes even in the honey-house; and 

 their acquaintance with the bees becomes 

 very intimate, especially at extracting time, 

 when the little brown-skinned, nude young- 

 sters become so honey-covered inside and 

 out, and so disgusted with the occasional 

 bee that becomes entangled in their curly, 

 often kinky black hair, that the mother 

 gathers her brood together and retreats to 

 some neighbor's, where there are no bees, 

 until the excitement; is over. 



