FjiUELAKV, 1921. 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



89 



FROM THE FIELD OF EXPERIENCE 



stroth hivo alone as the brood-chamber 

 thruout the season. This brings me to the 

 flriangement which I think surpasses the 

 deep or large hives; that is, the l^^ -story 

 Langstroth hive. You say that method has 

 been recommended often before; but simply 

 placing a shallow super over the brood- 

 chamber without the proper conditions will 

 not suffice. You must have some good dark 

 brood-combs in both chambers; that is, 

 having worker-cells to the top-bars in the 

 Langstroth chamber, and worker-cells to the 

 bottom-bars of at least six old brood-combs 

 in the shallow super, thus bringing the 

 brood-nests of both chambers as close to- 

 gether as possible. You should have four 

 shallow, combs of honey per colony saved 

 for spring feeding. It is best to have a 

 queen-excluder over the shallow brood- 

 chamber thru the season. So much for equip- 

 ment; now for the manipulation. 



There must not be a rim of honey around 

 the brood when the queen is laying in full 

 swing. This is what makes a large hive 

 become small, and the condition is hard to 

 eliminate in deeper hives. The presence of 

 too much pollen and granulated honey is 

 more prevalent in deep or large hives, ow- 

 ing to swarming or poor queens, which also 

 reduces the brood capacity of the hive. 



To prevent this rim of honey around the 

 brood in late spring, enough stores for win- 

 ter are given to hold them until the putting 

 on. of the shallow brood-chamber, which 

 has at least two full combs of stores on 

 each side of the six shallow brood-combs. 

 This means that the center combs beloAv 

 have brood to the top-bars with some honey 

 in the side combs; and the placing of these 

 nice, warm brood-combs directly over the 

 brood (with the addition of 12 pounds of 

 honey) entices the queen above immedi- 

 atel3^ By actual count, nine out of every ten 

 queens were laying upstairs the second day. 

 You must now get these shallow brood - 

 combs filled with brood (even tho you have 

 to remove temporarily two or three Lang- 

 stroth combs, below which the queen has 

 not occupied) before the honey flow starts, 

 to start bees storing their honey in the 

 super, which is placed above the shallow 

 brood-chamber. When the rim of honey is 

 established away up there you can replace 

 the Langstroth combs (which were tempo- 

 rarily removed) without any danger of the 

 bees ' restricting the queen in laying by 

 filling them with honey; and they main- 

 tain this size of brood-nest thruout the great- 

 er part of the season of extensive brood-rear- 

 ing. This equals or surpasses almost any 

 dpejj or large hive. The secret lies in get- 

 ting the queens upstairs early into the shal- 

 low brood-chamber, so the first honey is 

 store<l far above the brood in the super. 



During the swarming season you can tell 



almost invariably which colonies will swarm 

 by tilting the shallow brood-chamber to see 

 if any cells are built. By simply destroying 

 cells you can discourage almost all of these 

 cell-builders. This beats examining frames 

 in deep hives. 



I prefer adding this brood-chamber in 

 spring to leaving it on thru the winter, as 

 it proves more efficacious in preventing 

 swarming. Let me say that Langstroth hives 

 packed in pairs or fours, pushed together, 

 can be arranged to hold at least 40 pounds, 

 and at the same time provide a clustering 

 place. Simply place two empty combs on 

 the side adjacent to the other hive, after 

 providing the colony with eight sealed 

 combs of stores — enough stores for almost 

 every location. This meets another argument 

 of the deep-and-large hive advocates. 



St. Louis, Mo. J. H. Fisbeck. 



30 ^\ ftC-- 



WINTER PACKING-CASES 



Summer and Winter Arrangement for the Quadra 

 pie Case 



The accompanying pictures show a few 

 novel features of my apiary practice which 

 may be interesting to the readers of Glean- 

 ings. 



I am a sideliner of only five years ' expe- 

 rience; but as I have developed my apiaries 

 from two colonies in May, 1915, to over 

 .'^>00 in October, 1920, I have learned many 

 things, and have found several opportuni- 



Fig 1.-— Sumtnev avranffpnient for packing in groups 

 of four. 



ties to improve upon equipments and prac- 

 tices as found in most apiaries. I aim to 

 have all of my equipment standard and in- 

 terchangeable in my own apiaries; but you 

 will note some things not mentioned in 

 supply catalogs. 



Picture No. 1 shows a view of one of my 

 apiaries with the summer arrangement. My 

 bees are all grouped on platforms which are 

 part of the winter packing-cases. The plat- 

 forms are arranged in rows running either 

 north and south or east and west — prefer- 



