164 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



QUESTION. 

 — I am about, 

 t o ■pmrchaso 

 an apiary, 

 but the bees are 

 hybrids. Are they 

 as good as Italians, 

 and ■will they do as 

 well under favor- 

 able conditions. 



L. D. Strauss. 



California. 



Answer. — If the eolonifs are in good con- 

 dition and free from disease, you need not 

 hesitate about purchasing this apiary be- 

 cause the bees are hybrids. So far as honey- 

 gathering is concerned these hybrids may 

 be either poorer or better than Italians and 

 unless they are now several generations 

 from the fiVst cross there will probably not 

 be much difference in honey-gathering quali- 

 ties between these hybrids and pure Italians. 

 After several generations, however, they 

 may deteriorate rapidly. The greatest dan- 

 ger is in their poor resistance to European 

 foul brood, and before purchasing them you 

 should examine them carefully to see if this 

 disease is present. In California this month 

 is a good time to look for the disease, for 

 it is visually at its worst during the heaviest 

 brood-rearing in the spring. If the colonies 

 should be found badly infected with Euro- 

 pean foul brood at this time of the year, of 

 course they may not be worth much. If you 

 purchase these bees it will be well for you 

 to Italianize them this season, if for no 

 other reason than as a precaution against 

 European foul brood. 



RENT FOE OUT-APIAEIES. 



Question. — -What is the usual custom in paying 

 for the privilege of placing colonies of bees on an- 

 other's property, as in establishing out-apiaries'? 



Connecticut. G. B. Chase. 



Answer. — This will vary according to cir- 

 cumstances. In some cases, fruit-growers are 

 not only willing to furnish a location for 

 the out-apiary without charge, but are will- 

 ing in addition to pay the beekeeper a fixed 

 sum on account of the benefit from the bees 

 in better pollination of the fruit. On the 

 other hand, beekeepers in the West some- 

 times pay as high as $50 to $100 for the ex- 

 clusive I'ight to" locate an apiary on a large 

 ranch where alfalfa is grown extensively. 

 Probably a fair price for a good location is 

 $10 to $15 per year, with a little honey 

 thrown in. In any case the out-apiary should 

 be located some distance away from the 

 farm house and away from cultivated fields 

 if possible, preferably on pasture land. The 

 beekeeper should take special care not to 

 leave gates open or permit the presence of 

 the bees on the farm to annoy the owner of 

 the farm in any way. 



SPREADING BROOD AND STIMULATIVE FEEDING. 



Question. — Which plan is best, spreading the 

 brood and stimulative feeding, or the "rich in 

 honey" plan for spring management? 



Pennsylvania. Charles B. Bickel. 



Answer. — Spreading the combs of brood 

 apart and inserting empty combs taken from 



March, 1921 



the outside of 

 the hive was 

 a <l v o c a ted by 

 .s o m e leading 

 beekeepers 25 or 

 .">(• years ago, 

 but the practice 

 has been almost 

 completely aban- 

 doned by com- 

 mercial lioney-producers. In the hands of the 

 inexperienced it is a dangerous procedure, 

 and in tlie hands of the expert it is of doubt- 

 ful value. About the only time that it pays 

 to do this is when a colony becomes ' ' honey- 

 bound" in the syiring so the queen is unable 

 to expand the brood-nest on account of a 

 barrier of hone_y. Sometimes poor combs or 

 pollen-clogged combs may become barrier.^ 

 in the way of the expansion of the brood 

 area. In such cases a safe way is to take 

 away this barrier and insert an empty comb 

 adjacent to the outside frame of brood in- 

 stead of in the middle of the brood-nest. 



In regard to stimulative feeding, this, 

 too, is not practiced now as much as for- 

 merly, since in most cases, especially in the 

 eastern portion of the United States, but 

 little is gained in brood-rearing by stimula- 

 tive feeding over the presence of an abund- 

 ance of honey in the hives. The inclination 

 to rear brood extensively is very strong in 

 the spring, and usually if the bees have 

 plenty of honey they need no additional 

 urging to do their best. There are some ex- 

 ceptions to this in the West, in wliich bee- 

 keepers sometimes break down the cappings 

 of sealed honey or transpose combs of honey 

 to the lower hive-body to induce the bee.s 

 to move some of the honey to stimulate 

 brood-rearing. When stimulative feeding is 

 practiced it should not be begun until three 

 or four weeks previous to the beginning of 

 the honey flow, and should be continued 

 until the beginning of the honey flow if no 

 honey is coming in from minor sources. 



SHALLOW SUPERS FOR BR00D-RE.\RING. 



Questions. — (1) "Will a shallow extracting super 

 provide enough extra space for spring brood-rearing 

 when using the ten-frame hive? (2) Should the 

 queen be allowed this extra breeding space all the 

 season or should the excluder be put on the lower 

 hive-body ? R. H, Grell. 



Iowa. 



Answers. — (1) If a shallow extracting 

 super is used in addition to ten good combs 

 in the regular brood-chamber, these combs 

 having good worker-cells practically to the 

 top-bar so that almost the entire comb can 

 be used for brood-rearing, there should be 

 Nufiicient brood-rearing space for the most 

 prolific queens even when the shallow ex- 

 tracting super is partly filled with honey. 

 The 10 Langstroth frames, if free from 

 honey, contain nearly 70,000 cells for brood 

 if the combs are nearly perfect, but in prac- 

 tice this much brood is probably never found 

 in a regular 10-franie hive. ^2) It is better 

 to confine the queen to the lower hive'-bodv 

 soon after the beginning of the main honev 



