278 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



May, 1921 



the swarm where super work is in prog- 

 ress. 



The beekeeper who is operating out- 

 apiaries, or the beekeeper who is away a 

 part of the time during the swarming sea- 

 son, can not well permit his bees to swarm 

 naturally. In this case each apiary must 

 be visited and the colonies examined for 

 queen-cells about once each week during 

 the swarming season; or all colonies must 

 be treated for swarming before swarms be- 

 gin to issue, regardless of whether queen- 

 cells are present or not. 



If the weekly-visit plan is used when 

 queen-cells are found which contain only 

 eggs or very small larvae, these cells may 

 be destroyed and the colony left another 

 week. Sometimes they will give up swarm- 

 ing when this is done, bvit often they build 

 more queen-cells immediately and will be 

 ready for treatment at the time of the next 

 visit a week later. When destroying queen- 

 cells in this way it is necessary to shake 

 most of the bees from the combs to be sure 

 that none of the cells are overlooked, for if 

 one is left a swarm may issue before the 

 next visit. 



If well-developed queen-cells are found, 

 destroying them will probably do no good, 

 and the colony must now be treated. Just 

 what remedy is best depends so much upon 

 the character and advancement of the sea- 

 son, as well as upon the condition of the col- 

 ony, that no set rule should be followed 

 blindly. In some cases taking away the 



brood, leaving most of the bees, the queen 

 and the supers together in the hive on the 

 old stand as in hiving a natural swarm, 

 gives best results. When this is done the 

 removed brood, together with enough bees 

 to take care of it, is placed in an empty 

 hive; and this hive is now treated as the 

 parent colony in natural swarming, care 

 Isein-g taken to see that it is supplied with 

 a good queen-cell, one that has not been 

 injured by shaking the comb. 



In other cases the queen should be re- 

 moved or killed, all queen-cells destroyed, 

 and the colony left until the tenth day when 

 all queen-cells should again be destroyed 

 and a young laying queen introduced. 



Colonies treated in this way are compar- 

 able to the parent colony after all swarm- 

 ing is over and the young queen has mated 

 and begun to lay, except that its full work- 

 ing force is retained. Thus by creating 

 conditions, either comparable to the swarm 

 or comparable to the parent colony, swarm- 

 ing can be controlled in out-apiaries when 

 producing comb honey. Many variations 

 have been worked out for each of these 

 plans, but the basic principle remains the 

 same thruout the various methods. The 

 removal of the brood usually gives better 

 results during a short rapid honey flow, as 

 frequently occurs in the clover regions; 

 while the removal of the queen usually 

 gives better results during a prolonged hon- 

 ey flow, as in the alfalfa region of the 

 West. 



PREPARING for the HONEY FLOW 



HANDS up, 

 all you 

 who have 

 never lost hon- 

 ey by having 

 too few supers, 

 or by other lack 

 o f preparation 

 for exceptional 

 flows. Not many 

 hnnds go up. 



The writer has tried to avoid such losses, 

 or reduce them to a minimum, and in spite 

 of occasional criticism by others because of 

 the magnitude of such preparations, yet 

 losses have occurred at times. 



This past season we put up over 700 new 

 dovetailed hive-bodies with frames, besides 

 one or two hundred new hive-bodies not 

 used the previous year; then there were 

 about 300 hive-bodies filled with old frames, 

 and nearly all, old and new, were put in 

 use, to handle the heavy honey flow. 



The cut shows most of the new hive- 

 bodies piled up and being painted. Note 

 the ventilator hole in the end of each hive- 

 body, and the cleats, ^^ by 2 by 16 inches, 

 across the top of each, reinforcing the weak 

 strip left by the cutting of the rabbet in 

 which the frames hang. No hive is com- 

 plete without these reinforcing cleats. They 



Importance of Having Enough Su- 

 pers to Take Care of Exceptional 

 Yields 



By E. F. Atwater 



extend down 

 1/32 of an inch 

 below the upper 

 edge of the 

 hand-hole, thus 

 giving a far 

 better grip or 

 handle, than the 

 h a n d - h 1 e 

 alone. 



Nor do these cleats interfere with piling 

 or loading, as they extend 'clear across, and 

 merely require a little more room, as each 

 body is one inch longer than when cleats 

 are not used. After years of use of thou- 

 sands of hive-bodies with, such cleats, I can- 

 not urge too strongly their value and im- 

 portance, for hive-bodies so reinforced and 

 strengthened are far less easily damaged. 

 We were a little late in getting our little 

 home extracting-plant ready for use, but 

 for some weeks we ran two eight-frame ex- 

 tractors, from the single two-horsepower 

 electric motor, and we finished the season 

 with the largest crop and the largest per- 

 colony average that we have ever taken, 

 together with about 300 colonies of in- 

 crease, leaving nearly every colony with 

 four or five full combs of honey, in addition 

 to the amount stored in the brood-nest. 

 This leaving a heavy supply of honey is 



