298 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



May, 1921 



or fly away to the woods. The same con- 

 trol may be harl by using a queen and drone 

 trap, with the advantage that the trap auto- 

 matically catches the queen; while, with a 

 clipped queen, it is necessary to find her on 

 the ground in front of the hive when a 

 swarm issues. The ambitious beginner 

 should learn to clip his queens, however, 



Queen laying and her attendants. 



and, in tlie northern States especially, now 

 is a good time to do this. For detailed di- 

 rections for finding and clipping the queens, 

 see Morley Pettit 's article in this issue. 



To Prevent Swarming When Producing 

 Extracted Honey. 



If extracted honey is being produced, the 

 first super should be put on some time be- 

 fore the beginning of the main honey flow. 

 In fact, if empty combs are available a 

 super of empty combs should be given as 

 soon as the brood-chamber is fairly well 

 filled with brood, honey, and pollen. The 

 queen-excluder should not be used between 

 the brood-chamber and the super at this 

 time, but the queen should be permitted 

 free range thru both stories. This should 

 prevent early swarming. 



If empty combs are not available for tliis 

 first super, frames filled with full sheets of 

 foundation should be used, but these should 

 not be given until the bees commence gath- 

 ering enough nectar to cause them to begin 

 to build new white wax on the darker combs 

 in elongating and repairing the cells. When 

 foundation must be used some of the combs 

 of brood from below should be placed in the 

 middle of the second story. This affords 

 an opportunity to place four frames of 

 foundation adjacent to four combs of brood, 

 two in the upper chamber and two in the 

 lower chamber. As soon as the bees have 

 drawn out the foundation in these four 

 frames so that they now really contain 

 combs with shallow cells, these newly built 



combs can be moved toward the side of the 

 hive, and other frames, which the bees have 

 not yet worked on, put in their places. 

 These new combs are built out better in the 

 second story, and it is well to have most of 

 this work done there. 



As soon as new honey is being stored fast 

 enough so that the second story is nearly 

 filled with brood and honey, another super 

 should be placed on top of the hive, making 

 it three stories high. If empty combs are 

 available, eight of these may be used in 

 this 10-frame super, the combs being spaced 

 farther apart so each comb will hold more 

 honey; but, if foundation is used, the 

 frames should not be spaced so wide until 

 after the combs are built out. When foun- 

 dation is used in the second super, at least 

 two combs from tlie first super should be 

 placed in the second super to induce the bees 

 to begin work there promptly. , 



About a week after the beginning of the 

 main honey flow or after the queen has 

 abandoned the lower story long enough so 

 that the brood there has all been sealed, 

 the queen should be put down into the lower 

 story and confined there by a queen-exclud- 

 er, which should be placed between the first 

 and the second story. The queen will usually 

 be found in the second story at this time. 



Fig. 1. — New hive with supers on old stand. Old 

 hive turned aside. 



To find her, lift off the third story if one is 

 on the hive; then, without smoking the bees 

 in the second story more than necessary, 

 lift it off and set it on the inverted hive 

 cover in such a manner tliat the bottom- 

 bars of the frames do not touch the rim of 

 the cover, to avoid crushing bees. By ex- 

 amining these combs one by one, the queen 

 should be found, picked up by the wings, 

 and placed in the lower brood-chamber. 



In reassembling the hive after the queen 

 has been put down, the queen-excluder 

 should be placed over the lower brood- 

 chamber; the super which was formerly the 

 third story should be put on as the second 

 story; and the former second story, which 

 contains most of the brood, should be put 

 back on top as a third story. If more room 

 is needed at this time, an additional super 

 may be given, in which case the former sec- 

 ond story, being placed on top, now becomes 

 the fourth story. 



Ten days later it may be well to destroy 



