294 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



May, 1922 



greatly, and why in American foul brood 

 the symptoms are so constant and uniform; 

 why in typical European foul brood the lar- 

 vae die before the cells are capped, while in 

 American fool brood most of them die after 

 the cells are capped, as well as the reasons 

 for the exceptions to this which sometimes 

 cause so much confusion. Those who have 

 both these brood diseases in their locality 

 should study this article carefully, for, by 

 doing so, they should be able to distinguish 

 between the diseases even when the symp- 

 toms are confusing. 



a ■ — lo ^a a aa 



AN EXCELLENT plan for reducing or pre- 

 venting swarming when using the standard 



Langstr o t h 



Management Previous 



to the Honey Flow to 



Prevent Swarming. 



hive m ex- 

 tracted-hon- 

 e y produc- 

 tion is one 

 that is usually not even recognized as a 

 swarm-control measure because it is so inti- 

 mately connected with the building-up of 

 the colony previous to the honey flow. This 

 plan, so far as the Editor knows, was first 

 suggested by E. E. Coveyou and described 

 in this journal in 1908 (pages 640 and 641) 

 by E. D. Townsend, as follows: 



E. E. Coveyou of Petoskey, Mich., has a very 

 good plan for handling his bees during the fore 

 part of -the honey flow. He uses ten-frame hives, 

 and before the honey flow he gives the colonies an- 

 other story of combs without putting an excluder 

 between. The cells of these combs should be of 

 the worker size, for the queen is allowed full 

 sway through this story until the colony needs a 

 third one. At the time this third story is given, 

 the queen is placed below in the first story, a queen- 

 excluder is put on, and then the third story of 

 empty combs put over it. Finally, on top of all. 

 the second story partly full of honey and brood is 

 added. This plan has the advantage of giving the 

 colony an abundance of comb room and also an un- 

 limited amount of breeding space for the queen 

 during the critical swarming period previous to 

 the honey flow. 



When the bees are wintered in a single 

 story, the second story should be given a 

 little before the combs in the lower story are 

 completely filled with brood, honey and pol- 

 len, and at least several of the combs in the 

 second story should be old dark brood-combs 

 to attract the queen above promptly. Since 

 in the North this second story should be 

 given about the first of May (sometimes 

 even the latter part of April in well-win- 

 tered colonies) the hives, if packed, should 

 be left in the packing cases and the packing 

 material replaced around the upper story. If 

 enough early honey is stored in the upper 

 story to crowd the queen there (which often 

 happens with strong, well-wintered colonies 

 in the spring even when weak ones in the 

 same apiary are starving), a third story of 

 empty combs should be given even though 

 the main honey flow is still several weeks in 

 the future. To save trouble when putting 

 the queen down later, it is well to put the 

 queen-excluder over the second story to keep 

 the queen out of the third story. When 

 strong colonies are managed in this way the 



queen usually abandons the lower story 

 soon after the second story is given, but 

 carries on her work of filling the second 

 story with apparently increased vigor. 



After the queen has been above so long 

 that most of the brood left in the lower 

 story has emerged, she should be put down. 

 This will usually be about three weeks' after 

 the second story was given if the queen 

 went up promptly when the second story 

 was given. To put the queen below, the 

 Editor prefers setting off the second story 

 and hunting out the queen, and she is then 

 simply picked up and transferred to the 

 lower story. Some good beekeepers prefer 

 to shake the bees from the combs of the sec- 

 ond story, to be sure that the queen is put 

 below, instead of finding her. 



Strange as it may seem, putting the queen 

 back into the lower story and confining her 

 there by means of the queen-excluder is a 

 swarm-control measure of great importance, 

 just as inviting her into the second story 

 was a few weeks previously. At first thought 

 one might expect that limiting the queen to 

 a single story should increase the tendency 

 to swarm. To have confined the queen to 

 the lower story earlier in the season without 

 having permitted her to go into the second 

 story would result in swarming in many 

 cases, but conditions now are quite different. 



The bees are now compelled to establish 

 their brood-nest anew in the lower story, 

 which at this time contains but a little 

 brood. This brood is rapidly emerging, and 

 the colony behaves much like a newly hived 

 swarm. There is usually considerable pol- 

 len stored in the lower set of combs, which 

 probably retards the work of the queen to 

 some extent; but, where the honey flow is 

 short, this is often an advantage. The con- 

 ditions are as though an artificial swarm 

 had been made, the swarm being in the low- 

 er story, below the supers and the parent 

 colony above the supers, but all the bees are 

 in the same hive. 



Nine or ten days after the brood was put 

 up and the queen put down, all queen-cells 

 built in the top story not needed in nuclei 

 may be destroyed and this former brood- 

 chamber left on the hive as a super. It is 

 not always necessary to destroy these queen- 

 cells if this brood-chamber now on top is 

 separated from the lower brood-chamber by 

 at least two standard-depth supers. The 

 emergence of young queens in the top story 

 usually causes no trouble. By pushing one 

 of the upper stories forward far enough to 

 form an opening at the back the drones can 

 escape from the hive, and a young queen 

 may be permitted to go forth to mate 

 through this opening. Unfortunately, this 

 plan does not always prevent all swarming. 

 Where the honey flow is long enough and es- 

 pecially in the North, some colonies man- 

 aged as described above will prepare to 

 swarm after the queen has again filled the 

 brood-chamber to which she is now confined. 

 Since at this time it is not feasible again to 

 let her go into another set of empty combs 



