August, 1922 



G L ]■: A N I N Cr S IN B E K C U L T U R R 



529 



FROM NORTH, EAST, WEST AND SOUTH 



sprinjj, und more hive insulation tluui is 

 usually given. The beekeeper who gives 

 each colony a young Italian queen about 

 August 1, provides 50 or GO pounds of honey, 

 insulates his hives well and has 10 to 14 

 combs for brood-rearing through April and 

 May, is always ready for a bumper crop in 

 the good season and will harvest a fair crop 

 in the poorest season. Those who practice 

 this system are harvesting a fair honey crop 

 even this year. 



Matters of greatest interest throughout 

 the stdte seem to be American foul brood 

 and transferring bees from box hives into 

 modern hives. Control of the former de- 

 pends much upon the general practice of 

 the latter in many sections. Many of our 

 demonstrations are on these subjects. The 

 method mostly used is to drive the bees up 

 into a modern hive equipped with full sheets 

 of foundation and a queen-excluder placed 

 between the two for a period of 21 days. 



American foul brood is often found in 

 bee-trees, and thousand of colonies live in 

 the woods of this state. Some have raised 

 the question regarding the advisability of 

 transferring the farmers' bees in order to 

 control American foul brood when so inach 

 of it exists in the woods. Tliis is a serious 

 question and can only be met in one way. 

 The farmer beekeeper must practice such 

 methods as to prevent the wholesale loss of 

 swarms going to the woods every year. If 

 no swarms escaped, in a very few years al- 

 most all of the bees in the woods would be 

 dead. The remaining bee-trees could be cut 

 down by beekeepers in the vicinity. 



This fact must be emphasized, the average 

 beekeeper must positively change his meth- 

 ods or rapidly lose out. Most of the bees 

 in the state are kept by farmers or other 

 side liners. Geo. H. Rea. 



State College, Pa. 



* * * 



In Northwestern Indiana. — Appar- 

 ent i y 



there will be about an average crop of 

 honey in northwestern Indiana. Plenty of 

 rain up to May 24 gave the clover a good 

 start, but since that time there has been no 

 rainfall except a few local showers. Two 

 weeks ago it appeared that the clover crop 

 would be cut short owing to drought; but 

 basswood has helped out, and this, with the 

 heavy flow from fruit bloom in May, will 

 give us about the average for this time of 

 year. In. the vicinity of the Kankakee and 

 Calumet rivers, half or more of the surplus 

 is usually secured in August and September, 

 heartsease and goldenrod being the predomi- 

 nant sources. 



Prices probably will be low, owing to 

 large crops reported elsewhere and to the 

 enormous yield of berries and other fruits. 

 Unless producers can co-operate in securing 

 effective organization for marketing, in- 



volving a better scheme of advertising, it 

 would seem that many will be obliged to re- 

 duce output or to discontinue production. 

 Valparaiso, Ind. E. S. Miller. 



In W^isCOnsin Fi'om willow bloom in 



the spring right through 

 to the clover flow the weather was favor- 

 able and the bees were stimulated from 

 natural sources. Breeding was continuous 

 without any interruption. In our 20-frame 

 hives the colonies became very strong. The 

 clover flow came fine on June 5, and with 

 it came a flood of rain that caused much 

 property damage. From then on during 

 June up to July 5 the honey flow was all 

 cut to pieces by all extremes of weather, 

 there being a day or two at a time for bees 

 to work and several days of weather that 

 would keep the bees at home. 



By the end of June swarming was in or- 

 der, even with our large hives. Up to the 

 present time (July 5) 12% of all colonies 

 swarmed. Less than 4% were natural prime 

 swarms; that is, they swarmed when the 

 first cells were sealed. A few colonies 

 showed plainly that they were supersedure 

 swarms with virgin queens. Six per cent 

 were swarms where the swarm came out 

 with the old queen, and several cells were 

 in the hive with young queens just ready 

 to emerge. Many times the queens would 

 emerge while we were removing the cells 

 from the combs. We think most of these 

 may also be classed as superseduie swarms. 

 But there were some that were a puzzle, 

 judging from all the evidence. We think 

 that the keeping of the bees at home and 

 idle half of the time caused a crowded con- 

 dition in the brood-chamber, even with 

 plenty of super-room. The bees decided to 

 swarm (?), but kept right on working when 

 the weather was better later, and seeming- 

 ly forgot about the cells until it was too 

 late to destroy them; then, wheji the cells 

 were ripe, they just had to do something 

 and swarmed at the last minute before the 

 young queens emerged. 



With seven years' use of the large hive, 

 we have found that many colonies will start 

 queen-cells, and later destroy them of their 

 own accord if the weather is good with a 

 good honey flow on. This year the unfavor- 

 able weather all came in with the honey 

 flow. Eighty per cent of our queens were 

 two years old this season. It was practic- 

 ally impossible to do much requeening last 

 year in August, on account of the drouth at 

 that time. Robber bees are respected by 

 us, and at the same time we might say there 

 is nothing we dislike so much in our busi- 

 ness as a robber bee. 



We find it unnatural and unwise to try to 

 do any requeening in August in our location, 

 with nothing for the bees to work on. We 

 do this much, though a little at a time — we 



