1906 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



521 



nearly solid with brood, except those which 

 were weak in the spring. That the colonies 

 having eight frames of brood need not con- 

 tract the swarming fever before I visit 

 the apiary again, and that all may be as 

 nearly equal as possible when the bloom 

 from white clover opens, I take one of the 

 most nearly full frames from these— a frame 

 composed of nearly or quite all sealed brood, 

 from which I see a few bees just beginning 

 to emerge — and put the same in one of the 

 colonies having but six frames of brood, 



Eutting the nearest empty comb this colony 

 as, taken to make room for this frame of 

 emerging brood, in the colony from which 

 the brood came. In this way all are made 

 as nearly equal as possible. As brood-rear- 

 ing has been going on now for about a month, 

 the hives are so well filled with bees that 

 there is no danger of any setback from a 

 cold spell; and if we are to stop all swarm- 

 ing entirely except in the occasional season 

 referred to above, no swarming being a 

 thing most ardently desired for an out- apia- 

 ry, if not an actual necessity, we must now 

 "pave the way " for the same by commenc- 

 ing before the bees have any thought of the 

 * ' swarming season. ' ' 



doolittle's record-board for the apia- 

 ry. 



After clipping all the queens, and fixing 

 the brood as above, and having jotted down 

 on the 8Xl6Xi-inch smooth board I have 

 carried with me the condition of each colo- 

 ny, I sit down a few minutes to outline the 

 season's work from what the board shows. 

 This board has on it, in miniature, a sketch 

 of the whole out- apiary— each row of hives, 

 and each hive in its place, shown in squares 

 on either side. Each square is numbered 

 the same as the hives, and in these squares 

 I make a record at each visit, giving by brief 

 signs the condition of each colony and its 

 needs, slipping the board under the cushion 

 to the seat of the vehicle I use in going to 

 and from the apiary. 



In this way 1 have the exact condition of 

 the apiary spread out before me at any time 

 I may wish to know about it. I now find 

 that 13 of the 19 colonies have 7 combs of 

 brood each, and are good enough to receive 

 an extra story at this time; and these, to- 

 gether with three others, are set apart for 

 section honey, or 16 in all; the three weak 

 colonies (and nine others to be made later) 

 are to carry out the other part of the plan, 

 to be given later on. 



how to make comb-honey colonies at an 



out-apiary "rich" in stores for 



brood rearing. 



So far I have been working for the larg- 

 est possible amount of brood which will give 

 bees in great numbers at the time of the 

 honey harvest, and there must be no slack- 

 ening now if success is to crown my efforts. 

 To this end, and to keep the colonies from 

 getting the swarming fever, I use a ten- 

 frame Langstroth hive. Small hives, the 

 hiving of swarms on a full set of startered 

 frames, so they will not swarm out, and 

 later taking half of them away, so as to 

 "send" all the white honey into the sec- 

 tions through the contraction of brood- 

 chambers; the turning of the parent colony 

 one way and another every few days, aft- 

 er the prime swarm has been cast, so as 

 to throw all the bees emerging therein with 

 the swarm, etc. , may do very well for the 

 home apiary; but any thing which requires 

 so much manipulation, watching, and care 

 has no place in a non- swarming out- apiary. 

 In fact, with the plan I used to produce 

 114^ lbs. of section honey per colony in 1905, 

 about the poorest of all seasons in this local- 

 ity during the last 30 years (and acknowl- 

 edged by the editor of Gleanings to be the 

 shortest crop in the United States in many 

 years), the ten-frame hive is to be preferred 

 to any thing smaller. 



Nearly all that has been written during the 

 past was from the "view-point" of the 

 home apiary, under the swarming system. 

 W. Z. Hutchinson has well said "that few 

 of the writers in the journals write from^the 

 point of view of the extensive bee-keeper— 

 the man with out- apiaries. So many times 

 I remark to myself when reading the de- 

 scription of a method, ' That's all right when 

 a man is in the apiary all the time, but it 

 won't work in an out-apiary.'" Just so. 

 I have found while working out the plan as 



A TWO-STORY COLONY "RICH" IN STORES 

 FOR BROOD REARING. 



here given that very nearly all of my writ- 

 ings during the past were of no practical im- 

 portance when working an out-apiary on the 

 non- swarming principle, with a view to the 

 greatest possible amount of comb honey, 



