1906 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



727 



the hive, putting the first one in on the side 

 of the box furthest from you, and setting 

 the next one up to it, and so on, till you find 

 the queen or all of the combs are out of the 

 hive and in the box." 



"That is simple." 



"Yes; and if you failed to find the queen, 

 and do not see her on the sides of the hive 

 after all the frames are out, turn the box of 

 combs and bees so that the sun will strike 

 on the combs the same as. it did when they 

 were in the hive, and commence to put them 

 back in the hive from the box, looking at 

 them in the same way for the queen that 

 you did before, jou having just as good a 

 chance to find her this time over as you did 

 at first." 



' ' What proportion of the queens hunted 

 for do you find in this way? " 



' ' I find nineteen out of every twenty look- 

 ed for before the combs are all in the box; 

 and the twentieth one, before the combs are 

 all back in the hive again." 



"What! don't you ever miss finding any 

 queen?" 



' ' Perhaps once in two or three hundred 

 such hunts I fail to find the queen. But it 

 is a rare thing to fail, and I can generally 

 find a queen much sooner than I have been 

 telling you this. The knowing how to have 

 the light just right, and that the queen will 

 always be between the ' dark ' sides of the 

 combs, will help all to find queens quicker 

 and easier than they have been doing if they 

 have paid no attention to this matter. ' ' 



" Well, I thank you much; but before I go 

 I wish to ask you about turning the parent 

 colony one way and the other after swarm- 

 ing, as you spoke of in Gleanings, p. 521." 



'Oh! that is the Heddon plan of prevent- 

 ing after-swarms " 



•' I don't care a fig whose plan it is, I want 

 to know about it" 



"All right. When a colony swarms, put 

 an empty hive in its place and hive the 

 swarm into this empty hive, putting the su- 

 pers from the old or parent colony over the 

 hive the swarm is in When all are settled, 

 place the parent colony about a foot away, 

 and a little back from the hive the swarm is 

 in, allowing it to remain thus for five or six 

 days, when you will pick it up and carry it 

 where you wish a colony to stand, and leave 

 it there. This causes all the fiying bees to 

 return to the swarm, and so weakens the 

 parent colony that they will destroy all 

 queens but one, which prevents all after- 

 swarming, and gives an increase of only one 

 colony for each old one in the spring." 



" But I do not want any increase. I want 

 to let my bees swarm naturally once, then 

 put the swarm in a new hive on the old 

 stand, and get all the bees of the parent 

 colony in with the new swarm, just as fast 

 as I can, as they hatch out, so I will have 

 no increase; then when all are out I can put 

 the parent hive away." 



' ' In that case all you will have to do will 

 be, at the end of five or six days from the 

 time when the swarm issued, to set the pa- 

 rent colony over on the other side of the 



hive, setting it in about the same position 

 relative to the hive the swarm is in that it 

 occupied before this last moving. This will 

 put all the flying bees in with the swarm, 

 and stop after-swarming, the same as if you 

 had carried the parent hive several rods 

 away. In five or six days more, set this 

 parent colony back on the other side of the 

 hive again, and so keep on till all the brood 

 has emerged, at which time you will shake 

 all the bees off their combs in front of the 

 hive containing the swarm, smoking the 

 swarm at the entrance so they will not kill 

 these young bees you are now shaking in." 



* ' What about the queen-cells? Shall I cut 

 these off?" 



' ' The bees will tend to this matter, and 

 destroy all but one of these cells or the 

 queens which emerge from them. This is 

 the part the plan was invented for, mainly, 

 as it does away with all hunting for queen- 

 cells " 



' ' But what about the one queen they al- 

 low to remain? " 



"Unless you have a choice in the queens 

 (the one with the swarm and the one that 

 the parent colony raises) , you need pay no 

 attention to the matter. One of them will 

 be killed after the bees run into the swarm. 

 As a rule, however, it might pay to hunt out 

 the old queen and kill her a day or two be- 

 fore you are to shake the bees off their 

 combs, providing you are sure the young one 

 is laying, when the young one will be mis- 

 tress of the now one colony. ' ' 



"I see. Good by." 



"Just a moment. What are you going to 

 do with the beeless combs? " 



" Store them away for future use." 



"You know you will have to fumigate 

 them or the larvae of the wax-moth will 

 spoil them." 



" I had not thought of it; but now I know 

 I will." 



ALEXANDER AND HIS CRITICS. 



What Constitutes a "Fairly Good Locality"? 



Is it Best to Allow the First Honey to 



Fill the Brood-chamber ? 



BY E. W. ALEXANDER. 



In answer to Mr. Byer's criticism, page 

 217, of some of the articles I have written, 

 I must say that I was not aware that a 

 whole lot of my teachings through the col- 

 umns of Gleanings were not adapted to 

 the majority of localities. If Mr. Byer had 

 told whether he produced comb or extracted 



