1905 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



27 



Mr. Doolittle says, page 925, " The brood- 

 combs are manipulated till the whole are 

 solid full of brood; and when in this shape, 

 if any honey is stored it must go into the 

 sections." Now, I do not want the brood- 

 combs quite in that shape, for four reasons: 



1. The manipulation above referred to 

 takes time from the bees as well as from 

 the bee-keepei". 



2. I want a little unsealed honey in the 

 frames— enough for the brood for a day or 

 two at least, so the young or nurse bees will 

 not have to go into the supers for it, where, 

 in some cases, they would have to climb up 

 over nearly finished sections to reach the 

 fresh honey above. 



K- 3. With the best queens obtainable, there 

 will always be a difference in the capacity of 

 individuals, and I want more room so that 

 an extra good one will never be crowded. 



4. With the brood-combs solid full of brood 

 (I suppose he meant to include the usual 

 supply of pollen), what is to become of the 

 extra supply of pollen which the bees often 

 gather right in the height of the season? 

 Will it not go into the sections also, or, 

 more likely, crowd the queen into a still 

 smaller space? Granted that it may all be 

 needed later, we must have room for it when 

 it comes. For these reasons I want no con- 

 traction of the brood-nest during the honey- 

 flow. 



Perhaps you would say that a beginner of 

 two years' experience should hardly speak 

 on matters like this, after Mr. Doolittle has 

 spoken. No one feels that more than \\ but 

 I want to say that another experienced bee- 

 keeper, one who seldom speaks for himself, 

 has a plan which suits me better, because it 

 accomplishes the same purpose without these 

 objections. 



Mr. Danzenbaker's plan was to make a 

 hive neither large nor small, but of the or- 

 dinary size, and of such shape that the nat- 

 ural place for the honey is in the supers, so 

 that the bees will incline to put it there 

 without being forced to do so, leaving the 

 queen plenty of room, with food supplies for 

 the brood right at hand. I want to empha- 

 size the fact as we find it, that he did what 

 he started out to do. In fact, it is a matter 

 of practical experience with us that he 

 builded better than he has ever dared to 

 claim. I find no need to tier up the hives 

 with second hive-bodies, except where in- 

 crease is wanted. I just put on the super 

 with full sheets as soon as the bees begin to 

 carry honey faster than they use it, about 

 the beginning of apple-bloom, and add more 

 supers on top as they are needed. The bees 

 and the hive do the rest. 



In the two last seasons my sister and I 

 have secured an average of comb honey per 

 colony nearly equal to Mr. Doolittle's rec- 

 ord, and have increased from 5 colonies in 

 the spring of 1903 to 22 now, and have had 

 but three natural swarms, all of them due 

 to overcrowding. I expect to find swarming 

 entirely avoidable; but please bear in mind, 

 after Dr. Miller's experience, that I have 

 no non-swarming race. 



Just one more point for the hive. We 

 have a good honey-flow, but a cHmate so 

 changeable and uncertain that such methods 

 as the brushed swarm— well, anybody may 

 try it who wants to. This county, with no 

 cities and but two large towns, does not 

 nearly produce its own supply of honey, and 

 they don't eat it on the Texas plan either. 

 Let the out-apiary men come; but let them 

 come warned, for they will wish some wet 

 morning that they had shaken themselves 

 instead of their bees. Well, with the Dan- 

 zenbaker hive I find it perfectly practicable 

 to keep the bees ready for a honey-flow or 

 ready for a famine from the beginning of 

 apple-bloom until the end of buckwheat- 

 bloom in September. Even our nuclei are 

 kept with a supply of honey in their frames, 

 and we can make two from a strong colony 

 without seriously decreasing its yield of 

 honey. 



Allow me to add that we have had some 

 of our best points on bee-keeping from Mr. 

 Doolittle, and nearly all of them from your 

 publications. 



Elkin, Pa., Oct. 6, 1904. 



HOW I MANAGE SWARMING WITH THE 

 QUEEN-TRAP. 



BY C. H. DIBBERN. 



Having established an out-apiary some 

 twelve years ago, and being short of help, I 

 found the swarming business a pretty seri- 

 ous problem. I studied all known methods 

 to prevent or control swarming, including 

 the now popular method of clipping the 

 queen's wings and making swarms by the 

 shake or brush systems. These, however, 

 soon proved unsatisfactory to me, and my 

 first experience with the Alley trap, drone 

 and queen guards, and various so-called self- 

 hivers in the end proved equally unsatisfac- 

 tory. But from the experience I had, I felt 

 sure that the trap, when improved, was the 

 best way to manage swarming, especially at 

 an out-apiary where but one or two visits a 

 week could be made. I made three or four 

 different traps, but soon discarded all but 

 the one on page 80(3; and after having had 

 it in constant use for over ten years I do not 

 see how any thing better could be desired. 



About the time swarms begin to issue I go 

 through the apiary when the bees are busy, 

 and place a trap on every hive liable to 

 swarm. This I determine from the way the 

 bees are acting, and seldom make a mistake; 

 but with plenty of traps one can be put on 

 every hive. The bees soon become used to 

 them, and I never could see that it made 

 any difference in the amount of honey gath- 

 ered. In two days there will be a good many 

 drones in the traps, and these I shake out 

 into a box, always keeping a lookout for 

 queens. Should a queen be found, then prob- 

 ably a swarm has issued and returned un- 

 seen, or the bees are superseding their queen. 

 In either case the hive should be opend, and 

 actual conditions ascertained. If it is found 



