1905 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



823 



FOUL BROOD IN TRANSFERRED COLONIES; 

 THE WAY TO WINTER BEES. 



I have one or two questions I should like 

 to ask. I had a colony of bees in a box hive 

 this spring, and I transferred them into one 

 of your hives during fruit-bloom. I trans- 

 ferred enough comb to fill three frames and 

 two frames of foundation— six frames in all. 

 The larvEB hatched out of the combs that I 

 transferred, and the queen began to lay eggs 

 in the cells that were drawn out from the 

 foundation; and the young larvae, as they 

 began to hatch, began dying, all the way 

 from three days to the time they were cap- 

 ped over. Some died after being capped 

 over. The combs looked ragged, the same 

 as in the description in the ABC book, in 

 regard to foul brood. The bees just about 

 held their own. They had a very prolific 

 queen that laid eggs in every empty cell, 

 but did not gain any in strength. The lar- 

 va, when dead, turned a dark cream color, 

 and dried down to the lower cell-wall. Then 

 the bees would remove it and the queen lay 

 eggs to hatch and die. All bees seem to 

 live after being hatched out once. Some 

 dead larvae had the stringy ropy condition, 

 and some did not— a shght smell in the hive 

 at first when opened, but I could not detect 

 any toward the last, but the bees did not 

 improve. I could not see any thing wrong 

 with the combs when I transferred them to 

 the frames. 



If I have asked the question clearly 

 enough, what was wrong with them? I 

 watched closely to see that it did not spread 

 to my other bees, and have not found any in 

 the rest yet. 



Could the disease have been in that foun- 

 dation, as it started there first? As it is 

 near robbing time here I closed the hive up 

 tight, all but a small opening at the entrance 

 the size of my smoker snout. After dark I 

 lit my smoker, got the fire well to going, 

 and put in a tablespoonful of sulphur, stuck 

 the snout of my smoker to the entrance, 

 and in about two minutes all was over with 

 them. 



Give me the best plan to winter bees on 

 their summer stands. If you use a cushion 

 over the frames, would you leave an empty 

 super on? This is a poor locality for bees, 

 although this year is above the average 

 here, I believe. Chas. W. Rusher. 



Hymera, Ind. 



[It is not entirely clear from your descrip- 

 tion that you had foul brood. In transfer- 

 ring, one is very apt to chill the unsealed 

 brood. If so, such brood will die, turn to a 

 brown color, and look very much like foul 



brood. The only clew that gives me fear 

 that you have the disease is where you say 

 the bees cleaned out the dead matter, that 

 the queen laid eggs, and that the larvte 

 from these eggs also died. You should have 

 treated the colony, as a matter of precau- 

 tion, by the McEvoy plan. Killing the bees 

 with sulphur, and then burning the combs, 

 would be all right. But there is no need of 

 killing the bees; for if they be shaken on 

 frames of foundation in clean hives, the dis- 

 ease will not reappear. — Ed.] 



SPACING EXTRACTING-FRAMES. 



J. A. Green, in one of his articles, says 

 the bee-keeper who does not practice wide 

 spacing of his extracting-frames has yet to 

 learn one of the first principles of producing 

 extracted honey. Then says, later, "Space 

 nine frames in a ten-frame super." Is that 

 as far as he ever followed the principle of 

 wide spacing? Wide spacing accomplishes 

 three purposes. It takes less time to work 

 a super; you have fewer combs to uncap and 

 extract; and you have more wax, which 

 means more profit. 



Now I will make a statement. An apiary 

 of ten-frame hives can be run with but sev- 

 en combs to the super — seven frames to a 

 ten-frame super, understand. Now, I do 

 not mean to go and space every super to 

 seven frames. The frames have to be 

 spaced according to the strength of each in- 

 dividual colony, and also according to the 

 honey-flow. 



If the colony is weak the combs will have 

 to be spaced close together, taking care to 

 have them over the brood. If the colony 

 becomes strong before extracting time, re- 

 place the combs wider; if none of the combs 

 are being capped, insert uncapped combs be- 

 tween them. Do this at the time you go 

 over the yard to do the swapping. 



Now as to swapping, there are always 

 strong and weak colonies in a yard. The 

 stronger a colony is, the more work it is ca- 

 pable of doing. The extra-strong colonies 

 are full some time before your yard as a 

 whole is ready to be extracted, and your 

 weak colonies have combs to spare. Take a 

 wheelbarrow with a super of empty combs. 

 As you go along lift the cover to each hive. 

 When you come to one that is full, exchange 

 some of the heaviest combs for the one on 

 your wheelbarrow, reversing the process 

 when you find a weak colony. 



It takes but a very short time in this way 

 to go over a ^-ard of two or three hundred 

 colonies; and by so doing you make your ex- 

 tracting as large as possible, and nothing is 

 lost as would be the case if the strong colo- 

 nies were not relieved. 



I will further add that, to practice swap- 

 ping, you must also practice wide spacing. 

 When supers have their full number of 

 frames you can not tell by a glance if the 

 colony needs reheving, or exchange the 

 frames as easily as where they are wide 

 apart and comparatively loose. 



Casanova, Cuba. Leslie Burr. 



