January, 1909. 



American Hee Journal 



fort derived by the bees and queen from 

 the ample space under their control, 

 gives as safe a system of honey-pro- 

 duction without swarms as can be had 

 under any circumstances. When swarms 

 do issue they are exceedingly large. 

 This is acknowledged on all sides. 



I have lately paid a visit to an apiarist, 

 who has followed our methods for over 

 30 years, Mr. I. N. Arnold, of Iowa. 

 This man follows our methods better 

 than we do ourselves, for he does what 

 we say should be done, properly, care- 

 fully, and with great accuracy. _ He is 

 an enthusiast of the large hive and the 

 non-swarming system, which have paid 

 him handsome profits. 



As a matter of course, the large hives 

 are better adapted to the production of 

 extracted honey than to that of comb 

 honey, yet there are large comb-honey 

 producers who succeed with large hives. 

 The only requirement is to reduce the 

 hive, or "contract" it, as they call it, at 

 the time of clover harvest, to the actual 

 space occupied by the bees and queen, 

 in order to secure most of the surplus 

 in the sections. 



As a winterine- hive, the large hive is 

 ahead of others. Yet, say what we may, 

 the great majoritv of apiarists will take 

 small hives in preference, owing to their 

 small cost and more immediate results. 



Hamilton, 111. 



Unfavorable Season— Queen 

 Losses 



BY F. L. D.W. 



When I wrote in the February (1908) 

 number about expecting to be master of 

 the situation in my new woodland loca- 

 tion, I had reference to the difficulties 

 connected with swarming in such a lo- 

 cation. I did not know then that I 

 should have to contend with poor winter- 

 ing, spring dwindling, a poor honey 

 season, and a perversity of things in 

 general, the like of which I had never 

 before seen in my bee-keeping experi- 

 ence. 



To begin with, my bees wintered 

 poorly. Ten percent died in the cellar, 

 and about 10 percent more inside of a 

 month after taking from the cellar. 

 20 percent loss is too much for a sure 

 winterer, but then it was not a good 

 season for that class of bee-keepers, as 

 J. L. Byer, of "Canadian Beedom," has 

 testified. The principal cause of my loss 

 was the almost total dearth of honey- 

 flow the previous season after July 20th. 

 This caused a good share of my colonies 

 to stop brood-rearing a month earlier 

 than usual. This made the clusters 

 smaller than usual, and deficient in 

 young bees for wintering. A number of 

 the colonies which died after taking 

 from the cellar, had begun brood-rear- 

 ing in good shape, but the old bees all 

 died before the first lot of young ones 

 hatched. 



WINTER BROOD-REARING. 



I was much interested in what Mr. 

 Byer wrote in the April number about 

 the amount of brood found during the 

 winter, but my experience is just the op- 

 posite. During the first years of my 

 bee-keeping I examined my bees later in 

 the season than I have recently. I found 



that though the queen in each hive would 

 continue to lay a little after October 1st, 

 yet in no case would the bees feed and 

 rear any larvae after that date, or even 

 after September 15th in some colonies. 



Last spring I took 54 colonies from 

 the cellar. One was queenless, but the 

 other 53 had at least a few eggs in each 

 hive. Some of the medium colonies had 

 in addition a few larvae, and in rare 

 cases, as many as a dozen cells of sealed 

 brood. I had a few extra-strong colo- 

 nies, which I expected to find further 

 advanced in brood-rearing, but to my 

 surprise none had anything but eggs. I 

 Iiave never made any midwinter exami- 

 nations of my bees, but from spring and 

 fall examinations, I am fully satisfied 

 that they never rear any bees from Oc- 

 tober 1st to March 15th. 



LOSS OF QUEENS. 



Among the many disasters of the past 

 season, none caused more loss and vexa- 

 tion than the surprising persistency with 

 which my queens disappeared without 

 apparent cause. This applied first to 

 those that had come through the winter, 

 and later on to young queens obtained 

 from the South, and still further on in 

 the season some reared from my own 

 best stock. Those that had come 

 through the winter would have 2 or 3 

 combs fairly filled with eggs and brood 

 before disappearing. I obtained. 30 un- 

 tested Italian queens from a Southern 

 breeder. Only 3 were lost in introdu- 

 cing, but a number of the others were 

 missing 3 to 4 weeks later, after having 

 3 to 5 frames well stocked with brood. 

 It seems incredible that the bees would 

 kill them after they were so well estab- 

 lished in brood-rearing, but I can assign 

 no other cause for their loss. I have 

 been clipping all my queens for 6 years, 

 and never before the past season have 

 I seen that any harm came from it. But 

 at least 2 fine queens were missing from 

 the very day that I clipped them. 



I have 4 queen-mating nuclei, using the 

 same size frames as my full colonies. 

 For years I have been taking the frame 

 of brood and bees that I found the queen 

 on in one of these nuclei, to place in a 

 full colony when a queen was needed. 

 Never before this season had I lost a 

 queen introduced in this way, but this 

 year a good many were lost in this man- 

 ner. Colony number 13 had, at the last 

 examination, its 7th queen. There had 

 been 3 laying and 3 virgin queens before. 

 The three laying ones each had from 3 

 to s frames full of brood before disap- 

 pearing. Other colonies had 3 to 5 

 queens each. The difficulties of bee- 

 keeping under these circumstances can 

 easily be imagined. If I had had a 

 queen-breeder for a neighbor he would 

 have found me a good customer. 



THE season's good ENDING. 



We are inclined to consider those lives 

 of our fellowmen happiest, which end in 

 peace and prosperity, even though their 

 earlier portions may have been vexed by 

 tlie storms of adversity. So with the 

 bee-keeper in his annual struggle to 

 wrest at least a scanty crop of honey 

 from stern Nature, it seems best to 

 have the disasters come, if they must, 

 early in the season, while there is yet the 

 hope of a harvest to cheer him on. This 



was my case last year. The spring 

 brought only disaster. Even in the last 

 week in June when my bees are usually 

 storing surplus from clover, last season 

 I had to feed them to prevent starving. 

 It was not until basswood came in full 

 bloom about July 20th, that they began 

 to store in earnest. I managed to get 

 about 60 pounds per colony, for which I 

 was very thankful in so poor a season. 

 Nearly all colonies also secured from 

 fall flowers sufficient for winter stores. 



I put 81 colonies into the cellar No- 

 vember 13 — 2 weeks earlier than for a 

 number of years. 



Detroit, Minn. 



Transferring Bees— A Bee- 

 Tree 



BY R. M. LOCKIE. 



There is no use for me to say I am a 

 beginner in the bee-business, for you 

 will know it after I relate my exper- 



No. l.-Two Swarms On a Hive. 



ience with them. About 10 months ago 

 I bought 6 colonies of bees, paying_ 50 

 cents each for them. They were just 

 bees, and were in small, home-made 

 boxes with two sticks across the center 

 for frames. I went one evening to an 

 old orchard to get them, and found one 

 so full of bee-moths that I left it, 

 bringing only 5 home. 



When peaches were in blossom I 

 started to transfer the bees to standard 

 hives which I had made. When all was 

 ready I tried to drum them into a box. 

 Drum! I had just as well drum on my 

 head for all the bees I could drum into 

 that box. "I will make you fellows 

 come to time," I thought, as I secured 

 my hammer and cold-chisel and cut open 

 the box. As fast as I cut away the 

 crooked comb I dumped the bees in front 

 of the new hive.' Soon they began to go 

 in, but I could not find the queen. After 

 I had carried away all the refuse I 

 returned to see what they were doing, 

 and saw them rushing out faster than 



