March, 1909. 



American Hee Journal 



prospective honey-flow, and second, to 

 bring them up to a wintering standard. 

 The former may be done in the fore- 

 part of the season, a week or two before 

 a honey-flow is expected, and the latter 

 late in the summer or early fall, early 

 enough to give the bees a chance to 

 arrange their winter quarters properly 

 before winter sets in. 



To prevent antagonistic feelings, and 

 perhaps the annihilation of one or the 

 other. I have always considered it a de- 

 sirable feature that the 2 colonies to 

 be united should sit side by side for a 

 week or two before the operation is per- 

 formed. Each one should be reduced, 

 by means of a division-board, to one- 

 half of the regular frame number our 

 liives contain, and placed in the opposite 

 halves of the 2 hives. If the bees are 

 then compelled to enter their respective 

 hives by reduced entrances, the openings 

 being on each outside, they will soon 

 line "themselves to their homes without 

 interfering with one another. 



It is not always the case that colonies 

 we wish to unite are sitting side by side, 

 in fact, they oftener do not, biit we al- 

 ways know weeks ahead which ones 

 need doubling up, and it is an easy mat- 

 ter to shift them gradually together. 



The manipulation of uniting is a very 

 simple affair, which is all the more 

 facilitated if we have a few hives that 

 hold a frame or two more than our 

 regular standards. The hive to receive 

 the 2 colonies should have a tight-fitting 

 division-board, and the entrance be di- 

 vided by a block to leave the openings 

 on each outside similar in shape and ap- 

 pearance as the 2 hives presented. 



When ready to operate, set the 2 hives 

 a foot or two ahead of the old stands, 

 and place the prepared one midway be- 

 tween the stands the 2 occupied. Then 

 carefully open the 2 hives, one after 

 another, and transfer their contents into 

 the one. By using a very little smoke, 

 the whole job can be done bare- faced 

 and bare-handed, without the first in- 

 timation of a sting. Any bees that may 

 be left in the hives after the combs are 

 removed, can be dumped on the ground 

 without much ceremony; they will all 

 find their own homes, and all will be 

 peace and harmony. 



From two weak colonies treated as 

 here stated just before the white clover 

 flow, I have taken, this season, (1908), 



from each one of tliem. This may not 

 be a great achievement, nevertheless I 

 consider the 28 sections clear gain, the 

 result of uniting the two. If left sepa- 

 rate, neither was strong enough to work 

 in sections, but combined under one sec- 

 tion super, they were in practically the 

 same condition as a populous, full-sized 

 colony. 



When weak colonies are united to fit 

 them for winter, which is generally done 

 later in the season, it may be done in 

 the same way as for storing surplus, 

 except, that the division-board should 



Before Unitino. 



28 sections of nearly all finished clover 

 honey. They were so crowded that I 

 decided to divide them again, filling out 

 their hives with empty combs, and when 

 the honey season closed, I extracted a 

 set of extracting combs. Jumbo size. 



After Uniting. 



be removed before winter sets in, the 

 combs, liees and all, slipped together, 

 and the division-board used to fill out 

 the vacancy on one side or the other. 

 If we have no choice between the 

 queens, we need not worry over their 

 affairs — they will settle that among 

 themselves, otherwise we have to re- 

 move the one we wish to discard. 



In regard to drone-comb in extracting- 

 supers, I emphatically agree with the 

 editorial referred to. My advice is. 

 "don't use it." It is a waste of precious 

 space, and misleads the bees. My ex- 

 perience of many years has taught me 

 that bees are always slow to accept 

 drone-combs for storage in extracting 

 supers, but this year (1908) they out- 

 did themselves — they actually refused 

 to use it, I extracted some combs that 

 were all-worker comb except now and 

 then a little patch of drone-comb. The 

 former was filled and capped to the last 

 cell, while the latter was empty to the 

 last cell, but every cell was liright and 

 polished, showing that the bees expect- 

 ed to have the queen stock them up with 

 eggs. In this, however, their expecta- 

 tions were blasted by reason of the 

 excluder. 



.\mong my supply of extracting combs 

 1 have a few sets of very nice, clean 

 drone-combs ; they were gathered up 

 during past years because I considered 

 them too valuable to melt up, but kept 

 them for extracting combs in cases of 



emergency. Being crowded for stor- 

 age last summer, I used thein in my 

 extracting supers as necessity demanded, 

 one or two in a place, mixed in between 

 worker-combs. As a farther test, I 

 placed some of these drone-combs in 

 the middle of the supers, others on the 

 outside next to the hive walls, and 

 watched them from day to day. In 

 either case I noticed the same behavior 

 of the bees — they filled up the worker- 

 combs rapidly, while they ignored the 

 drone-combs almost entirely. 



Hereafter I shall try to use nothing 

 but worker-combs for the production 

 of extracted honey. 



La Salle, N. Y. 



Spring Work With the Bees 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



As the sun advances farther and far- 

 ther northward with each day at this 

 time of the year, a feeling will steal 

 over the wide-awake bee-keeper, to see 

 how great an amount of cash and fun 

 can he gotten out of the bees by keep- 

 ing them in the best possible condition 

 to take advantage of the harvest or 

 harvests of honey when they come. To 

 this end he or site will begin looking 

 about to see if everything is in readi- 

 ness for the summer campaign, and hav- 

 ing this so. then the first suitable days 

 for the bees to fly will be utilized in 

 setting the bees from the cellar, if cel- 

 lar-wintering is practiced, or in know- 

 ing that all entrances are open and' free 

 from dead bees, if the bees have been 

 wintered on the summer stands. 



As soon as spring fairly opens, it is 

 best to go over all the hives in the 

 apiary, seeing that all dead bees are off 

 the bottom-boards and out from between 

 the bottoms of the combs, otherwise 

 colonies which have lost many bees dur- 

 ing the winter are left in bad shape to 

 Intild up in time for the harvest, es- 

 pecially if this harvest comes early in 

 the season, as does that from white 

 clover, which is the general source of 

 surplus with the majority of bee-keep- 

 ers. 



I have many times been called from 

 2 to 4 weeks before the clover bloom 

 to see what was the matter with the 

 bees, as a part of the colonies did not 

 seem to be doing as well as they ought, 

 only to find that he bottom-board was 

 covered with dead bees, and at places 

 piled clear up into the bottoms of the 

 combs, while the bottom of this pile 

 was full of small maggots, the mass of 

 dead bees having become damp and wet 

 through decomposition, which caused a 

 stench almost unbearable. No colonj' of 

 l)ees can thrive under such circum- 

 stances. Of course, this does not apply 

 to cellar-wintered bees, unless the hives 

 have tight bottom-boards, for with loose 

 bottoms the boards should all be changed 

 when setting out, by giving the first 

 colony set out a clean board from the 

 store-house, and setting it on the same, 

 when the one it was wintered on is 

 cleaned and put on the stand of the 

 next, setting the second colony taken 

 froin the cellar on the same, and so on 

 till all are out and on clean boards. 



At tliis time we should also know that 

 each colonv has suificient stores so that 



