August, igoq. 



American Hee Journal 



temperature of the weather playing an 

 important part, too. Should there be 

 plenty of heat to keep all well heatea, 

 and if the tlow be strong with great 

 abundance of bees and all indications 

 point to filling both these supers and 

 need more room before you get to them 

 again, give a tliird super on top; and 

 under the most favorable conditions 

 where there is all reason to think the 

 third one not enough, put the fourth one 

 on top- In some cases you may do well 

 to arrange them with the second super 

 that was started, on first, over this an 

 empty, next the full, capped with an 

 empty. These manipulations require 

 the keenest of judgment and watchful- 

 ness. 



A common way of adjusting supers 

 has been to keep lifting the ones being 

 worked and adding the new one at the 

 bottom: but if this advice be follow-ed 

 you will surely soon come to grief with 

 a lot of uncompleted sections, for the 

 bees will proceed to work those new 

 ones next the main hive and not finish 

 the others. Be very careful and not 

 stretch the colony too much. With ex- 

 tracted honey you can stretch if you 

 wish, and the only harm that is worth 

 considering is thin extracting combs, 

 making more work in extracting, but 

 youget the quantity just the same. But 

 to stretch and have say 4 supers all part- 

 ly worked and none finished is serious. 

 When the one next the brood-nest is 

 full, if the flow is good, the colony 

 strong, and weather warm, they will not 

 hesitate to work up through the full one 

 and occupy the empty, yet the lower 

 one will be plumply filled and well 

 sealed. 



At this point we will consider again 

 the condition we find in the brood-cham- 

 ber. If you took away the brood at the 

 beginning of the flow and left the col- 

 ony on full sheets of foundation with a 

 young queen, we will expect that queen 

 to make brood fast, and have at least 

 a very fair amount of it, and most likely 

 well stocked, .\gain, the same arrange- 

 ment with an old queen, that is, one not 

 of the present season's rearing, the con- 

 dition will be very similar, possibly not 

 quite so much brood as the younger one 

 has produced, and a little more tendency 

 — yes, a decided tendency to lay in every 

 drone-cell available. But if you have 

 still the same arrangement but with an 

 old queen past her prime, there will be 

 much less brood, the same tendency 

 toward drone, now and then an effort 

 at supersedure that may and often will 

 result in swarming- Remember that 

 populous colonies in prosperous times 

 want their queens to do business in pro- 

 portion to the other business going on in 

 the household, else there is dissatisfac- 

 tion and loss of energy; and, as indi- 

 cated, often loss, or at the very least the 

 annoyance of swarming. Besides this 

 the queen that does not keep up the 

 brood leaves just that much room that 

 receives the honey instead of its going 

 into the super. 



Next we will consider the two other 

 plans of fixing the brood-chambers. 

 One was to take away the queen but 

 leave the hive full of brood and let them 

 «o on and rear queens, removing all but 

 one cell 9 or 10 days after. Two, leav- 



ing only one comb of brood with the 

 balance of the frames having starters 

 only, the cell building and clipping out 

 of course subject to the same rules. 

 With the first leaving full combs of 

 brood, we find as fast as the brood 

 hatches the honey goes into the empty 

 cells so that by the time the young queen 

 has hatched and is ready to lay, all 

 brood is out and all those combs are full 

 of honey. Being now broodless, there 

 is not the least likelihood of swarming, 

 The workers are so anxious to equalize 

 conditions and get brood that they will 

 uncap and move honey out of these 

 combs and siinply make room for brood, 

 and if the management is proper there is 

 plenty of storage-room above, and that 

 honey goes to tlie super. In the case 

 where one comb of brood was left w'ith 

 starters the condition is very similar, but 

 with this difi^erence : The combs are new 

 and white, and some drone-comb has 

 been made — they will all be loaded %vith 

 honey to be removed and put above as in 

 the case of the full set of old combs. 

 The drone-comb will not be used for 

 brood, for since the hives are now total- 

 ly bare of brood, and all inclination to 

 swarm is gone, the first and foremost 

 thing in the brood line is workers to 

 take the place of those now in the field 

 and fast aging; neither queen nor work- 

 ers have any use for the drone-comb, 

 hence it will lie left usually filled with 

 honey, they will often cross over two or 

 more drone-comlis, going to the outside 

 combs if necessary, to find the needed 

 worker-cells. The advice in conven 

 tions, in books and journals, has been so 

 constant and emphatic against drone- 

 comb that the average apiarist would 

 about as soon think of killing his bees 

 as to allow the building or presence of 

 drone in the hive. 



At any time during the fall — yes, any 

 time between tlie time of the present 

 honey-flow and the time the next spring 

 when the colonics are again getting 

 strong enough to begin swarm prepara- 

 tions by starting drone brood — those 

 drone-combs can be removed, either ex- 

 tracted and used for extracting combs 

 or melted into wax. If you are a comb- 

 honey producer exclusively, and have no 

 extractor, just melt those combs and get 

 as good an article of "strained" honey as 

 any one could wish for talilc use. For 

 every 100 pounds of honey you will ob- 

 tain about 4 pounds of wax — about a 

 cent a pound for the honey. Or you can 

 sell those same drone-combs of honey 

 as chunk or broken comb and get just 

 about as much for it as for section 

 honey. It looks nice to read flowery 

 statements of the beauties of founda- 

 tion and the combs one can have from 

 them, of the total absence of drone- 

 comb and drones, of the great cost of 

 rearing a few drones, of how to shave 

 off the heads of the drone-brood and 

 thus empty those cells that another batch 

 of larva may be so much sooner reared 

 in them, so producing two generations 

 of the naughty fellows, where if left to 

 hatch there would have been only one. 

 We have been tending of late years to 

 too many fine tlieories, and not enough 

 of good common sense in many of these 

 things, and when the season closes our 

 foundation bills and beautiful combs 



have cost us more than we get out of 

 them. As a general rule I ain and have 

 been, opposed to the wholesale use of 

 foundation- Bees want to build comb as 

 well as rear brood or store honey in it. 

 I do not mean ■want in the same sense 

 as a reasoning creature like man wants ; 

 I mean the)- follow instinct and secrete 

 wa.x involuntarily, and your drone- 

 combs do not cost you but little if any- 

 thing. 



I do not see that there is much more 

 that I can say regarding the super man- 

 ipulation — this is nearly all there is to 

 it. When you have the bees and have 

 put them under control, have put on and 

 manipulated the supers in their arrange- 

 ment and relation to the hive and to 

 each other, as outlined, you have the 

 basic principles of successful manage- 

 ment of this part — you cannot make the 

 nectar. These supers are to be removed, 

 of course, as fast as ready and you can 

 get to tlieni. Tliey can be taken off as 

 you come to them during the tlow when 

 robbing will not annoy, by just smok- 

 ing the most of the bees down and then 

 standing them on the ground or hive- 

 tops until ready to load for home. In 

 time of robber-bees you can use escapes 

 if you like; I prefer to smoke down 

 about all the bees, then put the super 

 rigjit into the house, wagon or tent, and 

 let them escape through a cone in the 

 window screen. 



(To be continued.) 



Foul Brood Considered Again 



BV IIR. G. BOHRER. 



On page 239 I called attention to the 

 certainty of ridding an apiary of foul 

 ])rood, it being a germ disease, by re- 

 moving the germs which are known to 

 be in the honey, together with the combs, 

 beyond the possibility of access by the 

 bees of the infected apiary, or any other. 

 I referred to the Baldridge method of 

 treating the ailment, which I regard as 

 being a successful method if the bee- 

 escape used is a perfect one. But not 

 as speedy as the McEvoy plan. 



This season I have made it a rule to 

 inspect all my colonies carefully once 

 each week, excepting one colony which 

 came through the winter and early 

 spring strong and vigorous, and when 

 the fruit-bloom began to show up it was 

 as far as could be seen at that time free 

 from foul brood; and a super was put 

 vpon the hive in which they at once 

 went to storing honey. The combs be- 

 ing already constructed, all seemed to 

 go well until they began to seal the 

 lioney in the super, when they slacked 

 up and acted as if they might be queen- 

 less, whereupon I looked through the 

 brood-nest and found a number of cells 

 with foul l)rood in 5 combs out of the 

 10 this hive contained. The balance 

 were well filled with sealed honey. In 

 the meantime there was a free flow of 

 alfalfa honey, and the bees of other 

 colonics paid no attention to this infec- 

 ted colony while the hive was open. I 

 at once determined to treat them on the 

 McEvoy plan and prepared a hive to 

 receive the bees by putting starters of 

 comb foundation in each of 10 top-bars, 

 leaving off the end and bottom bars. 

 The starters were about one inch wide. 



