Xovember, 1909. 



American Vee Journal 



increase. This method is far superior 

 to the ones most in vogue, and wlien 

 the upper colony is allowed to capture 

 most of the young bees of the older 

 combs below, leaving only a very lim- 

 ited amount of old brood for the new 

 colony, the old colony with its new 

 brood-nest is in an ideal condition to 

 store honey without acquiring tlie 

 swarming impulse. 



It is when Mr. Benton would have us 

 requeen each spring as early as possi- 

 ble that I begin to take exceptions. I 

 never yet have been able to prove the 

 wisdom of that teaching, but have more 

 than once seen the failure of it. Many 

 a fine colony will, by that teaching, 

 lose a queen which would assure a 

 good crop, and have presented to it a 

 queen of always untried quality, and 

 frequently of poor quality. 



This practice makes it impossible to 

 select breeding queens with reference 

 to honey-gathering qualities, the truly 

 chief attribute of a breeding queen. 

 When a colony has furnished us with 

 a fine crop of honey, it will be of no 

 use to breed from its queen because 

 that crop of honey might never have 

 been stored but for the field-force of 

 daughters of the deposed queen. 



Twice in my experience I have had a 

 colony store 150 pounds of surplus 

 comb honey — a large crop for the locali- 

 ties in which I have kept bees. In each 

 case the colony was headed by a queen 

 wliich was two years old, in her second 

 full season. And it is my bounden be- 

 lief that more queens are at their best 

 in their second full season than in their 

 first. I never have had a queen which 

 was any good at all that was best in 

 the season of her birth. Occasionally 

 I have had queens which were excel- 

 lent at a year old and turned poor be- 

 fore they were two years old. I hold, 

 however, that properly bred queens 

 will uniformly be best at two years of 

 age. 



Queens over a year old are not likely 

 to swarm, are not inclined to lay so 

 many drone-eggs as. younger queens, 

 and furnish colonies better equipped 

 for comb-honey production. If any 

 bee-keeper thinks otherwise than this I 

 am inclined to believe that he has 

 queens which are improperly reared or 

 of a poor strain. 



This matter of queen replacement the 

 first months of her second year is one 

 debatable, and facts may be furnished 

 to support either side of the question. 

 When, however, Mr. Benton makes the 

 following statement there is no argu- 

 ment. He is surely in error. The state- 

 ment is (page 207), " A super with full 

 sheets of foundation in the sections — • 

 lull sheets are always to be used in pro- 

 ducing a fine grade of comb honey — 

 never starters ." 



It is unquestionably true that more 

 honey can be produced with full sheets 

 than with starters — more sections to 

 the colony. But it is not true that bet- 

 ter honey can be produced, nor even 

 better looking honey. Mr. Benton may 

 say that with starters the bees may 

 build more or less drone-comb, anil 

 that the larger cells are less pleasing to 

 the eye than the smaller cell. This is a 

 matter of fancy. In the mouth the 

 larger cell will not suffer in compari- 

 son with the smaller. 



Any one who has the slightest idea 



that as good honey cannot be produced 

 with starters need only to try, to find 

 out that he is in error. I produce 

 honey both ways, and when I wish to 

 treat a friend to my choicest honey I 

 invariably select, when possible, a sec- 

 tion which had only a starter in it. 

 Even with the best of foundation the 

 virgin comb surpasses the comb built 

 on foundation. Many people can see 

 practically no difference Ijetween clover 

 honey and buckwheat honey other than 

 one of color. The discriminating per- 

 son will easily note the superiority of 

 virgin comb lioney over foundation 

 honey. The fragile character of the 

 comb is one of the first things such 

 persons will speak of. 



It may be stated that it is difficult to 

 get well-finished sections when starters 

 only are used. This is true if a person 

 is inclined to give too much room to 

 his bees. Let him crowd the work in 

 the sections and he will not have this 

 trouble. 



Norwich Town, Conn. 



Swarming and Other Topics 



BY .\URI.\N GET.\Z. 



A few years ago I made sohie experi- 

 ments on the swarming fever, or build- 

 ing queen-cells mania, or whatever it 

 may be. The object was to verify a 

 theory of my own concerning the 

 causes of swarming. The facts turned 

 out just as the theory indicated. The 

 fever or mania kept increasing during 

 about o or G weeks, and then disap- 

 peared in a short time. Never mind 

 the theory just now. The fact remains 

 that when the bees take a notion to 

 build queen-cells, that notion keeps on 

 increasing and developing into a real 

 mania. During that time gathering 

 honey and other such work is neglected. 

 This is notliing new to most of the bee- 

 keepers, nevertheless it might be re- 

 peated again, that cutting out queen- 

 cells to prevent swarming is at best a 

 very poor way of doing. 



Emergency Cells. 



The first two weeks, or perhaps three, 

 during which I followed that process, 

 nothing very uncommon developed. 

 But after that I found that I had over- 

 looked some queen-cells, or at least I 

 thought so. Soon after a swarm came 

 out and went to the woods between two 

 visits. That puzzled me. The next 

 time I found two queen-cells almost in 

 the middle of a comb of sealed brood, 

 and in such a conspicuous position 

 that I could not have missed seeing 

 them at the preceding visit. Then the 

 truth dawned on me at last. I took 

 away the cells and the hexagonal bot- 

 toms showed that notwithstanding the 

 presence of a laying queen, the bees 

 had started emergency queen-cells on 

 what was, as far as I could ascertain by 

 taking into consideration all the cir- 

 cumstances, larvx about 3 days old. 



What happened there to me must 

 have occurred often to others. Many 

 an apiarist has dwelt upon the fact 

 that no matter how carefully he in- 

 spects the combs, some queen-cells 

 may be overlooked. The probabilities 

 are that in such cases it was with him 

 as with me, the supposedly overlooked 



cells had been started on eggs or larvse 

 since the previous examination. 



Good or Poor Queen-Cells. 



If a queen is removed from a colony, 

 this colony will build queen-cells over 

 eggs or young larvae, or if there are 

 but few of these on larvae even 3 days 

 old. Most of them are small, and con- 

 tain stunted queens. Sometimes, how- 

 ever, they are all, or nearly all, good. 

 It is usually supposed that the small 

 cells were started on old larvae. That 

 is so in some cases, but in experiment- 

 ing along that line, I finally discovered 

 that the reason why so many of them 

 are small is because there is not enough 

 room between them and the opposite 

 comb to admit of their full develop- 

 ment. The discovery was rather acci- 

 dental. In one case of that sort I 

 found quite a bunch of good, big queen- 

 cells on a comb. That led me to in- 

 vestigate, and finally get the above- 

 described result. If you want a queen- 

 less colony to rear a big lot of good 

 queen-cells, give them a comb of eggs — 

 they prefer the eggs; put it in the cen- 

 ter of the brood-nest, push the adjacent 

 combs sufficiently far away to give the 

 necessary room, and the bees will do 

 the rest. 



B.^it-Sections. 



One of the chief difficulties in work- 

 ing for comb honey is to induce the 

 bees to go into the supers. Very often 

 instead of doing it they will cram as 

 much honey as they can into the brood- 

 nest, then loaf a while, and finally 

 swarm. In fact, I doubt if they ever go 

 " upstairs" without having first loafed 

 to some extent. 



Where the flow comes heavy and 

 suddenly, and at a time of the year 

 when the weather is already quite 

 warm, thediificulty is not very great. A 

 few bait sections of the previous sea- 

 son are all that is needed. 



In my locality the case is usually dif- 

 ferent, and far more difficult. The 

 flow comes irregularly from different 

 sources, and to obtain anything like a 

 crop, the bees should be in the supers 

 by the first of May. At that time cool 

 spells of weather are apt to come occa- 

 sionally. And handicapped by the cool 

 weather and a too-light flow, the bees 

 are apt to loaf instead of going into 

 the supers. 



Among the different processes I 

 tried, the following gives excellent re- 

 sults : Take out 2 or 3 combs from the 

 brood-nest and put in their places some 

 sections filled with foundation. In a 

 few days, when the bees are at work in 

 them, put them in the super, bees and 

 all. Finish the super with foundation 

 or old bait-combs, if you have them, 

 and restore to the brood-nest the 

 combs taken out. The past summer I 

 stumbled on a process that is still bet- 

 ter, but I want to try it again another 

 year before bragging about it. 



Strong and Weak Colonies. 



It is hardly necessary to say here 

 that it is useless to attempt forcing the 

 bees into the sections unless the colony 

 is strong enough, and the brood-nest 

 nearly full of brood and honey. 



But often a large number of colonies 

 have failed to reach that condition 

 when the flow opens. Where the flow 

 is long and certain, it might be best to 



