THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



103 



cakes will drop out of the pan 

 without a crack in them anywhere. 

 It takes a large cake a surprisingly 

 long time to get solid in the centre ; 

 so look out about meddling with it 

 too soon. But alack ! some buyers 

 will be likely to tell you your wax 

 is adulterated, if there are no big 

 cracks in the cakes. 



FAILURE OF BUCKWHEAT. 



In this locality buckwheat usual- 

 ly yields honey, but this year its 

 mahogany-colored nectar is almost 

 lacking. Some of the time there 

 is so little of it that a person could 

 walk through the middle street of 

 the apiary without smelling even a 

 snuff of its rank and peculiar odor. 

 By the way, I have an idea that the 

 all-out-doors smell comes from the 

 bees rather than from the honey ; 

 just as the person who uses tobacco 

 emits a smell much worse than the 

 tobacco itself. 



EXCESSIVE SWATtMING. 



From this I have suffered great 

 worriment in time past. This year 

 also is not an exception, in fact 

 when things were hottest I thought 

 it worse than ever ; but casting up 

 the figures shows an improvement 

 — considering the number of colo- 

 nies. Four or five good colonies, 

 and several more laggard ones, out 

 of the 117 I started in with, 

 attended to honey storing without 

 casting swarms. Only four swarms 

 came out in August, while last 

 year there were thirty-one and one 

 in September. Only one repeater 

 this year against twenty-two last. 

 By a repeater I mean a prime 



swarm of a second series led by a 

 fertile queen — a queen going to 

 her third location for the year, or 

 a queen of the current year leading 

 a swarm from the old stand after 

 becoming fertile. Last year I had 

 167 swarms from 68 colonies, and 

 this year 192 swarms from 117 

 colonies. These figures count no 

 swarm but once, and do not count 

 swarms that went back of their 

 own accord, as some did many 

 times over. 



PKEFERRING CREVICES TO SECTIONS. 



August 23 I found a colony that 

 had plent}^ of room in the sections 

 directly over the brood, storing 

 honey (and they had several pounds 

 of it) in a crevice behind a division 

 board in the upper story, not over 

 the space occupied by bees below. 



CLOSING OUT COLONIES WITH FERTILE 

 WORKERS. 



Many things advisable in a small 

 apiary can be dispensed with in a 

 large one — rather than hire help 

 and eat up all the profits by so 

 doing. I do not try any more to 

 examine every colony three weeks 

 after swarming, to see if they have 

 a laying queen. A few will fail, 

 but, as I get more swarms than I 

 know what to do with any way, I 

 philosophically take the bankrupt 

 act to them. Only four colonies 

 failed this year, a much less num- 

 ber than usual. Some time along 

 in the middle of August, or earlier 

 if swarming has closed early, 

 choose a day when honey is coming 

 in briskly, and look sharply at the 

 entrance of each hive. Hives with 



