174 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



that requires more space for egg- 

 laying than is aftbrded in the 

 brood-chamber in which case she 

 becomes crowded for room, puts 

 eggs in queen cells and a swarm 

 is the result. 



Since trying both methods, I 

 have concluded that it is the more 

 profitable to leave off the excluder 

 and spend my time extracting 

 from combs filled partly with honey 

 and partly with brood (and some 

 larvse in the honey) than to have 

 the bees spending their time with 

 swarming and its effects during the 

 honey flow. If I could have my 

 wishes, I would have my most pro- 

 lific queen in the poorest colony 

 and the less prolific queen in the 

 best colony, at the beginning of 

 the honey harvest, as I attribute 

 the reason for a queen remaining in 

 the brood-chamber, to her being 

 less prolific and from the hives con- 

 taining such queens we get the best 

 filled combs to extract. 



Bradford^ loiua. 



For the American Apiculturist. 



VENTILATION. 



By Dr. G. L. Tinkek. 



During hot weather hives should 

 be well ventilated. I am as well 

 satisfied as on any other question 

 of apiculture, that bees require more 

 ventilation than it is usual to give. 

 Our summer entrance we now 

 make 1^ inches deep, and 8| inches 

 long, and give space enough under 

 the frames so that the full benefit 

 of so large an entrance is secured. 

 With our new-bottom board the 

 bees enter from below the brood 

 frames. We have had no swarm 

 desert any of the hives with this 

 large entrance, and no precaution 

 has been taken to keep them from 

 swarming out. We have hived 

 twenty-four prime swarms and re- 

 turned the second swarms. 



The weather has been very hot 

 for a week or two, so that with 

 large colonies we feel sure that 

 some of the swarms would have 

 deserted the- small brood-chamber 

 we use, if it had not been for the 

 large entrances. With very large 

 swarms we lift the hive cover and 

 place a block under one end so 

 that the bees can come out on the 

 top, if they choose, but find that 

 all go out and in at the entrance. 

 On very hot days with the ther- 

 mometer at 90° in the shade, the 

 bees will nearly all come out of 

 the hives, clustering outside and 

 practically cease work, if the hive 

 is not freely ventilated at the top 

 and as the flow of honey may be at 

 its height at such times, we must 

 keep the greater part of the bees 

 inside the hive or the time will be 

 lost as well as much honey. 



In ventilating at the top we find 

 a great deal of trouble with double- 

 walled hives, so much so, that we 

 feel like discarding them altogether. 

 The bees will go above the section 

 cases and cluster in the cap and 

 build comb, seemingly in prefer- 

 ence to working in the sections. 

 With our single-walled hives we 

 have no trouble of this nature, and 

 consider them infinitel}' preferable 

 in many respects aside from venti- 

 lation. As we make our hives very 

 thin-walled (only | thick on the 

 sides) we find them when shaded, 

 much the coolest and requiring 

 much less ventilation than double- 

 walled hives. As our colonies in- 

 crease in size and the store of 

 hone}', we tier up with section 

 cases, or brood cases (using a 

 wood and zinc honej^-board between 

 them) according to the necessity, 

 so that our small hives can be 

 made as large as any one could 

 wish, and whether small or large 

 we can always give all the ventila- 

 tion needed and keep the force or 

 wax workers all in the hive. 



New Philadelphia, Ohio. 



