688 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



hering bees, in the super of the idle 

 colony. If strong colonies will not work 

 in the sections when the hives are prop- 

 erly arranged, and honey is coming in 

 freely, I would get another strain of 

 bees. Probably you give your bees too 

 much room in the brood-chamber. — Jas. 

 A. Green. 



I have been called a "crank" on the 

 " close-spacing" idea; but I say now, 

 and confidently, too, that by "close- 

 spacing" — that is, spacing just "bee- 

 space" apart — there is no trouble in 

 getting the sections occupied and filled ; 

 that is, if there is nectar being gathered 

 with which to fill them. — J. E. Pond. 



You can usually get them to go into 

 the sections by placing some sections 

 there that are worked out and partially 

 filled. But now and then you meet with 

 a colony with so much "determined" 

 cussedness of disposition that they posi- 

 tively refuse to work in the sections at 

 all — use the extractor in such cases. — J. 

 P. H. Brown. 



About the best remedy I know of is to 

 pull the heads off of the queens that 

 make stingy bees, and breed from those 

 that are more liberal, and that will put 

 the honey above. But I do not care for 

 bees that will starve the brood-nest and 

 put it all above. It is not always the 

 bees that are at fault, as the season or 

 the judgment of the apiarist as to their 

 being strong enough, may be at fault 

 sometimes. — Mrs. Jennie Atchley. 



Yes. Put the sections over the brood- 

 chamber of the colonies as soon as the 

 hives are crowded with bees, with free 

 access for the bees from the hive to the 

 sections, and set them — the colonies — in 

 a locality where there are plenty of 

 flowers yielding plenty of nectar that 

 the bees can reach. This never fails 

 with my bees ; if it does with yours, 

 they are probably cursed with too much 

 Italian blood, or with too much fine 

 breeding.— R. L. Taylor. 



The trouble I have is to keep the bees 

 from robbing themselves by storing 

 nearly all their stores in the surplus 

 department. If you have not got the 

 hees stopped out of the section-cases, and 

 they refuse to work in them, you may 

 set it down as dead sure there is not a 

 sufficient flow of nectar to induce the 

 bees to start new work. No doubt many 

 novices watch and wonder why bees do 

 not enter and work in the surplus cases 

 at a time when there is little or no nec- 

 tar to be found. — G. W. Demaree. 



Report of the North American 

 Bee-Keepers' CoiiTention. 



Reported for the '■'■American Bee Journal ''^ 

 BY R. F. HOLTERMANN. 



Great Premiums on page 708 ! 



(Continued from page 661.) 



Mr. Benton then read an essay by Mr. 

 Samuel Simmins, of Seaford, England, 

 as follows : 



Swarming', and the Prevention of 

 Swarms. 



The causes of swarming can be traced 

 to several sources. First of all, we 

 must consider it as a natural instinct of 

 preservation whereby young queens are 

 secured, new homes are formed, and the 

 bees fulfil the supreme command, " Go 

 forth, increase and replenish the earth." 



Next, the conditions of locality, the 

 honey seasons and resources have much 

 to do with the act of swarming. 



But when we come to the action of 

 man in relation to the control of swarm- 

 ing, we find the foremost reason why 

 bees are allowed to carry out to the full 

 this natural disposition of theirs, is neg- 

 ligence. Let them have irregular brood- 

 combs with plenty of pop-holes, and 

 queen-cells are constructed where other- 

 wise none would have been found. 

 Then allow the brood-nest to be crowded, 

 not necessarily with bees or brood, with 

 too large a proportion of the combs 

 choked with honey, and pollen in partic- 

 ular, then the queen is soon conducted 

 to a new site, and another colony is 

 established. In this connection, too, 

 the negligent bee-keeper is sure to be 

 careless as to the removal of his aged 

 queens, and he sufifers in more than one 

 way in consequence. 



On the other hand, we have a more 

 careful and far-seeing class of bee-keep- 

 ers, and what is it they do towards 



PREVENTION OF SWARMING ? 



The usual process where comb honey 

 is being worked for, is to put on the 

 sections before the swarming condition 

 is reached, thus giving room in advance 



