AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



725 



An Experience ExleiMiing: Over 

 Several Years. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY MATH. RADER. 



In the spring of 1887 I received a 

 colony of bees in an 8-frarae Langstroth 

 hive from a friend of mine. The colony 

 cast two swarms during the summer, of 

 which I kept the first, or prime swarm, 

 only ; the second swarm being returned 

 after the queen-cells had been cut out 

 of the parent colony, as directed by my 

 friend. 



By fall the two colonies had gathered 

 about 50 pounds of surplus honey, and 

 had plenty to winter on. I then bought 

 6 colonies more, all of which 1 wintered, 

 and commenced in the spring of 1888 

 with 8 colonies in good condition. I in- 

 creased them to 17 during the season, 

 and secured over 800 pounds of very 

 nice comb honey in one-pound sections, 

 as basswood, or linden, had lots of 

 honey that year, and, besides, the bees 

 had enough winter stores to carry them 

 through without any feeding. After 

 this the dark side turned towards me, in 

 regard to basswood giving honey. 



In the spring of 1889, I took the 17 

 colonies out of the cellar in good condi- 

 tion except one, which was queenless. I 

 at once ordered a queen from Texas, 

 and strengthened the colony with brood 

 from others, until the queen arrived. 

 That year was the first poor honey-flow, 

 white clover was very scarce, and 

 worms, or caterpillars, commenced that 

 summer to destroy the forest leaves and 

 blossoms on basswood trees, and the 17 

 colonies gave me only 6 prime swarms, 

 and about 600 pounds of honey, which 

 was mostly dark or fall honey, and they 

 were short of stores the next spring, so 

 that I had to do some feeding. 



In the spring of 1890 I took the 23 

 colonies out of the cellar in good condi- 

 tion, but one being queenless, which I 

 united with another. I then started 

 with 22 colonies, and with good courage. 

 The beginning of the honey-flow from 

 fruit-bloom was good, but white clover 

 was scarce yet, and the basswood a 

 total failure, as that was the first year 

 that the caterpillars destroyed all the 

 leaves on basswood, and also the blos- 

 soms, so that not an ounce of basswood 

 honey could be expected in this neigh- 

 borhood ; but the bees had swarmed 

 quite early, and I increased them to 36 

 colonies, but received only about 350 

 pounds of comb honey fi'om the 36 colo- 

 nies, fall count, and had to do some feed- 



ing to soiiH! colonics to carry them 

 through th(; winter, and had to do lots 

 of feeding in the spring to keep them in 

 good condition, as I thought that the 

 poor years would be over, and had 

 learned from my books and journal that 

 this was an important thing to have the 

 bees strong when the honey harvest 

 opened. 



I took out the 86 colonies in the 

 spring of 1891 in good condition, not 

 having lost a single colony, and started 

 again with good hopes. I increased my 

 apiary to 53 colonics, as fruit-bloom 

 and clover was quite good for the begin- 

 ning, but as our main honey-source 

 should commence to come into bloom 

 (the basswood) — alas, there was no pros- 

 pect at all to get one pound of basswood 

 honey, as the leaves were all destroyed 

 by the worms, so that our woods looked 

 a good deal as in the fall, with hardly 

 any leaves on any kind of trees, and I 

 was cruel enough to take all the honey I 

 could get from the bees — about 700 

 pounds in all — which they gathered in 

 the fall, and when the honey-flow was 

 over, my bees were short of stores for 

 the coming winter, and I had to feed 

 over 250 pounds of granulated sugar 

 syrup to get them through the winter, 

 but had to see that I had not supplied 

 all of them to carry through the winter, 

 and found, on putting them out of the 

 cellar in the spring of 1892, that four 

 had starved, and two were queenless, 

 which I united. 



I will now try to tell how I managed 

 the 48 colonies that I had left, in the 

 season of 1892, which was a better 

 year for me than the three foregoing, 

 but I did not want any increase on ac- 

 count of the previous year, when the 

 caterpillars destroyed the basswood blos- 

 soms. 



Those colonies that swarmed at the 

 beginning of the clover honey-flow (which 

 was quite late on account of the rainy 

 weather we had last spring) I took out 

 four frames of the parent colony, which 

 were mostly sealed brood, and put into 

 a hive with some bees, and put the hive 

 with the four frames on a new place, 

 then all queen-cells were cut out of the 

 four frames that were left to the parent 

 colony, and I placed four frames full of 

 foundation in place of the four removed, 

 and the swarm was returned to the par- 

 ent hive. 



Later on I tried several swarms by 

 taking only two or three frames of brood 

 from the parent colony, cutting out all 

 remaining queen-cells and filling the 

 vacant places with frames that were 

 wired and filled full of foundation, and 



