248 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



Decemb( 



will be continued later. — L' Apicul- is all. And in most cases, a less nui 

 teur. ber of drones would have meant 



In regard to the above I wish to much larger number of worke 

 say that I uissent in toto from one raised in their place, and therefore 

 of the conclusions arrived at. It may still more crowded situation and mc 

 be stated first that though it is not chances yet of a swarm issuing. 

 said so, the observations are in re- The excess of drones is often due 

 gard to modern hives, and consequent- the age of the queen. The oluer 

 ly the colonies were worked for ex- queen is, the more drone eggs s 

 tracted honey. In Europe the dif- lays. The older she is, the more 1 

 ference in price between extracted ble to swarm. So the two things £ 

 honey and comb honey is very merely coincident. One does r 

 very little, and therefore all the users cause the other, 

 of modern hives work for extracted Knoxville, Tenn., Nov. i, 1904. 



honey. Those using skeps or box 



hives, work for comb honey, very 

 rarely putting a super of sections on 

 the box, but usually a mere addition- 

 al box from which the combs are 

 cut out and sold as "chunk honey. ' 

 Often the "chunks" are melted and 

 the wax and honey sold separately. 

 But that is not the point I want to 

 make. 



I think the assertion that queens 

 one year old are more likely to swarm 



SHALLOW FRAMES BEST. 



Considered from the Standpoint oi 

 Comb Honey Producer. 



By L. E. Kerr, M. D. 



A 



S I HAVE made the hive pn 

 lem a special study since I fi 

 began keeping bees, the cla 



/ i N ^1 ^1 ii ■ ^ iiig antagonisms that have taken pi 



(43 per cent.) than the other is not ,,^ ^^^^^ columns, between the ad 



correct, it "" •"" ««<-.. «i .,..™k„^ 



of swarms, 



swarms to the number of such queen., tpj-gg+jng- 



present in the apiary that indicates r^^^ evidence set forth by Mr. T 



Neal in his article on page 179, wh 



It is not the actual number ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^ ^^^^^^^ ^j^^ ^j^^,! 

 but the proportion of ^^^^^^ j^^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^ intensely 



he makes out a strong case in fa 

 of a frame 11 inches deep, is plai 

 ble enough to the unobserving. Clc 

 investigation, however, shows his 

 guments to be weak and, in fact, w: 

 out a leg to stand upon. 



It is true that without the su 

 barrel shallow hives and all hives 





the propensity of swarming. To 

 make it clear, let us suppose an apiary 

 of fifty colonies, forty of which 

 swarm this year and ten don't. Next 

 year, suppose that ten of the queens 

 one year old swarm, and only five 

 of the others. Should we be right in 

 saying that the one-year-old queens 

 are more apt to swarm than the 

 others '' 



Not at all. Out of the forty queens signed to throw the bulk of the ho: 



one year old, ten swarmed. That is ^^op mto the sections would give \ 



only 25 per cent. Out of the ten to one which kept the bulk of the c 



others, five swarmed; that is fifty per '" the brood-chamber. All intellig 



cent., or twice as much in propor- bee-men now rely to a great ext 



tjQri upon the sugar barrel. Not one, ht 



My own experience is that compar- ever, ever have any of this, fed ai 



atively few of the one-year-old queens '^ '" the autumn, get into the sectic 



swarm, and on the other hand nearly With the divisible brood-charo 



all the three-year-old ones do, if the ^lye and system at least, this is 



season is favorable. If the season is solutely impossible. The lower st 



not favorable for swarming, they are 's, at the time the surplus recepta. 



very often superseded. are on, devoid of any stores whate" 



As to the drones, I don't think they the brood-nest is so contracted, 

 have anything to do with the swarm- The desire to secure a large cro] 



ing as such. Indirectly their pres- what Mr. McNeal pleases to t{ 



ence may increase the extreme heat avarice. Maybe; but I esteem such 



and lack of sufficient ventilation, and an admirable quality and the first 



therefore add to the uneasin^ ss which sential to success in the art of ho 



eventually leads to swarming, but that production. The departure from 



