lays. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNALo 



67 



shouldu't store as much honey as tho it did. Of course, if the 

 swarm issues very early, and the season be prolonged, then the 

 two may exceed what the one would have done. If we can 

 gain for the colony without its having to swarra, that which 

 it gains by swarmlug, then wherein does Mr. G.'s method 

 have any advantage ? I mean the desire and ability to build 

 comb. Nothing so incites a colony to good work as the pres- 

 ence of newly-built comb in the hive. To obtain this vantage 

 ground, a frame of foundation can be hung in the brood- 

 chamber some little time to the giving of the supers, provid- 

 ing the strength of the colony and the state of the weather 

 will permit. Place the frame of foundation between two 

 combs of brood, and in due time follow this up with a super 

 alternated with frames of comb and frames of foundation or 

 starters. A half-depth case is always preferable for the first 

 one given. Sometimes It works better to give a ease of combs 

 entire until they have been coast above, when this can be 

 iifted and a section super placed between. It is always well 

 to look to it that the queen be not in the upper case when rais- 

 ing it, for her presence there would work disastrously in that 

 the capacity of the small frames would not be equal to the 

 ability of the queen, which would tend to dissatisfaction ; and 

 her absence from the combs below would cause queen-cells to 

 be started, and swarming would be the result. Arranged in 

 this way, a colony can be run for both comb and extracted 

 honey with the incumbrance of a queen-excluding honey- 

 board. 



The queen will not now pass the section super to again 

 occupy the upper one, tho the queen-cells in this upper case 

 must be taken away or destroyed as soon as they reach the 

 proper age, or swarming may result just the same had they 

 been built below. But how much easier done in the shallow- 

 case than in the deep brood-combs, heavy with brood and 

 honey. 



You may say. Why not put on the excluder at the time 

 the combs are given to the bees, and thus prevent the queen 

 ever going there at all ? Well, the point is to get the workers 

 there as quickly as possible; and you all know that if the 

 <iueen goes there honey will not be long in finding its way 

 there. So when the case is raised and an empty one placed 

 tieneath it, the presence of brood tends to draw the Mue-force 

 away from the brood-combs, and lessens the tension there. 

 The field-force will then get a hustle on themselves that tells 

 you something is going to be done. O how they — the hive- 

 force — then need air ! Give it to them, plenty of it, and always 

 from below. Nothing so causes the upward march of the 

 bees to roll back upon the brood-combs as does the giving of 

 cooling drafts of air from above. 



I think that when thus managed bees will store as much 

 honey as they will by the Golden method ; and without the 

 great danger (so it seems to me) of getting pollen in the 

 sections. 



I will here admit that I have never tried Mr. Golden's 

 way, as he arranges and describes, but I intend to do so. Mr. 

 Golden must use a small brood-chamber, and certainly his bees 

 were not started off properly or they would not swarm with 

 but one super partly filled. 



I do not see it exactly, that by hiving a swarm in the 

 double super you get such a large amount of honey that the 

 bees otherwise would have used in building combs for the new 

 hive and storing the same after they are constructed. Let's 

 see. We will suppose a swarm is issuing, or has just issued ; 

 I need a few more extracting-combs, or that some I now 

 already have are crooked or contain more or less drone-comb, 

 all of which is tolerably new. I cut the comb out, save an 

 inch or so next the top-bar. These frames are put into a 

 shallow extracting-case, which case is then placed over a simi- 

 lar one tho empty ; and the two constitute the brood-chamber 

 to the hive the swarm is to occupy. On this I place a slatted 

 queen-excluding honey-board, and then place the section-cases 

 that were on the parent hive. The swarm is to occupy the old 

 stand, the old hive is given a new location, but before doing 

 this, a portion of the yet remaining bees are to be driven out 

 with smoke. This so weakens them that there is little danger 

 of second swarms. Contract the entrance, and shade the hive 

 well. Now, see here, the presence of the empty super gives 

 sufficient room till the fever subsides ; the absence of old 

 brood-combs causes the bees to gather less pollen for the first 

 few days after being hived, and what they do bring in, the 

 narrow strips of drawn comb will catch the most of it by the 

 aid of the honey-board, for a bee cannot easily pass through 

 the perforations with pollen on her legs. The brood-chamber 

 (s thus left for about a week, when the empty case is to be 

 taken away, the other now being placed on the bottom-board. 

 The hive may now remain till the honey season is over, or the 

 colony may be re-united with the parent colony about the 

 time the extracting-combs are completed. 



All this has been done with only supers for a hive, the 

 increase has been kept down, the extracting-combs have been 

 secured, a few choice queens reared, and I think with as much 

 really marketable honey as if the swarm had been treated ac- 

 cording to Mr. G.'s method. However, I am open to convic- 

 tion. If it can be shown that the bees do not store pollen In 

 the section-comb while the super sits beneath the brood-cham- 

 ber, then perhaps there is no quicker, yet profitable, way of 

 disposing of a swarm. Scioto Co., Ohio. 



Ipecacuanha for Bee-Stlags — Figwort. 



BY D. S. HEFFBON. 



From the Popular Science News, of January, ISOT, I 

 take the following : 



" A Calcutta physician who was attackt by a swarm of 

 bees was severely stung on the hands, head, face and neck, 

 no fewer than 150 stings being afterward taken from his 

 neck. Fortunately he had some Ipecacuanha powder with 

 him which he immediately had made into a paste and smeared 

 over the head, face and neck. The effect was most markt, 

 preventing to a large extent the swelling and pain which in- 

 variably follow the bees' stings." 



Ipecac, as we call it, is the powdered root of the plant of 

 a light brown color, as fine as flour. It is kept by druggists, 

 and is not expensive. The sting of bees used to pain me 

 severely, and swell badly, sometimes closing an eye, or other- 

 wise disfiguring the face. For the last season, tho stung more 

 than a dozen times, I have escaped both pain and swelling by 

 as prompt a use of ipecac powder as I could procure. 



SIMPSON HONEY-PLANT OB FIGWOBT. 



If I do not mistake this plant, its botanical name is 

 ScrophiUaria nodosa. Prof. Asa Gray says, in his Manual of 

 Botany, it was "so called because a reputed remedy for 

 scrofula ;" while Prof. Wood says in hisClass-Bookof Botany, 

 "So named from the resemblance of the roots to scrofulous 

 tumors." Both the authors quoted agree in the description 

 of the plant, in the form of the flower and fruit, its stem, leaf 

 and habit. It is entirely hardy, found in Canada, the Middle 

 and Western States, but rarely in New Eagland. It is peren- 

 nial, flowering the second year, and its habitat is along the 

 edges of woods and in hedges, and in other damp and more or 

 less shady places. 



The writer has been acquainted with the plant that was 

 recently figured in the American Ree Journal for 50 years, 

 and never found it growing in an open, dry prairie. It be- 

 gins to flower in July, and continues for about three months. 

 But why should this old plant, introduced from Europe, be 

 called the Simpson honey-plant? In an article in the Bee 

 Journal of Oci. l-t, 1897, the writer says : " I consider one 

 acre of the plant worth at least ic?i of sweet clover." I have 

 no competent personal knowledge. I think it may be worth 

 testing in a small way. Cook Co., III. 



No. 5 — Recollections of an Old Bee-Keeper. 



BY DB. E. GALLUP. 

 (Continued from pagre 51.) 



I saw that the Laugstroth movable-comb principle was 

 correct at a glance, so that was how the Gallup hive came 

 into existence. My hive was IS inches wide, 12 inches from 

 front to rear, and 12 inches deep. This was in conformity to 

 my ideas of starting with a nucleus or a small swarm and con- 

 trolling the animal heat with a division-board and building up 

 to a strong colony by enlarging as the bees increast. The top- 

 bar of the frame, V and all, was in one piece with shoulders 

 cut for the end-pieces. The ends or sides of the frame were 

 of the same width as the top-bar, and 3/16 thick ; the bot- 

 tom-bar was '->s square, nailed in corner up. 



My reason for using so thin an end was that the bees 

 would cluster clear past that, and the queen would occupy 

 every cell, even those adjoining the wood, and by using the X 

 bottom-bar the bees would build down and on to it, and if 

 necessary past it, down to near the bottom-board. The only 

 objection to this is, the bees are more liable to build onto the 

 top-bar of the breeding apartment from the super combs. 



I use my Langstroth frames with the ?^ bottom-bar. I 

 like a comb built solid to the frame all around. If we have a 

 flat bottom-bar in wintering, even In this climate, there Is an 

 accumulation of tits of pollen, cappings from hatching brood, 

 etc., that lodge on this bottom-bar and make a place for 

 moths. Taking every advantage and disadvantage into con- 

 sideration, I prefer the '■'h bottom-bar every time. The only 



