562 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Sept. 7, 1899. 



is because the small broodisfs colonies are too small in 

 the spring-, or rather at the end of the winter. 



The prolificness of the queen is not the only thing to be 

 considered. No matter how many eggs a queen can lay. no 

 more brood is g^oing- to be reared than the bees can take care 

 of. This is especially true in the early part of the season, 

 when the weather is cool yet, and the brood has to be well 

 covered by the bees to get the necessary warmth. No brood 

 will hatch, or rather emerge, until three or four weeks after 

 the opening of the season, and during that period the 

 strength of the colony will decrease all the time. After 

 that, the amount of brood will increase slowly at first, then 

 faster and faster until the honej'-flow comes. 



Now, it seems evident to me, and my experience has 

 been in accordance with it, that the amount of brood se- 

 cured at the opening of the honey-flow depends chiefly upon 

 the strength of the colony at the opening of the season. 

 With such colonies as the small broodists have at the open- 

 ing of the season, only enough brood can be reared to fill 

 the 8 combs by the opening of the honey-flow. With a col- 

 ony SO percent stronger in population, SO percent more 

 brood could be reared — 12 combs occupied instead of 8. and 

 with a population SO percent larger, SO percent more of sur- 

 plus could be secured. 



It seems to me that I see somebody bobbing up with the 

 question. How do you know that the small broodists winter 

 only small colonies ? 



Well, I know it by their own writings. It is only two 

 months ago that Mr. Hutchinson said in the Bee-Keepers' 

 Review that in Michigan a large colony would be almost 

 sure to rear brood in the winter, and come out practically 

 worthless in the spring. Mr. Doolittle has said, time and 

 again, that small colonies (he calls them medium) winter 

 better than larger ones. Mr. Davenport, in a late number 

 of Gleanings in Bee-Culture, wrote that whatever was the 

 strength of the colony in the fall, the spring would find 

 them very nearh- alike, and it was therefore useless to win- 

 ter too large colonies. Mr. Heddon contracts his brood-nest 

 in the summer, and winters onlj' what can occupy one 

 section of his hive. R. L. Taylor also says the small colo- 

 nies winter the best. 



The question is now : Supposing the large colonies 

 could be wintered equally well, which would be the best — 80 

 colonies of 12 combs and population in proportion, or 120 

 colonies of 8 combs, the total population to be the same in 

 either case ? 



The difi^erence may depend upon the nature of the 

 honey-flow, and might not be very great; but it would un- 

 doubtedly be in favor of the large colonies. There would 

 be onlj' 80 entrances to guard against robbers instead of 

 120. It would take less bees to keep up the heat necessary 

 for 80 brood-nests than 120 smaller ones, on the same prin- 

 ciple that it 

 takes less 

 fencingto en- 

 close one field 

 of two acres 

 than to en- 

 c lo s e two 

 fields of one 

 acre each. 

 When supers 

 are to be put 

 on or taken 

 off, there 

 would be only 

 80 hives to 

 open and 

 s ni ok e, in- 

 stead of 120, 

 and therefore 

 a saving of 

 time; and 

 probably less 

 swarming, 

 and less dan- 

 ger of starv- 

 ing in case of 

 a dearth of 

 honey i n 

 spring, or in- 

 adequate pro- 

 visions in the 

 winter. 



Whether 

 large colo- 



Director C. P. /)adari/. 



nies can be win- 

 tered as well as 

 small ones in the 

 North, and in the 

 cellar, I cannot 

 say. In my lati- 

 tude, wintering 

 outside, the large 

 colonies winter 

 far better than the 

 small ones. 

 Knox Co., Tenn. 



Use of Queen- 

 Excluders. 



BY C. ]■. D.\1).\NT. 



M" 



l^irci-toi- /■:. R. Root. 



R. M. D. AN- 

 DES, of Ten- 

 nessee, wrote 



me as follows on 



the subject of 



queen-excluders : 



" I have just read 

 your article on page 

 482. and I am anxious 

 to know if you use 

 queen - excluders be- 

 tween tbe supers and 

 the brood - chamber. 

 My 10-frame hives I 

 have been running for 



comb honey and the 12-frame ones for extracted honey for family use. 

 My experience in working for comb honey agrees with what you say in 

 the article referred to. It requires too much work and too much attention 

 for a person engaged in other business, and I have decided another season 

 to run all mv hives for extracting. I find the (lueeu will come up into the 

 extracting-s'uper and will deposit eggs in half or more of the frames, and 

 altho the brood hatches out by the ehd of the harvest, I find the bees de- 

 posit more or less pollen in those combs which the queen has occupied, 

 and it seems to flavor the honey to some extent. Will the use of exclu- 

 ders prevent the bees from depositing pollen in the supers? and is it a 

 great obstruction to the bees in passing up or down ?— M. D. Andes. 



In reply to the first part of the question, I will say that 

 the use of excluders will decidedly prevent the putting of 

 pollen in the supers. First, a bee laden with pollen will 

 often lose her load in passing thru the meshes of the per- 

 forated zinc, but what is of more iinportance is that they 

 have no desire to place their pollen away from the brood. 

 It is well known by all practicing bee-keepers that the pol- 

 len is always, or nearly always, placed in the brood-combs 

 or in the outside combs as close to the brood as possible. It 

 is only when the brood extends clear up to the upper edge 

 of the frame that there is any tendency at all to put pollen 

 in the sections immediately above it. A queenless colony, 

 which has no brood to rear, might put pollen almost any- 

 where about the hive, but such a colony is not in a normal 

 state and not likely to harvest any surplus at all ; and if it 

 did, it would only be an exception that would strengthen 

 the rule, since it is commonly agreed that there is no rule 

 without exception. So with excluders, there is but little to 

 fear of pollen out of the brood-combs. 



As to the last part of the question, I must say that I am 

 not in favor of queen-excluders, for the very reason that it 

 seems to me that they are a very real hindrance to the free 

 access of bees to the supers. The bees laden with honey 

 cannot but be hampered by these unnatural obstructions, 

 and ventilation is also obstructed. And if we judge from 

 the sales of these excluders when compared with the sale of 

 other bee-appliances, there is but a very small portion of 

 the bee-keeping public who use them at all. Yet, if exclu- 

 ders are properly mounted in a honej'-board with a bee- 

 space both above and below, it is quite possible that big 

 crops may be harvested in spite of the hindrance they may 

 cause. They are certainly not as much of a nuisance as the 

 Alley queen-trap or the bee-entrance guards, which are 

 used by some apiarists to prevent swarming. These devices 

 do prevent swarming, and yet I would not use them on mj- 

 own hives, owing to their being so very much in the way of 

 the worker-bees. 



We have tried queen-excluders, but have no use for them 

 in producing extracted honey. We find that with deep- 

 frame hives — two inches deeper than the Langstroth — the 

 bees rarelj' go above to breed. It is only in extraordinary 

 seasons, when the crop is intermittent, altho good, that the 

 queen accidentally finds her.self crowded up into the supers. 

 This does not happen with us more than one year in ten. 

 and the possible loss of time caused by the excluders, be- 

 sides the trouble of putting them on and taking them off. 



