THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



321 



The time gained in breeding, is equi- 

 valent to a swarm." If such is the 

 case, it will pay well to buy queens. 

 When the brood chamber is well hlled 

 with brood, and the young bees begin 

 to hatch rapidly, put on one tier of 

 boxes. 



I think a few pounds of sugar syrup 

 fed at night after the boxes are placed 

 on, will give much aid in starting 

 them in. The swarming season de- 

 mands the close and prolonged atten- 

 tion of the bee-keeper, hives, boxes, 

 frames, and feed should all be ready. 

 The new hives containing comb or 

 comb foundation, should be placed 

 upon the stands where they are to 

 remain through the summer, if natural 

 swarming is followed. Do not give 

 your new swarms too many frames of 

 foundation or combs; the best results 

 will be obtained with live or six 

 frames. If honey Is coming in well, 



Eut on one tier of boxes within 12 

 ours after swarming ; when these are 

 three-quarters full, raise them up, 

 putting under another set. 



If you have a colony rounding off 

 the corners of the combs before the 

 boxes are plump full, they think they 

 have done enough, and the best way 

 to keep them at work is to make an 

 artificial swarm from tliem. It re- 

 quires a very clear mind to keep the 

 bees prolitably at work all of the 

 time. 



For the Americiin Bee Journal. 



Management of Bees in the Spring. 



ALLEN PRINGLE. 



. The past winter and spring has been 

 the hardest season on bees, in this 

 latitude, 1 have ever witnessed. Upon 

 making diligent inquiry within an 

 area of many miles in the eastern 

 counties of Ontario, I 11 nd that of the 

 bees wintered outside without protec- 

 tion, almost all are dead ; of those 

 protected outside, two-thirds are 

 dead ; and of those wintered in bee- 

 houses and cellars, on an average, 

 one -half. 



To those who wintered their bees 

 properly indoors, the spring has been 

 much worse, and more fatal than the 

 winter. It has been exceedingly un- 

 favorable up to about the lirst of 

 June. Iruleed, some of mine are still 

 protected with extra warm stuffed 

 guilts. The fruit bloom was only at 

 its height two or three days agcf (8th) ; 

 is fully two weeks behind other 

 years, and almost everything else 

 proportionally backward. The corn 

 was only planted, in this locality, the 

 past week, and the potatoes are yet 

 to plant. 



My own bees were taken out of 

 winter quarters about the first of 

 April, in very good condition ; all 

 alive. I have since lost two colonies 

 by dysentery or " spring dwindling," 

 and two, whose queens were acci- 

 dentally lost just after being put out. 

 But I certainly would have lost two- 

 thirds of my stock of bees had I not 

 stirred my wits to circumvent the 

 most unpropitious weather, and fight 

 against most adverse circumstances. 

 When old bees are set out in the 



spring, and begin to exercise ton the 

 wing, their pilgrimage in this world 

 is exceedingly short ; and unless you 

 can, in spite of the frowning and un- 

 friendly elements, promptly induce 

 the breeding of young bees to take 

 the place of the old ones, your hives 

 soon become still— not the stillness of 

 snug winter quarters, but the stillness 

 of death. 



Now, according to my experience, 

 the best way to accomplish this pur- 

 pose — to induce sufficient breeding to 

 preserve the colony— is this : Keep 

 them warm from the time you set 

 them out ; and after their cleansing 

 fiight, the very first day warm enough 

 to open the hives, examine them, 

 thoroughly clean out the dead bees, 

 etc., atid diminish their room accord- 

 ing to their strength, crowding very 

 weak ones up on two or even one 

 frame, and others into three, four or 

 more frames, according to strength. 

 The next thing to be done is to keep 

 them warm, by extra quilts on top, 

 and keeping the entrances closed, ex- 

 cept when it is warm enough for the 

 bees to come out. The next thing is 

 to feed them a little honey, or good 

 syrup, every day, in the evening; and, 

 whether there is natural pollen to he 

 had outside or not, give them the 

 artificial article inside thehive, in the 

 shape of cakes rich in nitrogen and 

 soaked in honey. This regime with 

 other little matters which the com- 

 mon-sense of every experienced bee- 

 keeper may suggest, will carry the 

 bees through adverse spring seasons 

 if anything will. 



One or two other important matters 

 occur to me which I will also men- 

 tion : Sometimes, even after the bees 

 have had a cleansing flight, if the 

 weather is such that they cannot get 

 out for many consecutive days (as 

 happened two or three times this 

 spring), they will become badly af- 

 flicted with the dysentery. In such 

 cases, I give them a little carbolic 

 acid in their honey, or in their cakes, 

 with uniformly good results. The 

 other point occurring to me is this : 

 After you begin the stimulation of 

 feeding in the spring, tlie old bees are 

 mucli more apt to venture out in un 

 suitable weather ; and in high cold 

 winds they are lost, and never get 

 back. It is, therefore, expedient to 

 be on the look out, and shut them in 

 during such weather. In many cases 

 it would be better to carry the bees 

 back to the cellar or other winter 

 quarters, after they have had their 

 flight, then to entice them outside by 

 feeding, only to be lost. 



The intelligent apiarist must use 

 his own judgment and govern himself 

 accordingly ; and, above all things, lie 

 must watch his bees and not neglect 

 them. As you are passing that way, 

 it may be to other work, take a look 

 at your bees, for you may see some- 

 thing wrong— something needing your 

 attention. In bee-keeping, as in other 

 things, "eternal vigilance" is the 

 price of success. 



The prospects here for an abundant 

 honey harvest are excellent ; indeed, 

 almost unprecedented, so far as we 

 can recollect. Clover of all kinds 

 has come out this spring in a better 



condition than I ever saw it before ; 

 and the fruit bloom is proverbially 

 exuberant. The trouble is, however, 

 that bees generally are not yet strong 

 enough to take advantage of the 

 abundant fruit bloom. It will take 

 to near the end of this month to get 

 them thoroughly built ui>. Mean- 

 while, during the interval between 

 the fruit bloom and white clover, I 

 would suggest to the inexperienced 

 bee-keeper the wisdom of feeding his 

 bees a little every day, to keep up the 

 strengthening process now going on. 

 Selby, Ontario, June 11, 1883. 



For tbe American Bee Journal. 



The Rearing of ftueens. 



E. A. THOMAS. 



Having received several inquiries 

 regarding my method of rearing 

 queens, I will" now give a description 

 of it. The groinid work of my method 

 is doubtless familiar to the reader, 

 and I shall, therefore, give more at- . 

 tention to the smaller points which 

 many consider of but little conse- 

 quence, but which I consider all im- 

 portant, and to which I attribute much 

 of my success in queen-rearing. 



I commence operations by hanging 

 in a clean comb into the colony which 

 I wish to breed from ; this colony 

 must be strong and vigorous. Having 

 several breeding queens, I use the 

 strongest one first. Several days 

 previous to hanging in the comb, I 

 begin feeding the colony and continue 

 to do so until I obtain the eggs. I 

 crovi'd the brood nest together as 

 much as possible, removing all empty " 

 combs, so that the queen must lay in 

 the comb prepared, if she lays at all. 

 In this way I get a frame filled with 

 eggs in a very short space of time, the 

 advantage of which will appear further 

 on. At the same time that I hang in 

 the empty comb into the first colony, 

 I deprive another strong one of its 

 queen, at tlie same time commencing 

 stimulative feeding, and by the time 

 the eggs are ready, they are in the 

 best possible cnnditiou for building^ 

 cells. I then deprive this colony of 

 all unsealed brood. Taking the comb 

 of eggs, I cut (jut stri|)S, aboutan inch 

 wide, from top to bottoui. leaving two 

 inches of comb between ; these I fit 

 into other empty frames of comb, fit- 

 ting them in diagonally, cutting out 

 about an inch of comb under each 

 piece. These frames I hang in the 

 center of the hive prepared to receive 

 them, and continue feeding them as 

 before. When it is time for the cells 

 to be sealed over, I examine the combs, 

 and all cells that are just started and , 

 not se.iled over, I cut off ; and it is to 

 this fact that I attribute much of my 

 success. All the eggs being laid at 

 very near the same time, 1 can tell 

 just when the cells ought to be sealed 

 over, if started from the egg when it 

 first hatches. 



After this time, all unsealed cells 

 must have been started late from lar- 

 va;, and therefore are destroyed. This 

 is how I get my cells started from the 

 egg when it first hatches. 



