1895. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



585 



The amount of brood reared by a colony depends on four 

 factors : 



1st. The strength of the colony. 

 2nd. The prolificness of the queen. 

 3rd. The temperature. 



4th. The amount of room, or rather of empty comb, for 

 the queen to lay in. 



Of course a honey-flow is supposed. 



The 1st condition is evident. No matter how prolific a 

 queen can be, no more brood will be reared than the colony 

 can take care of. The 2nd and 4th are also evident. The 

 3rd deserves a little more consideration. During the early 

 spring, the temperature is too low to permit any more brood 

 reared than the bees can well cover. That is, only the space 

 occupied by the cluster of bees is kept warm enough for brood- 

 rearing and also for comb-building. As the weather gets 

 warmer, the cluster will expand, and even if the colony is not 

 stronger, the amount of brood will be greater. During the 

 summer, in July and August, when there is no need of keep- 

 ing the brood covered all the time, the bees will be found scat- 

 tered in the whole hive, and even a small colony will rear a 

 considerable amount of brood. 

 Now, for your case. 



You first go into winter with rather weak colonies, of old 

 bees, at that. Don't you say it is not so? It must be. With 

 your system of curtailing brood-rearing in the summer, for 

 fear of boarding " useless consumers" during the balance of 

 the year, you cannot have very strong colonies in the fall. 

 After a long, severe winter, you come out in the spring with 

 weak colonies of old bees. These old bees disappear rapidly, 

 and on account of the low temperature cannot rear any more 

 brood than they can cover. It is fully four weeks before the 

 young bees begin to emerge. You have now only four weeks 

 more to build good, strong colonies just before the honey-flow 

 begins. I mean the honey-flow upon which you depend for 

 surplus. Four weeks with a weak colony of old bees, a small 

 amount of brood ready to hatch, or rather to emerge from the 

 cells, cannot build such a very big thing, and I have no doubt 

 that with your management, and in your locality, your eight 

 frames are enough. 



Well, you are now at the eve of the honey-flow, with your 

 eight frames full of brood, rather than bees, your queens 

 wanting to swarm badly because they are cramped for space, 

 and what is of more importance yet, only a few weeks to 

 gather your surplus. Under such circumstances, you let them 

 swarm, throw as many bees as possible in the swarm, and by 

 contracting the brood-nest, hiving on starters, etc., contrive 

 to make the swarms produce as much surplus honey and as 

 little brood as possible. Now, if I am mistaken, please cor- 

 rect me. 



In my locality the honey-flow can be divided into three 

 periods, viz.: 



1st. The maple and fruit blossoms from the middle of 

 March until about May 1, or a little later. 



2nd. The second period, from May 1 to the middle of 

 June, the principal sources of honey being the poplars, white 

 clover and honey-dew. The poplars are very scarce in this 

 locality ; the white clover depends on the abundance of rain, 

 and does never amount to very much. The honey-dew is either 

 nothing, or next to nothing, or very heavy, so the honey-flow 

 during that period of about six weeks, is a very variable and 

 very uncertain quantity. 



3rd. The third, and I might call it the white honey period, 

 from the middle of June to the middle or the end of July, 

 more or less. The chief sources are the persimmon, wild 

 grapes, and mainly the sourwood ; also the basswood, where 

 there is any. (There is not a single basswood tree in this 

 neighborhood.) This third honey-flow may be more or less, 

 but never fails. 



The winters here are not what they are with you. Our 

 bees are invariably out-doors, fly very often, and rear more or 

 less brood during the winter, and generally come out in good 

 condition, except, of course, the cases of starvation, queenless- 

 ness, or sometimes robbing during the winter. By the first of 

 May they are about ready to swarm, but during that time, a 

 prolific queen, if allowed room enough, and with a colony in 

 good condition, can fill with brood a hive of 11 Langstroth 

 frames as well as one of eight, and thus make a colony 50 per 

 cent, stronger. Many times, with a small hive, swarming will 

 occur during April, with a fair chance of being repeated later 

 in the season, which last case is "disastrous," sure enough, 

 so far as surplus is concerned. 



If I could prevent swarming, and keep up brood-rearing, 

 and thereby the strength of the colony, during the whole 

 honey-flow, I should get a considerable surplus. In fact, the 

 colonies that occasionally have not swarmed, have invariably 

 given me more surplus than any colony and its swarm have 

 ever done. Of course, I am not speaking of colonies not hav- 

 ing swarmed because they were too weak, but of those of full 

 strength. 



If I hive the swarm upon a new stand, and let it build up, 

 being strong in bees it will soon be in good condition, and may 

 give me some surplus during the third period of honey-flow. 

 The old colony having all the brood and some old bees, will 

 build up sooner than the swarm, and generally give a fair sur- 

 plus of white honey. Remember, that when swarming occurs 

 here, I have yet about ten weeks of honey-flow ; the first half 

 of it very uncertain, and producing mostly inferior honey, and 

 the last half producing white honey, and so far has never 

 failed, but neither one can compete in abundance of nectar 

 with your basswood flow. 



As far as I have tried it, your system of management, as 

 described in the "Advanced Bee-Culture," is a complete 

 failure in localities like this. The old colony removed, and 

 deprived of as much of their bees as possible, caunot build up 

 in time to store any surplus. The swarm will gather a con- 

 siderable amount of dark honey during the first few weeks, if 

 there is amj to gather, which is not always the case— probably 

 only one year out of two, taking all together. After a few 

 weeks the old bees have nearly all died out, very little brood 

 has been reared, and the swarm is too weak to store any sur- 

 plus white honey. 



And, after all, is your management the best, even in your 

 own locality ? That you have obtained good results with it is 

 incontestable, but could not as good results be obtained other- 

 wise? The Dadants are in a locality exactly similar to yours, 

 except that they have no basswood, and they have as good 

 " crops " of honey as yours, and by an entirely different man- 

 agement. You say that it is because they produce extracted 

 honey. That's right ; but they produced comb honey for a 

 number of years, and it was during that time that they made 

 their experiments with different sizes of hives and different 

 methods of management. Adrian Getaz. 



Knoxville, Tenn. 



The Alsike Clover Leaflet consists of 2 pages, 

 with illustrations, showing the value of Alsike clover, and 

 telling how to grow it. This Leaflet is just the thing to hand 

 to every farmer in your neighborhood. Send to the Bee Jour- 

 nal office for a quantity of them, and see that they are dis- 

 tributed where they will do the most good. Prices, postpaid, 

 are as follows : 50 for 25 cents ; 100 for 40 cents ; or 200 



for 70 cents. 



#-»-^^ 



Tlie McEvoy Foul Brood Treatment is 



given in Dr. Howard's pamphlet on " Foul Brood ; Its Natural 

 History and Rational Treatment." It is the latest publication 

 on the subject, and should be in the hands of every bee-keeper. 

 Price, 25 cents ; or clubbed with the Bee Journal for one year 

 —both for $1.10. 



