846 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 15 



THE TWO -QUEEN SYSTEM IN DIVISIBLE- 

 BROOD-CHAMBER COLONIES. 



An inventory of stock at this time shows 

 that we have 50 good strong colonies (each 

 having one queen and two brood-sections, 

 these were the strongest colonies in the api- 

 ary, and each colony contains a vigorous 

 queen ) and 50 three-deckers, each having two 

 queens with a queen-excluder to keep them 

 apart, and 50 single brood-section nuclei. 



Our object in having two queens in a hive 

 is a twofold one. First, we must have very 

 strong colonies if we expect to take advan- 

 tage of our short honey-flow, which is often 

 of only a few days' duration. We never had 

 a colony that was too strong in bees at such 

 a time. 



Tinkering with weak colonies during the 

 honey harvest by giving them brood from 

 other colonies to get them in shape to do 

 work in the supers may do for some loca- 

 tions; however, such loose methods are not 

 to be considered for a moment in such a lo- 

 cation as ours, and we very much doubt the 

 expediency of such methods in aiiy location. 



Every one of our colonies must be ready to 

 enter the sections — in fact, to crowd the su- 



pers full of bees right at the very beginning 

 of the harvest. It is bees that we want at 

 this juncture, for hives do not gather honey; 

 and a hitch in our management at this time 

 would mean a loss of dollars. Another ad- 

 vantage gained by the two-queen system is 

 keeping the brood-chamber clear of honey. 

 The two lower brood-sections occupied by one 

 queen being in the heart of the brood-cham- 

 ber, no honey will be stored here, for bees 

 do not store honey below the brood, and will 

 quickly remove any honey that may be so 

 placed by the apiarist. The fertility of the 

 queen in the top section being in excess of 

 the room of the same, very little honey will 

 stop here. This insures a brood-chamber full 

 of brood, and practically free from honey, 

 which will, together with other methods to 

 be described further along, solve the problem 

 of perfect swarm control in connection with 

 comb-honey production. The 50 three-deck- 

 ers with two queens are to be worked for 

 comb honey by our new system of non- 

 swarming, and the 50 strong single-queen 

 colonies are to be worked for extracted hon- 

 ey. Later developments will show, how- 

 ever, that the extracted honey will go into 



FIG. y. — FINDING t^tUEENS IN SECTIONAL HIVES WITHOUT HANDLING FRAMES. 



If the queen is not seen on the cover or tops of the frames (Fig. 2), a queen-excluder is put on the lower sec- 

 tion, and the upper section placed over it. Then smoke is blown down between these upper frames, and the 

 section tipped up as shown. The queen will nearly always be found on the excluder. 



