1907 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1377 



spring management." In preparing our 

 bees for the suinnier hai'vest there are two 

 things which should never be overloolied: 



1. Every hive shttuld contain a sufficient 

 amount of good worker comb for a large 

 well-shaped brood-nest; 2. A good prolific 

 queen. 



We think it pays us to kill many queens 

 during the summer, without any regard to 

 their age, simply if they are not as prolific 

 as they should be, or if their bees are not as 

 good honey-gatherers as they might be, or 

 if they are inclined to be cross and vicious 

 when working among them. It is not ad- 

 visable to keep bees that have any serious 

 faults. 



Let us consider the brood-nest as one of 

 the principal things connected with securing 

 a good surplus. Until the last few years we 

 took the advice of some writers on this sub- 

 ject, and saved a large number of heavy 

 combs to give our bees during the spring, to 

 increase early breeding; but with very few 

 exceptions 

 these heavy 

 combs insert- 

 ed near the 

 brood about 

 May 1 did far 

 m o re harm 

 than good. If 

 we uncapped 

 them it was 

 sure to start a 

 bad case of 

 robbing; if 

 they were left 

 capped, then 

 they simply 

 formed a di- 

 vision - boai'd 

 which pre- 

 vented the 

 queen from 

 spreading her 

 brood across 

 the hive, and, 

 consequently, 

 we had a 

 small brood- 

 nest which 

 gave us a 

 small colony during the entire summer. 



After realizing the folly of this erroneous 

 method of spring feeding we commenced to 

 extract all capped honey from the brood-nest 

 about ISlay 1, and in its place, when neces- 

 sary, we fed a little warm thin honey or su- 

 gar syrup daily for about a month This 

 soon gave us strong full colonies; and the 

 best of it was, we soon had our hives pack- 

 ed with brood from side to side, and top to 

 bottom. In this way of preparing our bees 

 for summer we can secure three or four 

 thousand pounds of old honey before fruit- 

 bloom, and leave our colonies in lUO per cent 

 better condition than they would have been 

 had this old honey been left in their combs. 

 When Dr. Lyon was here a year ago he 

 was so surprised at the strength of the colo- 

 nies that he took the photo of hives seen on 



MK. AND MRS. J. W. SPARLING. 



Mr. Sparling was the judge of honey at the National Exposition 

 in Toronto, Canada, and, wiih the assistance of Mrs. Sparling, has 

 put up many very artistic exhibits. See Notes from Canada. 



the next page to show their working force. 

 This was taken about 9 a.m. on a cool cloudy 

 morning before the bees had commenced to 

 work in the fields; and while he was taking 

 this photo I counted 237 colonies in the api- 

 ary that had the fronts of their hives com- 

 pletely covere<l with bees that had been on 

 the outside of their hives night and day for 

 many days, except when the llowers were 

 secreting nectar; then it sometimes seemed 

 as if twenty or more swarms were in air over 

 the apiary all day. 



Some may say that we should have put 

 two or more hives of extracting-combs on 

 each strong colony in order to have secured 

 more honey. To those I wish to say that I 

 never saw a colony so strong that it was 

 necessary to have more than one set of ex- 

 tracting-combs on at a time. I have been 

 all over this ground for 30 years; anil in or- 

 der to secure the best results, all things con- 

 sidered, 1 don't care to have more than one 

 set of extracting-combs on a hive at any one 



time during 

 the season. 

 Now, do you 

 think for a mo- 

 ment that such 

 strong colo- 

 nies as shown 

 in the photo, 

 and hundreds 

 of others equal- 

 ly strung iu the 

 same apiary, 

 could ever be 

 oi)tained from 

 hives that had 

 their brood- 

 nest partly 

 tilled with old 

 capped honey, 

 especially 

 when there 

 had been heavy 

 combs insert- 

 ed near the 

 jcenter of the 

 jh i V e , such 

 Icombs form- 

 Jmg a complete 

 fdivision- board 

 through the brood-nest or a little to one 

 side? When we visit our friends' apiaries 

 and find only an occasional colony work- 

 ing in their supers, if we should take a smo- 

 ker and open these hives that are doing 

 little or nothing, nme times out of ten we 

 should find tbat their brood-nest was so sur- 

 rounded with capped honey that the queen 

 could hardly find room enough to rear the 

 necessary brood for a good-sized nucleus. 



About the first of August a bee-keeping ac- 

 quaintance called to see me in regard to his 

 not securmg any surplus this summer. He 

 was a man of considerable experience with 

 bees, and had fairly good Italians. He was 

 using lU-frame Laugstroth hives, and had in 

 the spring about lUU colonies that had win- 

 tered well, and was heavy in honey when 

 taken from the cellar. After I questioned 



