AMERICAM BEE JOURNAL. 



107 



that is easily marked — the end of a row, 

 for instance. 



When this cannot be done, the hives 

 containing unfertile queens may be 

 marked in some conspicuous manner 

 that will easily enable the queen to 

 distinguish her own hive. I believe that 

 where foul-brood is in an apiary, this 

 regularity of arrangement leads to a 

 greater danger of spreading the disease 

 by bees from infected colonies entering 

 some other hive by mistake. 



In queen-rearing, it is important that 

 the small hives containing the males be 

 scattered about promiscuously ; the 

 greater the irregularity and oddity of 

 arrangement, the less will be the loss of 

 queens from their entering wrong hives. 

 But in a large apiary, managed for 

 honey, it is doubtful if there is a better 

 arrangement than that of placing the 

 hives in rows ; and it seems to me that 

 a little is gained, and nothing lost, by 

 having the rows radiate from the honey- 

 house door. — Country Qentlennan. 



Experience of a Beginner, 



J. E. PEICHAKD. 



I bought the only colony in a movable 

 frame hive in this vicinity, and when I 

 opened it this Spring during apple 

 bloom, one-half of the bees were drones, 

 and also about one-half the brood was 

 drone brood. 



I killed quite a lot of the drones, and 

 cut off the heads of over half of the 

 drone brood, and in doing so I cut the 

 heads off of some of the worker brood, 

 and the remainder I placed on top of a 

 colony in a box-hive, under the. cap, or 

 super, and the bees fed and reared them 

 nicely. 



I did not see the queen. Perhaps I 

 killed her in removing the frames, as 

 they were very crude affairs, and had 

 not been moved for 2 or 3 years. 



I opened the hive again in about 3 or 

 4 weeks, and finding no brood, no eggs, 

 no queen, and only a little honey, I 

 purchased a queen and introduced her 

 on June 10 or 11, and now have three 

 frames of sealed brood, with three 

 frames of brood hatched out — as nice a 

 colony as any apiarist could produce in 

 so short a time. But it seems to me the 

 older apiarists speak in riddles often ; 

 for instance, when speaking about 

 feeders and queen-cages being introduced 

 over the cluster on the frames. I do 

 not know about the feeders, but the cage 

 is % of an inch thick, and as the space 



above the frames is only J^ or % inch, 

 how are we to replace the cover? I 

 laid the cage down and got some % 

 strips and tacked on the upper edge of 

 the hive, thereby making room. 



I bought six dovetailed hives complete, 

 and filled them with foundation this 

 Spring, expecting to have at least four 

 swarms, as the box-hives are full to over- 

 flowing, but not a swarm, and when I 

 go out to the bee-shed and see them 

 loafing around, I feel like kicking them 

 over (and I dare do it, for I have a 

 Globe veil and a Bingham smoker and 

 plenty of pluck), but will wait a little 

 while. 



If I only had them in my movable 

 frames, I would stop that loafing. I am 

 well pleased with the prospect of my 

 Italian queen. She is a "daisy." 



Port Norris, N. J., July 9, 1891. 



fieltiiis Bees to Wort in tlie Sections. 



DR. C. C. MILLEE. 



The following questions came from 

 H. Hine, of Sedan, Ind. : 



What is the reason that bees will not 

 store honey in the surplus boxes (which 

 were put on new), when swarms will fill 

 the brood-frames in less than three 

 weeks ? What can I do to build up a 

 weak colony at this time of the year ? 



In reply, I would say that as long as 

 there is plenty of room in the brood- 

 chamber, bees do not care much to go 

 off some distance from what is really 

 their home, to store the provision that 

 they expect to use in the brood-chamber. 



You may, however, hold out sufficient 

 inducement to get them to work in the 

 surplus apartment much sooner than 

 they otherwise would do so. If you put 

 a bit of drone-brood, or even worker, in 

 the surplus apartment, the bees will 

 promptly go up to care for it, and then 

 if they do not store surplus there, you 

 may be pretty sure they have no surplus 

 to store. 



Generally it will be sufficient to put 

 into the super a section that has been 

 fully or partly worked out into comb, 

 such sections being often left over from 

 the previous year. After you have 

 succeeded in getting one colony to work- 

 ing in the super, you will find it work 

 very nicely to take partly-filled sections 

 from the super where the bees are at 

 work, bees and all, and put it in the 

 super of a balky colony. See how soon 



