330 



THlp MMERICMNt BE® JQB'MEfMLr. 



»>o«a>»^«^*»«^><ai>j 



try, while mountain ravines are drifted 

 full. The thermometer several times 

 indicated 13° Fahr., below zero. Very 

 possibly this question is meant to refer 

 to wintering in cellars or special re- 

 positories. In Carniola, bees ai-e not 

 wintered in cellars, so far as I know. 

 The native bee-keepers paek their shal- 

 low box-hives (which are 6 to 8 inches 

 deep, 12 to 18 inches wide, and about 

 3 feet long) side by side, and one 

 above another, in old-fashioned bee- 

 houses or sheds, and surround them 

 with moss or fine hay, letting a mat or 

 trap-door close the front during the in- 

 tense cold, or when the ground is cov- 

 ered with light snow and the sun is 

 bright. In this sort of repository, with 

 abundant stores, colonies winter well. 

 Upper Carniola, Austria. 



DISCUSSION. 



Hard Argtiineuts, but Pleasant 

 ^Vords the Most Eifectual. 



Written for Vie American Bee Journal 



DR. G. L. TINKER. 



The readers of the .Bee Journal 

 will have seen that I have had little to 

 sa}' in reply to attacks upon me con- 

 cerning ray essay at the Ohio conven- 

 tion on hives. Now I desire to say 

 that no angry communications to our 

 bee-periodicals can be of any possible 

 benefit to bee-keepers, and further- 

 more they should not be tolerated. 

 For a long time there has been general 

 good-will manifest among bee-keepers 

 everywhere, and all ditterenccs of 

 opinion have been tolerated in a frater- 

 nal spirit, and I desire to see this state 

 of tilings continue. Until bee-keeping 

 is reduced to a perfect art and science, 

 difi'ercnces will exist, and thej' .should 

 be tolerated in a proper spirit. 



All will heartily concur with the ed- 

 itor in his remarks on page 260, that 

 all " quarrelsome and jealous persons 

 are not up to the spirit of the times." 

 How very true this remark is, every 

 well informed person of the present 

 day must know. Angry contention 

 never has, nor never will help any 

 cause, but honorable and courteous 

 discussions may do so. Selfishness and 

 its offspring, jealousy, should give way 

 to charity and fraternal good-will 

 among all men, not alone bee-keepers, 

 inasmuch as the latter qualities are in- 

 dispensal)le virtues, and the founda- 

 tion of moral and intellectual progress. 

 In the new dispensation, the first com- 

 mandment is to " love thy neighbor as 

 thyself." 



I am ready to fraternally discuss 

 matters of importance with any one, 

 but just at present I have no time to 

 reply to such attacks as have been 



made on me in the Review and in the 

 Bee-Hive. 



Probably no man in this country has 

 had a larger or more varied experi- 

 ence in the contraction of brood-cham- 

 bers in the past five years than the 

 writer, and I am a firm advocate of it 

 in the production of comb honey, and 

 especially for young swarms, but I 

 think that it has been carried to ex- 

 tremes. 



A fair swarm of bees should not be 

 hived in a brood space less than the 

 equivalent of six Langstroth frames, 

 for the best results. Even with six 

 Langstroth frames, the bees are prone 

 to swarm out, and need to be guarded. 

 But once established in such reduced 

 quarters the colony will continue 

 strong, and rarely deposit bee-bread 

 in the sections. But six Langstroth 

 brood-frames contain about 800 square 

 inches of comb, and anj- brood-cham- 

 ber having only a capacity for 700 

 square inches of comb, more or less, is 

 certain to result in more or less bee- 

 bread in the sections. In some seasons 

 little pollen will be carried above one 

 division of shallow hives, in others a 

 good part of the crop is liable to be 

 ruined b)' bee-bread. Five Gallup 

 frames, although having less capacity, 

 give less trouble than 8 shallow 5-inch 

 frames. My greatest objection to the 

 latter is in the size of the brood-cases ; 

 the next is the horizontal bee-space in 

 the centre of the brood-nest in the 

 spring, which beyond any question is 

 an impediment to the proper extension 

 of the brood. 



As to the use of queen-excluding 

 zinc in honey-boards, I desire to say 

 that I was the first to so use it, and 

 first to make it public. In its con- 

 struction I have had large experience 

 both in the manufacture of the zinc 

 and in the various plans for its u.se ; 

 and have finally settled the matter to 

 my full sati.sfaction that single-rowed 

 strips of zinc used in alternation with 

 the brood-frames is a hindrance to the 

 working of bees in supers ; and whether 

 it is because of insufiicient passage 

 wa,y or insntficient ventilation, I am 

 unable to say, but both causes may be 

 operative. At least my trials of two- 

 rowed zinc have removed all objections 

 to its use in honey-boards. 



The two-rowed strips I use are f 

 inch wide, and there is a margin of 

 5-32 of an inch for entering the saw- 

 kerfs in tlie edges of the slats. The 

 slats used may be i to. 15-16 of an inch 

 wide for a hive with frames spaced If 

 from center to center, leaving a space 

 between the slats of 7-16 to l inch, so 

 that we have no serious trouble from 

 brace-combs, except where the space 

 between the slats and top-bars of the 

 brood-frames is over 5-16 of an inch. 



New Philadelphia, O. 



QUEEN-REARING. 



Various Klclliods of Rearing 

 (Queens. 



Written far the American Bee Jourtuil 



BY THEODORE .JOHNSON. 



On page 252, Mr. G. Grouse asks for 

 descriptions of queen-rearing other 

 than by natural swarming; and on 

 page 300, Mr. D. P. Barrows gives his 

 method, which I have practiced very 

 successfull)', but 1 have now aban- 

 doned it except in extreme necessity. 

 I have several large hives for queen- 

 rearing, made to receive the common 

 Langstroth frame, each hive being 15 

 inches wide inside, with the partitions 

 i-inch thick, which are let into grooves 

 so as to be easily removed if desired. 

 This gives four apartments, each hold- 

 ing two full frames, and an entrance 

 on each side of the hive. 



I select the queens from which I 

 wish to breed (I keep nothing but pure 

 Italians), and crowd two or three with 

 brood from colonies I do not wish to 

 breed from, so as to induce drone- 

 rearing. At the proper time I divide 

 one colony, leaving the most of the 

 brood in the hive on the old stand, 

 but remove the hive with the queen 

 only a few feet. When the bees have 

 completed a number of queen-cells, I 

 remove the whole of the balance of the 

 frames, putting one in each of the 

 apartments in the queen hive. I de- 

 stroy all of the small queen-cells, and 

 leave one on each of the combs ; the 

 balance of the queen-cells I cut into 

 other combs, from other hives, and 

 put them into other queen hives. This 

 being done, from other hives I remove 

 combs partlj- filled witji brood and 

 honey, and well covered with young 

 bees, and put one in each of the sev- 

 eral apartments in the queen hives ; 

 and in tliis way I have the warmth of 

 a full hive, and at the same time rear 

 four queens from selected mothers. 



As soon as the old colony is thus 

 broken up, I place the nucleus contain- 

 ing the old queen back on the old 

 stand, to receive the old bees on their 

 return. By this means I generally 

 have from 8 to 12 j'uung queens on 

 hand all of the time. This year I win- 

 tered four qeeens in one of those hives, 

 and have had use for two of them to 

 supply other colonies this spring. 



My bees ai"e in excellent condition. 

 I put 77 colonies into a bee-cellar last 

 December, just before Cliristmas ; and 

 the last week in March I took 77 colo- 

 nies out. Four colonies were weak, 

 and before I attended to my duty they 

 were robbed. I am now extracting 

 from 5 to 10 pounds of surplus honey 

 from each hive, leaving a large supi)ly 

 for June use, which is our hardest 



