1918 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



413 



of honey. A large number were 

 two boxes tiered up, and some were 

 4 feet high, with bees hanging out. 

 I had no supplies, so the same day I 

 went to one of the hive agencies and 

 bought fifty 10-frame hives and forty 

 shallow supers. I had foundation 

 and got immediate delivery of some 

 of the hives. I put men at work nail- 

 ing them up and putting in founda- 

 tion, full sheets, in wired frames. In 

 the meantime I moved the bees, 

 nailed the boxes that were tiered up 

 together and then rolled them onto 

 a wheelbarrow and wheeled them 

 down into an orchard away from the 

 house. Some of these hives were 

 heavier than I could lift, so I literally 

 rolled them and ended them over as 

 needed. Several swarms were hived 

 in the new hives and sections put on, 

 fter moving. 



As fast as I got the new hives the 

 boxes were turned on their sides and 

 the top side taken off. Then one of 

 the new hives with foundation was 

 fitted on by nailing strips to the box- 

 hive, these were watched and if the 

 bees did not go up onto the founda- 

 tion to work, a frame of brood was 

 given from one of the new swarms, 

 which by this time had some hives 

 filled with drawn combs, honey and 

 brood. 



This started the bees to work at 

 once on the foundation next the 

 brood, and by spreading it all the 

 foundation was soon drawn. By daily 

 watching, the queen would be caught 

 alone and a queen excluder slipped 

 between the new hive and box, so 

 keeping the queen in the new hive. 

 Xow I would open the box as much 

 as possible to induce the bees to carry 

 the honey above, at the same time 

 giving a shallow super filled with 

 foundation. This was the general 

 plan. 



Some of them I drummed up at 

 .once, but always putting a frame of 

 brood so that the queen would re- 

 main and be contented. This method 

 gave the quicker results and consid- 

 erable honey was stored in the su- 

 pers. Some were very persistent in 

 sticking to their old boxes, so much 

 so that I finally tore their boxes to 

 pieces and smoked the bees up and 

 set combs and pieces of box hives all 

 around the new hives before they 

 would carry out the honey. A few, 

 after the queens were in the new 

 story, raised new queens, but only 

 three or four, of course. I did this 

 work in the midst of the clover flow, 

 from June 17 to the middle of July, 

 but they still had some honey in a 

 few boxes with combs exposed in 

 September, when I cut combs out and 

 placed at entrances, then they carried 

 the honey out. I kept account of 

 about 1.100 pounds surplus honey 

 from this yard. At the end of the 

 season (October) I cleaned up the 

 wax, and have weighed 225 pounds of 

 fine yellow wax. The bees were 

 mostly pure black, although a few 

 had an occasional yellow band. Some 

 of these bees were fairly gentle and 

 stayed on combs well. All of them 

 were seemingly hustling, but some of 

 them would go a mile to get a chance 

 to sting. One of the first swarms I 

 hived filled its hive, gave me 160 sec- 



tions of fine honey and filled a shal- 

 low extracting super. The net in- 

 crease was 8, making 64 colonies that 

 go into winter quarters, and all heavy 

 with honey, and most strong in bees. 

 About 25 pure Italian queens were in- 

 troduced during the transferring. 



In drumming bees out of the boxes 

 I used an old box in which sections 

 come packed in the flat. This was 

 light and high enough, giving bees 

 plenty of room to get up away from 

 their old home. Then, when all were 

 up, I shook into the new hive, same 

 as at hiving a new swarm. To drum 

 out, I first smoked the bees, then 

 turned boxes up with bottom open, 

 setting old section drum box on top 

 with openings together, then pounded 

 with a club or hammer on hive, good 

 solid raps, not hard enough to 

 break combs, but to jar everything. I 

 suppose bees think it's an earthquake 

 by the way they hustle out. In from 

 three to ten minutes practically all 

 will be found out and clustered in 

 drum box ready for hiving. I trans- 

 ferred a few of the best and straight- 

 est combs, but not many. As a rule 

 it's cheaper to put in full sheets of 

 foundation, and much better combs 



result. This yard was 17 miles from 

 home yard and I used a Ford to haul 

 supplies and to make the daily trips. 

 I bred my own queens at the home 

 yard. 

 Wapakoneta, Ohio. 



Rearing Queens in England 



By A. H. Bowen 



THE uncertainty of the English 

 climate makes it necessary to 

 modify the general system of 

 raising queens to suit our needs. 



The season is short and the dura- 

 tion of hot weather very uncertain. 



Without a fair honey flow, uni- 

 formly good results are difficult to 

 get. Nevertheless, a trying climate 

 is likely to produce queens with more 

 than the usual qualities of hardiness. 



The races kept are English blacks, 

 Dutch, Italians and goldens ; which to 

 avoid crossing are divided into sep- 

 arate apiaries as much as practicable. 



My preference is for the last three 

 varieties, which show advantages 

 over English bees, as we now find 

 them. 



The difficulty with natives in a 

 queen-rearing apiary is that the 



Traveling crate 



Note padded bottc 



