1919 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



In regard to requeening, I have left 

 the bees to attend to this duty. I 

 had one queen to do good work for 

 three seasons. The fourth season 

 the bees superseded her. As far as 

 my observations have enabled me to 

 judge, the bees are not likely to su- 

 persede a queen unless she shows un- 

 mistakable evidence that she is fall- 

 ing short in keeping up the ordinary 

 strength of the colony. 



I have been a patron of the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal ever since its first 

 copy was published, and have kept 

 bees during all these years, except 

 the first ten years after locating in 

 Kansas. 



The past season, with hives of the 

 capacity I have mentioned, I took, 

 with an extractor, from nine colonies 

 of bees and their increase, 1,250 

 pounds of fine alfalfa honey and sold 

 nearly all of it at 25 cents per pound. 



Chase, Kans. 



(Dr. Bohrer is 86 years old, just a 

 little younger than Dr. Miller, and 

 about as vigorous. — Editor.) 



Apiary of O. A. Keene, Secretary of the Kansas Association. 



are protracted, and you know bees 

 go into winter at the lower and front 

 part of the hive. In case they con- 

 sume all the honey in the combs oc- 

 cupied, back to the rear end of the 

 hive, and the combs on either side of 

 the cluster of bees are covered with 

 frost, they cannot reach it and will 

 perish of starvation. With the 

 frames as I use them," said he, "there 

 is more honey above and to the rear 

 of the cluster." 



His logic could not be controverted 

 successfully. I at once concluded to 

 use his frames more extensively than 

 I had up to that time. But before I 

 did so I determined to move from 

 where I then resided to central Kan- 

 sas, which I found not adapted to 

 beekeeping, as there were no honey- 

 yielding plants in this part of the 

 State. I therefore kept no bees until 

 fruit trees began to bear and alfalfa 

 had been introduced. Then I began 

 again keeping bees and have adopted 

 the Jumbo hive body as a broodnest. 

 Bees winter quite well in it. In what 

 are known as the Southern States 

 the Langstroth frame is deep 

 enough, the winters being shorter 

 and milder. So there is no real dan- 

 ger of the bees being caught in the 

 rear end of the hive with the combs 

 frost-covered on either side of the 

 cluster. 



Like the writer of the article I 

 have referred to, I find the Jumbo 

 hive containing ten frames better 

 adapted to brood rearing, as it af- 

 fords more cell room for the use of a 

 prolific queen. A queen that cannot 

 populate a brood nest as large as the 

 10-frame Jumbo hive is not likely to 

 be of much value. 



I have used, and am still using, a 

 few 14-frame Langstroth hives, as 

 such hives afford about as much cell 

 room as the Jumbo 10-frame hive. I 

 find that nearly all the queens in 

 these 14-frame hives fill the cells 

 about as full of brood as the Jumbo. 

 I use these hives for storage pur- 



poses by piling one to three bodies 

 on top of each other. With a strong 

 colony of bees in the lower story, 

 they care for the honey until I get 

 ready to extract, which is not at all 

 times convenient. 



As a super I use the standard 

 Langstroth hive body, which is a 

 fraction over two inches deeper than 

 the super of the Dadant hive. 



As to the use of the queen ex- 

 cluder, I find it almost unnecessary 

 on the Jumbo hive, while on the 

 Langstroth hive about all the really 

 prolific queens go above in search of 

 cells to lay in. So I use the excluder 

 on the few Langstroth hives I have. 

 I have, however, so far failed to no- 

 tice that the excluder impedes to ap- 

 preciable extent the matter of ven- 

 tilation. 



A Letter From Ohio 



Having kept bees periodically for 

 forty years, I am writing the follow- 

 ing suggestions: 



Why not use a double or continu- 

 ous frame for the brood-chamber, so 

 that the queen, being easily disturbed 

 by obstructions, could have continu- 

 ous laying space in upper and lower 

 stories? The result of this plan is to 

 increase the amount of bees as well 

 as the storage of honey. 



My way of introducing virgin 

 queens is to take away all the brood 

 and eggs and make the bees anxious 

 for a queen. 



For wintering, it is my opinion that 

 bees are often covered too warm, or 

 rather too much moisture is held by 

 the covering. This freezes and later 

 melts to drip down over the cluster, 

 making moldy combs. 



J. A. DOUGHERTY, 

 California, Ohio. 



A group of bee lovers at the Keene apiary at Topeka 



