1919 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



119 



Canada, where a honey-flow from 

 dandelion causes swarming at the 

 end of May in colonies that have 

 wintered well, and the honey-flow 

 from clover does not begin until the 

 end of June. It is simply the guid- 

 ing principle of spring management, 

 the raising of a maximum number of 

 bees in time for the principal honey- 

 flow, pressed, under specially favor- 

 able conditions, to a stage beyond 

 what is possible by following the ac- 

 cepted rules of management. 



With only one queen in the hive, 

 should early swarming take place, 

 there is the serious interruption in 

 breeding caused by the swarming and 

 the time taken for the old queen to 

 get into full laying again and the 

 young queen to get mated and attain 

 full laying. Should swarming be pre- 

 vented, the queen soon reaches the 

 limit of fecundity, and before long 

 the number of bees produced daily 

 ceases to increase. 



On the other hand, with two 

 queens in the hive, separated by a 

 double wire cloth division, if one of 

 these with her bees is removed to an 

 adjacent empty hive a few days be- 

 fore the swarming season begins, 

 there will be a steadily accelerating 

 production of young bees, provided it 

 is not checked by a honey dearth, a 

 condition that can be remedied by 

 slow feeding. 



From a hive of bees containing two 

 queens wintered at Ottawa in 1917-18, 

 that covered by 2 combs on April 25, 

 480 pounds of honey were produced, 

 while an average of only 223 pounds 

 each was produced in two colonies 

 of equal strength then, that con- 

 tained only one queen. However, as 

 only one and two colonies were com- 

 pared, and as one-half of the bees 

 that produced the large return were 

 fed during a part of the honey dearth 

 in June, and the other half consisted 

 of hybrids, these figures cannot be 

 regarded as conclusive. Yet there is 

 every indication that the gain will be 

 great. A satisfactory feature of win- 

 tering two queens in a hive and put- 

 ting one of them with half the bees 

 into another hive during the dande- 

 lion flow, is that some of the chief 

 troubles of spring management are 

 thus avoided. Early swarming is 

 prevented, and the inferior dande- 

 lion honey is turned into bees. 



These considerations have formed 

 the starting point of a system which 

 was evolved and tested last summer, 

 for getting the two queens estab- 

 lished in the hive and also for the 

 prevention of swarming without 

 much labor, which is one of the 

 great problems in northern apiaries. 

 This system, which consists essen- 

 tially in removing the old queen 

 from the brood-chamber during the 

 early part of the main honey-flow, 

 while two others are raised and 

 mated there, the wire-cloth screen 

 being again inserted and a special 

 portico placed in front of the hive to 

 prevent the young queens from meet- 

 ing or entering one another's sides 

 after the mating flights, has brought 

 other advantages in its train : the 

 annual requeening, the raising of a 

 greater number of young bees in 

 August for wintering than in a col- 



ony having only one queen ; and last 

 but not least, the removal from the 

 brood-chamber by the bees, to make 

 room for this brood, of a great deal 

 of honey, more or less unwholesome 

 for wintering, so that its place can 

 be filled with a wholesome mixture 

 of sugar syrup and clover honey fed 

 to the bees as soon as breeding has 

 ceased. A colony wintered well on 

 this mixture is 1917-18. In the writ- 

 er's opinion, unwholesome stores is 

 one of the greatest and most difficult- 

 to-remedy causes of winter loss in 

 many parts of Canada. 



This system is so different from 

 the ordinary methods of beekeeping 

 that it cannot be recommended, un- 

 less after extensive trial it proves 

 successful. All that can be said at 



B r on D 

 Two > Queen 



B a o o d 

 One Queen 



B n o o o 

 One. Quee 



Two Me.m/ Queens Two /Vew Queens 



JFERIOR HJNt'T 



BROOD 

 Two \Quet 



I NFERIOR HONEY 



BROOD 

 Two >Queens 



A\3C\js T 



COOD , STORES 

 Two i Queens 



GOOD ] STORES 

 Two i Queen j 



SEPTEMBER 



rimental plan with two queen 



present is that, after a small and 

 necessarily somewhat imperfect tri.il, 

 it has proved to be workable and 

 looks promising. 



During the clover honey-flow in 

 1918, thirteen colonies had their 

 queens removed from the brood- 

 chamber and eight days later all 

 queen-cells were cut out except two, 

 one on each side of the double wire- 

 cloth division then inserted, or two 

 special cells were substituted. In six 

 of these colonies fertile queens and 

 worker brood were found on both 

 sides of the division in early August 

 and in six more on one side only. No 

 swarming took place, although nearly 

 all the other colonies in the apiary 

 repeatedly built cells in preparation 

 for swarming. 



It was decided that a good way to 

 make good the failures, was to intro- 



duce with her brood in early August, 

 when the white honey was removed 

 and the super for dark honey was 

 placed on the hive, a selected old 

 queen, which, after her removal from 

 the brood-chamber at the commence- 

 ment of the honey-flow, had been 

 caged for eight days in the super, 

 and had then been placed in a weak 

 nucleus specially made for her, with 

 one of the combs containing a little 

 brood and a few bees from her col- 

 ony. 



Heretofore the only successful 

 method of swarm prevention at Ot- 

 tawa has been the finding and cutting 

 out of all queen-cells, entailing the 

 lifting off and on of supers, frequent- 

 ly heavy with honey, every week, 

 sometimes oftener, during the nine 

 weeks the swarming season lasts, 

 which is a great labor. If the above 

 method of preventing swarming, 

 which requires only two or three 

 easy manipulations, proves to be a 

 success on a large scale, as it has 

 already done on a small one, its adop- 

 tion will be justified, even though, 

 under some conditions, it may in- 

 hibit slightly the production of 

 honey, because it leaves the bee- 

 keeper free to manage a much larger 

 number of colonies, and it forms a 

 part of a system, several features of 

 which are calculated to considerably 

 increase honey production. 



The system constitutes a good con- 

 trol measure for European foulbrood, 

 and the annual requeening will elim- 

 inate losses from old and worn-out 

 queens that figure high in many api- 

 aries. 



Details of the experiments with 

 this system were given in the "Cana- 

 dian Horticulturist and Beekeeper" 

 for October, 1918. Ottawa, Ont. 



Honey From Tobacco 



Located as we are, in the heart of 

 the Florida shaded tobacco section, 

 we have had some little experience 

 with tobacco as a honey plant. Twice 

 in five years we have had a flow from 

 that source. First in 1915 and an- 

 other, and heavier, the past season. 

 Growers usually cut tobacco stalks 

 immediately after harvesting the 

 crop, and for that reason we have 

 had only the two flows, and are un- 

 able to say how long or heavy they 

 would be if stalks were left standing. 

 Harvesting tobacco is usually over 

 by the middle of July, and because 

 of the scarcity of labor the past sea- 

 son stalks were left standing for a 

 week or ten days longer than usual, 

 and during this time we got a sur- 

 plus. 



The honey is of heavy body, in fact 

 very heavy and dark, almost like 

 "Blackstrap" molasses. It has never 

 granulated with us, though it might 

 in a cooler climate. 



I cannot describe the flavor, but 

 you tupelo and clover producers need 

 not be alarmed. We do not claim it 

 to be better — nor do we expect to 

 take your "fancy trade" with it. A 

 mixture of "Star Navy" and "Brown's 

 Mule" chewing tobacco will give you 

 some idea of the flavor. 



J. T. DE LACY, Havana, Fla. 



