200 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



June 



On November 17 they had their last 

 flight, and on the 25th I brought them 

 into the cellar. Our cellar, in my 

 opinion, is not a very comfortable 

 place for bees or anything in general. 

 The most objectionable thing about 

 it is its dampness. The temperature 

 varied from 35 to 50 degrees I can 

 only add that although the combs 

 were a little mouldy when I removed 

 them. 109 days later, those bees win- 

 tered well and were in excellen! 

 dition the following spring. 



I got the fever worse than ever and 

 began to figure on beekeeping on a 

 larger scale, or as much as my capital 

 would permit. During the winter of 

 1918 1 made plans to purchase a few 

 more swarms in the spring. My 

 father was handy with carpenter 

 work and he agreed to make hives, 

 bottom-boards, covers and frames if 

 T furnished the lumber. Accordingly 

 I purchased some 10-inch white pine 

 boards. I wanted to be strictly up- 

 to-date, so the 10-frame hives, metal 

 spaced frames, double telescoping 

 covers and Dr. Miller's 2-inch_ deep 

 bottom-boards were made. This has 

 always been my equipment, and I 

 think it will continue to be until I 

 discover something better. After 

 purchasing some queen-excluders of 

 the wood and 7-wire type, and some 

 brood foundation, I had equipment 

 enough for five or six swarms. I 

 wired my frames and put in full 

 sheets of foundation. 



In the spring T purchased four 

 more swarms of black bees from a 

 neighbor, paying $3 apiece for them. 

 They resembled the first swarm I 

 purchased, very much, but perhaps 

 not quite as bad. One nice day in 

 the latter part of March I transferred 

 them into my modern 10-frame hives, 

 filling the vacant spaces witli some 

 combs I had on hand from the pre- 

 ceding year. I also found and 

 clipped the queens at the satin time. 

 At first I found them by sifting the 

 bees through a queen-excluder, but 

 after a little practice I got SO 1 could 

 distinguish them readily while "n 

 the comb. These bees seemed to be 

 of a gentle disposition, and T com- 



menced to wonder what a person 

 wanted with Italians. Of course. I 

 found out why a person wanted Ital- 

 ians bet'. re the .summer was over. 

 On April 1 they commenced to work 

 on the willows, which are the first 

 honey-plants in this vicinity. About 

 the 1st of May the dandelions make 

 their appearance, while tin- willows 

 generallv continue to blossom until . 

 the 15th. 



Like all beginners, I had drawbacks, 

 and the worst one was my lack of 

 combs. My best substitute was full 

 sheets of foundation. Along about 

 the first of May most of the colonies 

 commenced to need more room. All 

 those that were strong enough to 

 need it I gave another story of 

 frames with full sheets of foundation. 

 For several reasons, I always put 

 this second story below the other 

 one. As the nights were still very 

 cold, occasionally, I felt safer by ad- 

 ding them below, as it enabled the 

 bees to keep up their normal tem- 

 perature. An empty super is a bad 

 thing to place over a colony in early 

 spring. Besides, I wanted to induce 

 them to do as much brood-rearing 

 as possible, and I noticed they worked 

 down easier than they worked up. 

 The main reason, however, for my 

 putting them below was to be able to 

 put queen-excluders on after a while, 

 allowing the brood to hatch from 

 those old combs, in the top story, so 

 that I might extract from them as 

 soon as possible and get rid of them. 

 When the colonies were strong 

 enough to need it, a third story was 

 added. As the bees always showed a 

 tendency to store their honey above 

 their brood, this story was given on 

 top. 



During the first days in Tune the 

 white and alsike clover began to ap- 

 pear. All the colonies were three 

 stories high now, and things com- 

 menced to look pretty lively. I had 

 been going through them once a 

 week, regularly, up to this time, look- 

 ing for signs of swarming, queen- 

 cells, etc. While going through 

 them on the 9th day of June T saw 

 all the queen-cells one could ever 



wish to see. I had been looking for 

 a chance to try some experiments, 

 and here it was. I found the queen 

 and put her with a frame of brood 

 into an empty story below. On this 

 I placed a queen-excluder and put 

 tin cither three stories of brood and 

 honey on top of it. Ten days later I 

 removed all the cells in the upper 

 stories. The foundation in the lower 

 story where the queen was, proved 

 to be all drawn out and fairly well 

 filled with brood and eggs. On going 

 through the colonies a week later I 

 discovered that two of the colonies 

 were starting cells again. With 

 these I went through with the same 

 performance again, but instead of 

 giving the queen one frame of brood 

 below I gave her three or four, as I 

 did not like to remove more brood 

 than necessary to discourage swarm- 

 ing. This I thought had settled the 

 swarming fever for the season and I 

 was almost correct in so thinking. I 

 did not see a swarm until the last 

 part of August, when I found a small 

 swarm hanging out about 4 o'clock 

 in the afternooon. Upon investigat- 

 ing I found one of the colonies ha .1 

 superseded their queen and when the 

 virgin hatched they swarmed. 



And now we come to some figures. 

 This is the best part of beekeeping. 

 My best colony produced 125 pounds 

 of extracted honey. My next best 

 colony produced 89 pounds and the 

 others 80, 65 and 59 pounds, respec- 

 tively. This makes a total of 418 

 pounds, or an average of 83 pounds 

 per colony. This honey was all sold 

 at home, the purchaser furnishing his 

 own container; 300 pounds of it was 

 sold for 15 cents per pound. 100 

 pounds for 18 cents per pound, and 

 the remainder for 20 cents per pound. 

 As there were no expenses paid for 

 containers, the net amount I re- 

 ceived for the honey was $66.60, an 

 average of a little better than $13 

 per swarm. 



Browerville, Minn. 



H. E. Roth, of Str 



Why Did These Bees Die? 



I had a peculiar experience with one 

 colony the past season which I 

 concluded to tell you about. It 

 came through last winter in good con- 

 dition. Last spring, when dandelion 

 was in bloom I put on a super of 

 24 sections. The 20th of Max this was 

 filled with honey, so I took it oil and 

 put on another super, bul before the 

 bees were strong enough to enter the 

 sections the first honeyflow was over. 

 I looked at them several times, lint 

 there was nothing doing till the last 

 of August, when 1 examined them 



and found a few bee-- in threi Or four 

 sections and some of the foundation 

 cleaned out in those sections. I con- 

 cluded it was so late tiny would not 

 do much more, so I did not examine 

 them again till a warm day in Janu- 

 ary, when 1 noticed no bees flying. I 



k I iff the cover and found the sec- 

 tions all filled and sealed with a nice 

 quality of honey. 1 took oil tin- super 

 and examined the brood chamber 

 anil found the two outside combs 

 filled with sealed honey. The Othei 

 ribs had honey at the to,, and 

 ends of the frames and the centers 



