THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



109 



until all cold weather is over in the 

 spring. When unpacking, the movable walls 

 are taken from the back of the hives, the 

 sawdust shoveled into gunny sacks and piled 

 overhead under the roof, to be kept dry and 

 handy for use again. 



Any hive can be used in the house, but we 

 have made a special one for house use that 

 has many advantages and is plain and cheap. 

 The entrances through the sides of building 

 are 14 inches wide and one-half inch deep, 

 and the alighting boards are 8x16 inches, 

 and are so constructed as to receive the 

 swarm catcher. 



The building is sided with good stock 

 boards 12 inches wide, and the cracks neatly 

 battened. But if we were building again 

 we would use matched flooring for the sides 

 and leave battens off. The roof is shingled 

 and the ventilator is a galvanized chimney 

 suitable for receiving a stovepipe if one 

 should ever be required. The passage way 

 from the walls of house to hives is covered 

 by a movable strip of suitable thin wood. 

 The door is in the we5t end and hung on the 

 outside. In the east end there is a sliding 

 sash of six lights of glass, 10x14, on the in- 

 side; on the outside there is a revolving wire 

 cloth screen for ventilation, and to let bees 

 out when handling swarms. There are es- 

 capes to let bees out at all times. 



In the alley between the hives there is a 

 movable table, 2x() feet, to work on in hand- 

 ling hives. There are also shelves in suit- 

 able places to hold the queen excluding 

 honey boards, bee escape boards, and all 

 other things needed in the house manage- 

 ment. We intend to have six swarms in the 

 attic — three in each gable, but will not rec- 

 ommend this feature until we have used it a 

 while. 



This building will cost about two dollars a 

 colony for each swarm, and is built and 

 painted in a neat and thoroughly lasting 

 manner. A much less costly house would 

 answer every pratical purpose. We intend 

 to build one or more cheap ones, for out 

 apiaries, this season, and when we get one 

 of them finished will describe it. 



The house foundation is ten cedar posts 

 set 3 feet in the ground and projecting an 

 average of K! inches above ground. The 

 house stands southeast by northwest, so as 

 to let the sun shine on both sides." 



The Conditions Under Which Bees Gather 



the Most Honey, and How we Can Make 



This Knowledge the Most Profitable. 



It will be remembered that in the last Re- 

 view was given an extract from an article 

 by C. J. H. Gravenhorst, published in his 

 paper in Germany. In this article were 

 pointed out the five requisites of an ideal col- 

 ony for storing honey. These requisites 

 were a faultless queen ; plenty of empty 

 combs : swarming at the proper time or not 

 at all : not too many bees and not too much 

 unsealed brood during the harvest. In the 



next issue of his paper Mr, Gravenhorst tells 

 how he takes advantage of this knowledge, 

 and I have condensed somewhat the trans- 

 lation furnished by Mr. Spaeth and present 

 it below : 



" A queen may be faultless in the fall, and 

 fail in the spring. To discover this failure 

 early in the spring and give the colony an- 

 other queen is all-important. To introduce 

 a queen with no danger of loss, remove the 

 poor queen and all of the combs, giving the 

 latter to some colony that can care for them 

 temporarily. Allow the bees three or four 

 frames with starters only. Give them the 

 new queen in a cage. Watch closely and see 

 what kind of comb they build. If it is drone 

 comb they will not accept the queen. Cut it 

 out and let them start again. If no honey is 

 coming in they must be fed. When they be- 

 gin building worker comb it is a sign that 

 they have accepted the queen and it is safe 

 to release her. The second day after her re- 

 lease three or four of the brood combs are 

 returned. The remainder are given the next 

 day. As a rule, queens are not kept after 

 the second year. If the colony with the new- 

 ly given queen does not prove diligent, ex- 

 change three or four of its combs for the 

 same number of combs of sealed brood taken 

 from the most industrious colony in the 

 yard. 



The second point is that of supplying col- 

 onies with abundance of empty combs. 

 When the bees build their own combs there 

 is not only the loss of the honey that is con- 

 sumed to furnish the wax for comb building, 

 but the bees that are secreting the wax and 

 building the combs could be gathering honey 

 were they not thus employed. I have always 

 worked with all my power to have on hand a 

 sufficient supply of comb, but I must admit 

 that I have sometimes wished that I had 

 more. At such times I would have given 

 much if I could have gotten Warnstorf's 

 combs, but his discovery is of recent date 

 and I was obliged to use foundation which is 

 a great help, but not the equal of completed 

 combs. (The Warnstorf combs with full 

 depth cells, cannot be used for raising comb 

 honey as they are twice as heavy as natural 

 comb, but they are excellent, strong combs 

 for use in extracting.) 



The third point is that the bees swarm at 

 the right time— that the mother colony has 

 a fertile queen and the young colony has its 

 brood combs completed before the main 

 harvest comes. Colonies that make prepa- 

 rations for swarming at the height of the 

 harvest, or towards its close, miss the best 

 opportunity for honey gathering. A swarm 

 that comes late can but build its combs and 

 secure a store of honey for winter, while the 

 parent colony will not become sufficiently 

 populous until the harvest is past and gone. 

 At the end of the season the bee-keeper will 

 stand before his colonies and complain of 

 the average season, or, perhaps, the poor 

 season. The only strange thing about it is 

 that colonies "X" and "Z" have done all 

 that could be wished. At least, they have 

 gathered twice as much as the others. By 

 close searching after the causes of these 



