THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



285 



space to deposit eggs in spring. Tlien 

 if this is the cause, what is tlie 

 remedy? Everything points to a 

 larger brood chamber. I\lore and 

 more I feel sure bee-keepers are 

 making up tlieir minds to this. 

 When we look at the little straw 

 hives used in Germany and other 

 countries we see clearly that our 

 fore fathers did not realize the 

 capacity needed for their bees, why 

 a good swarm such as we now have 

 in our large hives would fill one of 

 these little hives in two days on a 

 good honey run and have to swarm 

 out. To prevent this, we use and ad- 

 vise a very much larger brood 

 chamber and find that two of these 

 hives that we formerly used is none 

 too large to hold an adequate win- 

 ter supply of honey and is just as 

 much needed to hold all the brood 

 a good queen can supply up to the 

 honey harvest. And surely it would 

 be the height of folly to not supply 

 the queen with all the needed room 

 at such an important season. And 

 then we find it is the whole thing 

 to prevent natural swarming not 

 one of all these 200 hives here have 

 swarmed this year to my knowledge 

 and I believe I would know of it 

 if they had. It has not been as bad 

 a year for swarming as last year but 

 a lot of fellows have had to chase 



around after swarms and climb 

 trees. All of this might have been 

 spared by just putting another hive 

 body on the one the bees were in 

 about the first of May and then 

 putting on some honey cases early 

 so the bees could carry the honey 

 up out of this big brood nest to 

 give the queen room and go about 

 your business till you take off your 

 honey. If you want increase, you 

 can have it by setting these hives 

 apart and putting two more hives 

 on these, one on each and a queen 

 in the queenless one. As both our 

 hives used are alike and inter- 

 changeable 8 frames dovetailed 

 hives and both bodies boiling over 

 with bees no loss from absending 

 or other cause, no climbing trees as 

 these large hives, control swarming 

 naturally and give us the stuff and 

 save us untold labor and annoy- 

 ance and enable us to get unlim- 

 iteji quantities of comb honey of 

 the highest quality a most valu- 

 able thing as the production of 

 comb honey is most desirable in 

 so many ways. It is clean, it is 

 nearly double in price, and honey 

 in the comb is by far better flavor- 

 ed than extracted honey, and farth- 

 er its production should greatly as- 

 sist us in eliminating foulbrood. 



EDITORIAL CORNER 



The Mangrove buds are showing 

 up well, and if meteorological con- 

 ditions are "fit" the yield will soon 

 begin. When Mangrove does yield 

 well, a bee can get a load from a 

 single blossom. As the trees (or 

 high bushes) grow only on islands 

 in the salt water (or close to the 

 edge of the salt sea) the bees 

 have to pass in flight across areas 

 water-covered in order to reach 

 the bloom. On windy days many 

 bees are drowned in the water and 

 the hives must be kept very full 

 of bees to sustain the constant 

 drain on its numbers, due to the 

 depletion from drowning bees. It 

 is possible on windy days to see 

 hundreds of bees floating in the 

 water, between the main land and 

 the mangrove. — E. G. B. 



A W onderful Swarming Season 



We never had so many colonies 

 prepare to swarm during the clover 

 flow in June before. Weather condi- 

 tions were such that but little 

 honey was coming in during June, 

 excepting about enough to cause 

 brood rearing. Comb space did not 

 stop swarming preparations, the 

 consequncee was, we had to go 

 over our entire ten yards once a 

 week and shake those swarms that 

 were building queen cells, other- 

 wise we would not have had many 

 workers to gather honey when it 

 came, as we do not keep a man at 

 each yard to hive swarms. Each 

 year new conditions confront the 

 honey producer and one must al- 

 ways be ready to meet the changed 

 conditions. 



