174 



THE BEE-KEEPERS- REVIEW 



ver harvest, or what it may be. Here we 

 have heartsease, so the "setbacks," or old 

 colonies, after being drained of bees for 

 ten or twelve days, are given a queen and 

 allowed to build up ready for the late 

 flow. During this late flow the working 

 forces are run from as many inferior 

 stocks as we wish to get rid of, and at a 

 good deal of increased amount of fall 

 surplus; and when the brood is all hatched 

 from these bee-robbed colonies the honey 

 can be extracted, and we can do as we 

 please with the old combs. 



Maquoketa, Iowa, Jan. 22. 1906. 



[The idea of controlling increase, or 

 preventing swarming, by allowing the 

 bees to build a new set of combs on the 



old stand, and utilizing the young bees as 

 they hatch out in the old combs, is gain- 

 ing ground. Shook swarming is practi- 

 cally this plan, if the bee-keeper so elects. 

 Mr. Atwater described such a plan re- 

 cently; that of putting the old brood nest 

 below a new brood nest and allowing tha 

 hatching bees to come up through a piece 

 of queen-excluding metal. Mr. Lyman 

 has a plan that is fully described in the 

 Extracted Department for this issue. Mr. 

 Coverdale would simply cut out the brood 

 and put it in a box by the side of the old 

 hive. Seems to me this would be a messy 

 job, and I think 1 would prefer either the 

 Atwater or the Lyman plan to this, but 

 there is nothing like actual practice to 

 decide these questions. — Editor.] 



How to Use a Queen Excluder in Ex- 

 tracted Honey Production. 



B. E. CROWTHER. 



WHEN the colony is strong enough in 

 the spring, set a body of empty combs 

 on top, draw one or two frames of brood 

 from the middle of the brood nest, put 

 them in the upper story and replace them 

 with empty combs from the body. 



If there is plenty of honey, the queen 

 will lay these empties full very soon; and 

 the operation can be repeated in a few 

 days if the weather is favorable and the 

 queen does not spread enough of her own 

 accord. If there is plenty of honey, and 

 the queen is prolific, even a third or fourth 

 story may be needed. 



In this way, the queen is encouraged to 

 do her best up to the time when the work- 

 ers from her eggs will be of no use in the 

 harvest, which begins here about June 

 10th to 15th; at this time I put in the ex- 

 cluder just above the first story, first 

 making sure that the queen is below. 

 Some of the frames from below may be 



removed if desirable to still m.ore restrict 

 the queen. 



So far, there is but little swarming, 

 and no great army of bees is left after 

 the harvest to consume what has been 

 gathered. It is an easy matter, in a poor 

 locality like this, to run a colony for ex- 

 tracted honey in such a way as to have 

 most of the surplus (?) consumed in rear- 

 ing and sustaining bees after the harvest 

 is over. 



It would seem that this might be a 

 good vv'ay to work out-yards, especially 

 if one did not favor brood-spreading. 

 Omitting that, it would not take more 

 visits than other plans, and in localities 

 having a fall flow (we have one here of 

 more or less value) they will be in fine 

 condition for winter; anyway the honey 

 saved in this way would pay for the feed- 

 ing many times over. 



No. KiNGSviLLE, Ohio, Jan. 17, 1906. 



