204 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



both honey and increase? In answer to 

 this I would say most decidedly, yes. To 

 get the best results in honey I prefer 

 hives of comb for my new colonies. I run 

 the whole yard with colonies of one and 

 two stories as may seem best, and when 

 they become over crowded I divide by 

 taking about two frames of the youngest 

 brood with clinging bees and the queen 

 and placing them on the old stand, the 

 parent colony having first been removed 

 to a new one and given a virgin queen, or. 

 if none of these are on hand, a laying 

 queen. Honey being coming in freely, I 

 simply roll this queen in honey of the hive 

 in which she is to be put and let her run 

 in, and she is seldom molested. This is 

 with me the quickest, simplest and most 

 satisfactory way of dividing bees; but to 

 be perfectly successful, conditions should 

 be right. First, the colony should be al- 

 most or quite as populous as it would be 

 for natural swarming; next, there should 

 not be too large an amount of brood in 

 the larval state left in the old colony. The 

 removal of the two frames of the young- 

 est brood to go with che queen usually 

 cares for this difficulty; and, lastly, there 

 should be plenty of young bees in the hive 

 to insure against too great a depletion on 

 the removal of the field bees by their re- 

 turn to the old stand. Bee-keepers in 

 their first attempts at division after this 

 manner often make mistakes by taking 

 too many bees with the queen, and also 

 by disregarding the condition of the brood 

 and the proportion of young bees, present 

 or coming out, and, as a penalty, lose 

 more or less of the larval brood and eggs. 

 If the method is understood, neither young 

 brood nor eggs suffer, especially if you 

 have a queen to immediately give them. 



I prefer drawn combs to foundation for 

 hiving a swarm; and I also give them an 

 upper story of comb at once. Frequent- 

 ly both upper and lower stories are quite 

 well- filled with honey on the next ex - 

 tracting day. but the more the better, as 

 1 extract ifc, iind now the queen gets down 

 \.c laying in earnest, and I am not troubled 

 thereafter with lack of brood. 



I avoid, wherever possible, any check 

 to breeding in any way throughout the 

 entire spring, summer or autumn seasons. 

 1 also expect every colony to furnish its 

 quota towards the honey crop, whether it 

 has one story only, or two, or three, and 

 this is done by taking their honey so as to 

 keep them constantly at work. 1 have in 

 this way trebbled my lot of bees in a yard, 

 besides taking an average of 170 lbs. per 

 colony, spring count, and, as I have sold 

 bees largely, as well as honey, these re- 

 sults in my yards have been ths means of 

 making some handsome sales of bees. 

 There is such a thing as keeping every 

 colony on the rush throughout the entire 

 honey season. If any begin to slack up 

 in energy, extract clean and divide them, 

 and if they fail then to come up properly 

 to the work, which is seldom the case, 

 break up the colony, or requeen them. 



As the honey season draws towards a 

 close, more honey should be left in the 

 hive, as it is unwise to take honey from 

 the bees merely to return it. 



SECURING GOOD G0MB3 WITHOUT USING 

 FOUNDATION 



I never wire my frames, very seldom 

 use foundation, and combs never become 

 too old for me to use; in fact, 1 would 

 rather have an old one properly cared for 

 than a new one. When I divide my bees 

 I never have the newly made colony 

 which has the old queen build any combs. 

 In case I need an additional supply, 1 re- 

 move every alternate filled frame in col- 

 onies with young queens just commencing 

 to lay, and 1 get combs as nearly perfect 

 as can be, and they are as nicely filled on 

 my next visit as if 1 had given them foun- 

 dation. 



Preston, Mini,., May 27. 1907. 



I The foregoing article illustrates that a 

 successful man must work out a system 

 adapted to himself and his surroundings, 

 and this system may be far different from 

 that of some other successful man. While 

 honey extracted from the sealed combs of 

 the brood nest is undoubtedly well-ripened 

 and of good quality, and it is possible to 



