THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



331 



some requeening in the expensive time of 

 spring' or else eliminate those colonies, all 

 of which calls for labor that could have 

 been more cheaply supplied the preceed- 

 ing fall. 



But Mr. Taylor's outright loss of colo- 

 nies is less than other men report. Mr. 

 Townsend reports a loss of fifteen per 

 cent., and farther on, without giving 

 specific numbers, tells of a lot of small 

 colonies that called for special treatment, 

 which means labor and lessened average 

 yield. 



1 contend that much of the labor item 

 of both of these gentlemen could have 

 been saved by requeening their colonies 

 at the proper season, which here is in late 

 July. Mr. Taylor reports a loss and dam- 

 age to queens in introducing which shows 

 that he is not yet a master of that art. 

 Mr. Hutchinson, you can give him points 

 on it. 



The cost of rearing the queens is much 

 more than offset by having all of the col- 

 onies of the same strain and all queens of 

 the same age. It means a uniformity of 



work by the colonies which saves an im- 

 mense amount of labor. It means, when 

 combined with a wintering system fitted 

 to the climate, that the spring overhauling 

 is eliminated. Recently I was talking to 

 one of Massachusetts' studious bee-keep- 

 ers, and in discussing the economics of the 

 art, he spoke of the labor necessary, and I 

 asked him how many times he opened his 

 colonies for inspection from the beginning 

 of spring until he put on the supers, and 

 he said: "It will average six times." It 

 seems incredible that so keen a student of 

 bee life had not found shorter cuts. When 

 1 told him that of 100 colonies 1 never 

 saw the inside of most of them, except at 

 requeening time, and not always then, he 

 wanted to know the trick. It was solely 

 in knowing the stock with its traits, and, 

 as all queens in an apiary are of the 

 same age, all colonies are so near alike 

 that a superficial examination of work at 

 the entrance or a glance under the frames 

 or over them reveals all I need to know. 



Providence. R. I., Sept. 29, 1907. 



'ik^>4^^:f<:^ 



Helpful Hints in Extensive Bee- 

 Keeping. 



E. D. TOWNSEND. 



•TjDITOR Hutchinson: -On page 245, 

 iZ August number of the Review, under 

 the head of "Re-queening an Apiary," 

 after describing my method of letting the 

 bees attend to this supersedure business 

 themselves, you say: "I can see only one 

 weak point in his argument: Is he always 

 sure that each location is fully stocked;" 

 my system being to keep bees enough in 

 each apiary to secure all of the honey in 

 that locality, even if some of the eld 

 queens do play out during the heavy 

 breeding season of spring. 



Now, 1 have my glasses on, and they 

 are nicely adjusted, still I cannot see why, 

 with the system I follow, that I'm any 

 more lame than those who re-queen each 

 year; as to knowing how many colonies a 

 certain location will support. 



EVEN IF LEFT TO THEMSELVES, 50 PER CENT 

 OF THE COLONIES RE-QUEEN THEMSELVES. 



Let US look at this matter a little, and 

 by so doing we may come to some under- 

 standing on this matter. We will sup- 

 pose a queen to live three years, and do 

 the necessary work of the hive. Now, 



