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208 



TENTH ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE ' 



for our honey harvest. I take this 

 all away, and I take the old queen and 

 put her in the cage, and cage her 

 up in there. Now you can do one of 

 two things, you can take the queen 

 away entirely and let them start some 

 cells, or give them some of these 

 choice cells, or leave the old queen in. 

 Preferably, I have left the old queen 

 with the hive. 



There is one little point I have not 

 had experience enough with to lay 

 down as an orthodox rule, and that is 

 whether those queenis' will start arti- 

 ficial cells with the intention of using 

 them for swarming purposes or not. 

 Ijast year mine did n'ot. So that until 

 1 find some reason to change, I will 

 cage this old queen in there. Tou 

 must have at least one part of the 

 empty comb in there to catch the 

 pollen so that it doesn't get in the 

 boxes. Then with a piece of zinc 

 on this little bit of shallow hive I put 

 on the supers. I have been gratified 

 and more than pleased with the way 

 those bees will put the honey in the 

 hive. The3' haven't anything to do 

 but bring in honey and store it in the 

 boxes. There is no brood to amount 

 to anything to take care of. 



Now, I presume you people will 

 think I am scrimping the queen's egg- 

 laying capacity. Not in the least. 

 I have all the eggs, I have all the 

 bees, I have all the queens laying at 

 all times, and any time I want them. 

 From the 1st to the 5th of July I 

 want all the queens possible begin- 

 ning to lay. I think I can safely say 

 if we will destroy a queen just as 

 soon as the honey harvest is com- 

 ing we can double our clover crop. 

 That is my experience. Some three 

 or four years ago, in handling my 

 bees about the 2iO'th of June, I killed 

 a queen, accidentally, and looking 

 there a little later I found the hive 

 crammed full of honey, at least double 

 the honey that any other hive had 

 produced, and the hint wasn't lost. I 

 believe I am right in saying if we 

 can keep the energies of our queens 

 up to the highest standard, that our 

 white honey harvest will be at least 

 double. 



Now, I want to shift this to extract- 

 ed honey. I think it will be a good idea 

 to use that little thing right along 

 in connection with extracted honey. 

 But, suppose you don't want to. I am 

 going to digress a little bit and go 



back to our old management. Now, 

 here we have the 20th of June, our 

 great quantity of queen-cells — 'Wehave 

 them: to use, the ibest of them. Now, I 

 set this upper brood off on the side. 

 If I want to let this old queen keep 

 on laying I prefer to cage her. But 

 this one now is a little weak because', 

 it is moved off its new place, or you 

 may leave it on the old stand. She 

 hatches out, and she is a laying queen 

 aljout the 3d of July, just right for 

 my fall honey-flow. If your flow is a 

 little earlier than that, and you want 

 to follow out this manipulation, do it 

 a little earlier, corresponding with 

 your season. Now then, I have got 

 these two queens laying the first of 

 July, both <yt them for golden-rod. 

 This one has her young queen, and we 

 have a chance to test her a little bit. 

 If her bees happen to prove a little 

 inferior, I give her a mark that I 

 don't want to use her. I may have a 

 queen in "this hive a year old that I 

 prefer to that one, but not very often. 

 When the golden-rod honey comes, I 

 kill one of these queens, usually the 

 oM queen, and I think hereafter I 

 shall put this little bit of shallow hive 

 on and call that the ihive, because that 

 'Wiill fix the bees in much better shape, 

 for winter quarters; it will give them 

 a capacity of about 11 frames, and 

 that little - passageway between the 

 frames, it seems to me, will put them 

 in pretty good order for winter quar- 

 ters. A'bove this we put our zinc 

 hoard. Above this we" put all that is 

 left after killing the queen, brood, 

 hive and honey, we put that on there 

 for surplus. There are two powerful 

 colonies of bees ready to go into the 

 fall supply. This year I have found 

 I needed another set of combs on 

 there to give the bees room. We have 

 had a pretty cold fall, and some of 

 my best colonies that have been treat- 

 ed in that sort of way have filled this 

 all full of honey this fall. 



Now, you can imagine the condi- 

 tion those bees are in for the winter. 

 They have had the bees from two 

 queens right through the honey har- 

 vest — the worker bees — and they go 

 into winter quarters much stronger; 

 than they would with one queen, and 

 I find that my honey crop Is very 

 much increased by this plan. 



A member — Do you get any increase 

 at all, then? 



Mr. Cyrenius — No, sir, I sihould have; 



