ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



91 



found when he was anxious to help 

 me out he was trying to help himself 

 out. Where I have taken brood out 

 of hives it was out of the very best 

 colonies that were already so crowded 

 with brood that they needed more 

 room. Therefore, this help -out is a 

 sort of back-hand slap at the twelve 

 frame hive. 



Mr. Hahman: One of the speakers 

 here has somewhat stolen my thunder. 

 I think the races of bees have some- 

 thing to do with the swarming im- 

 pulse. I had five colonies this year 

 on a plan somewhat similar to that 

 which Mr. Hutchinson has stated. I 

 put in a queen excluder a little late. 

 Two of them were Italian and three 

 Carniolans. They reared queens above. 

 The three Carniolans swarmed and the 

 two Italians didn't. 



Mr. Holterman: That is perfectly 

 correct, but nevertheless with over 

 300 colonies for the last two, perhaps 

 three years, you can add eight per 

 cent for swarms. I would expect the 

 Carniolans would swarm when the 

 Italians wouldn't. 



Mr. Klees: In these colonies where 

 you controlled the colonies to eight 

 per cent where they run for extracted 

 or comb honey? 



Mr. Holterman: Extracted honey. 



Mr. Miller: I do not have any Car- 

 niolans or Cyprians, but I have the 

 dark Italians and in the fore part of 

 the summer I raised a great many 

 queens in the upper stories over the 

 brood nests, and I never found a swarm 

 to be caused in any way or form 

 through the white clover season. The 

 young queens are over the excluding 

 zinc and they fly to the rear end of 

 the hive. 



Mr. Holterman: When I speak of 

 these stocks I mean a stock of bees 

 that is strong enough for the twelve 

 frame hive with sometimes four ex- 

 tracting supers upon it, and it is from 

 top to bottom. 



Mr. Miller: That is exactly what I 

 have. 



Mr. Holterman: Have you the con- 

 tinuous flow or breaks in that? 



Mr. Miller: This year was an ex- 

 ception, but generally we have but 

 one break in the summer, between 

 clover and buckwheat. 



Mr. riolterman: We have almost a 

 continu ms flow and conditions where 

 I think! it is difiicult to keep them 

 from swarming. 



Mr. Rea: Would hatching queens in 



nursery cases in a brood next in a 

 normal colony have any bearing on 

 this question? In my experience in 

 that case they never cause swarming 

 in the colony. 



Mr. Miller: During the cold weather 

 we worked our virgin queens that way 

 in nursery cases; and I have carried 

 them in the strongest colonies in the 

 yard during that clover flow we had 

 this season and I never found the least 

 inclination towards swarming. We 

 were running for extracted honey. 



The President: Perhaps we had bet- 

 ter- continue the subject in the pa- 

 per by the Rev. Mr. N. E. Cleaver of 

 Emporium, Pennsylvania, whether it 

 is practical and profitable for the aver- 

 age bee-keeper to rear queens for the 

 market. 



Rev. Mr. Cleaver then addressed the 

 convention as follows: 



Is it Practical and Profitable for the 

 Average Bee-Keeper to Rear Queens 

 for Market ? 



On October 9th, Mr. J. A. Green 

 wrote me requesting that I prepare a 

 paper for this convention on "Modern 

 Methods of Queen Rearing." On Oc- 

 tober 19th Mr. N. E. France wrote re- 

 questing a paper on the "Profits of 

 Rearing Queens for Market." The 

 same day Mr. L. A. Aspinwall request- 

 ed an article on "Whether it is Prac- 

 tical and Profitable for the Average 

 Bee-Keeper to Rear Queens for Mar- 

 ket." So I had requests from the 

 President, from the General Manager 

 and Treasurer, and from the Secretary 

 of the National Bee-Keepers' Asso- 

 ciation that I contribute something 

 from my experience toward the pro- 

 gram of this convention. Who could 

 decline an invitation so nearly unani- 

 mous? Even though he felt like a cer- 

 tain college professor at the Jenkin- 

 town Field Meeting who said, no doubt 

 facetiously, that he considered himself 

 abundantly qualified to discuss the sub- 

 ject assigned to him, in fact, he w-as 

 abundantly capable of handling with 

 satisfaction to himself and profit to 

 others any subject along the line of 

 bee-keeping, for he had been in the 

 bee-keeping business now for one 

 whole year. These eminent men who 

 so unanimously and so graciously ex- 

 tended this invitation to me have 

 known me to be in the queen rearing 

 business for one whole year. From 

 the professor's standpoint no doubt 

 they have encouraged the preparation 

 of this paper. But as proficiency de- 



