14 Circular No. 69 



all queen cells but one should be cut out, to prevent after- 

 swarms. 



On the other hand if no increase is desired, the parent 

 colony is placed beside the swarm, with entrance in the same 

 direction. Keep all queen cells cut out and one week later, 

 when the bees are in the field, remove the parent colony and 

 scatter the brood among the other colonies. The returning field 

 bees will enter the new hive, since both colonies have apparently 

 been on one stand. 



The wings of all queens, except the virgins, should be clip- 

 ped, to prevent losing the swarm and in order to keep a record 

 as to which are old and which are young queens. When the 

 swarm issues, the clipped queen can be found on the ground near 

 the entrance of the hive. She is put into a queen cage, which 

 is placed at the entrance of the hive ; when the bees have started 

 going into the hive, she is released and allowed to go in with 

 them. In clipping a queen, gently grasp her by the waist or 

 thorax and, with fine-pointed scissors, clip the ends of the two 

 vikings on one side. After this is accomplished, gently place her 

 on the frames where she will crawl down among the bees. 



Fall Feeding and Wintering 



In sections where the winters are long and severe, as is 

 sometimes the case in Kentucky, and when brood-rearing is sus- 

 pended for several months, the colony should go into the winter 

 with plenty of stores and some kind of protection from the cold 

 weather. Much of the loss during the winter months comes 

 from one of three causes, viz. : Lack of sufficient food, lack of 

 winter protection or lack of enough young bees to go thru the 

 winter. 



Feeding. At the approach of winter every colony should be 

 lifted to ascertain the amount of stores. A 10-frame colony, to. 

 have sufficient stores, should weigh between fifty and sixty 

 pounds and should contain at least thirty pounds of honey. If' 

 this amount is lacking, honey or a sugar syrwp should be fed. 

 Honey from some unknown source should (irrer ie fed. on ac- 



