FEEDERS 41 



Both the eight and ten frame hives arranged in this manner are 

 in general use. 



Ben G. Davis, of Tennessee, the well known breeder of 

 Goldens, is an advocate of strong nuclei which are capable of 

 passing through a dearth or other unfavorable season without 

 much fussing on the part of the queen breeder. With five hun- 

 dred or a thousand weaklings, the queen breeder finds it a very 

 difficult matter to carry on operations under adverse conditions. 

 Mr. Davis feels that the extra cost of these stronger nuclei is 

 cheap insurance against a poor season. Figure 12 shows his 

 big nuclei, where a ten frame hive is divided into two parts, 

 each with four frames. These nuclei are strong enough to store 

 sufficient honey to winter them successfully under normal 

 conditions, and the time saved from fussing with daily feeding 

 and constant attention more than repays the larger investment. 

 Then there is no trouble whatever in stocking nuclei formed in 

 this manner. All that is necessary in order to increase the 

 number, is to remove one or two frames of emerging brood from 

 a strong colony, for each nucleus, give them a queen or ripe 

 cell and let them build up slowly during the summer, as one 

 young queen after another is mated and permitted to begin 

 laying. 



Feeders. 



Some kind of feeder will be necessary to stimulate the cell- 

 starting and cell-building colonies, at such times as no honey 

 is coming from the field. If small nuclei are used, it will often 

 become necessary to feed them as well. Since nearly every 

 apiary is provided with feeders of one kind or another, it hardly 

 seems important in a work like this to enter into a discussion 

 of the different types of feeders in the market, and the special 

 merits of each. The Doolittle division board feeder is very 

 popular among queen breeders, as is also the Alexander bottom 

 feeder. However, practically every type of feeder now in the 

 market is in use somewhere in a queen-breeding apiary. The 

 Penn Company, of Mississippi, use a Mason jar with small 

 holes in the metal cover. This is inverted in a round hole in 



