BEEKEEPING IN THE SOUTH 



57 





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Fig. 20. A handy funnel' for filling packages. 



lem has disappeared. They are enabled to remove enough 

 bees, often as many as five or more pounds from each of their 

 strong colonies, and the hatching brood after this depletion will 

 usually bring the colony to full field strength for the beginning 

 of the main honey flow. By giving plenty of room at all times 

 and watching the yards carefully, they experience little further 

 trouble from swarming in average years. Thus, the combless 

 package has a demand in the North and in the South, and solves 

 a real problem at either end. 



Rearing Queen Bees. 



Another prominent feature of beekeeping in the South, in a 

 belt of country wider than that from which combless packages 

 may be shipped, is the early rearing of queen bees for the market. 

 This belt extends up into Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and 

 Arkansas, where the same long, slow nectar flow early in the year, 

 common in many parts of the South, is ideal for the production 

 of good queen cells and the rearing of vigorous queen bees. 



