54 ALEXANDER'S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 



honey in the hive below, and then only one entrance wliere the sun 

 can shine down on the bees through the hottest hours of the day. This 

 will make almost any colony restless, and frequently start a desire to 

 swarm. 



The honey-producer, until recently, has been justified in keeping 

 his queens longer than one year, for it is only since Pratt gave us his 

 method of rearing queens that we can have all we want early in the 

 season with only a little trouble. If you will do as I have suggested 

 in the above you will almost wholly prevent the desire to swarm. 



Next we will consider the matter of a steady harvest, with no lost 

 days, even if the flowers do fall to secrete nectar for several days at a 

 time. This can easily be acquired in this way: First divide your apiary 

 Into two equal parts as to number of colonies, but have all your strong- 

 est colonies in one part and your weakest ones in another. Then run 

 the weak colonies wholly for extracted honey and the stronger colonies 

 for comb honey; and attach a good practicable feeder under every hive 

 that is producing comb honey, and extract all you can from your weak 

 colonies and feed it to those that are working in sections. Be sure to 

 give them some every night. If the weather is fine, and they are getting 

 considerable from the flowers, it will not be necessary to give them 

 much; but if from any cause they fail to gather from the flowers, then 

 feed enough to keep them busy in their sections night and day, with no 

 stop until the harvest is over and every section is finished in fine 

 shape. 



Now don't say this can not be done, for I know it can. I used 

 to produce comb honey in this way twenty-five years ago, and I am 

 sure fifty colonies managed like this, with fifty more to furnish them 

 with honey during bad weather, to work over into comb honey, will 

 produce more first-class section honey than you could possibly obtain 

 from the 100 colonies if they were all run for comb honey at the same 

 time, as nearly all comb-honey producers do. The point is right here: 

 In this way your comb-honey-producing colonies can have a good steady 

 harvest from the day you put on your first clamp of sections until the 

 last section is finished, and that is what counts, both in quantity and 

 quality. 



Nor, don't get this method mixed up with that of feeding back at 

 the close of the harvest, but do the feeding when the harvest is on 

 and every thing is in proper condition to produce comb honey. Make 

 your extracted honey quite thin and give them one grand Ug harvest, 

 and you will see your sections finished as if by magic. With two clamps 

 of sections on, and a good young queen in the hive below, you need 

 not be afraid of their storing too much in their breeding-combs. Then 

 examine them often; and as fast as you can find five or six full sections 

 in a clamp take them out; don't leave them to become soiled and travel- 

 stained by the bees, in order that you may save yourself a little work, 

 and take off a whole clamp at a time; for, as sure as you do, your bees 

 are liable to sulk away their time and possibly fix for swarming. 



