8 Kansas State Horticultural Society. 



inches' from it, and leaves were pushed down between the poultry netting 

 and the hive and packed in firmly. Of course I left an opening in the front 

 for the bees to come out whenever they desired to take a flight. After these 

 preparations were finished I felt quite satisfied and had no fears as to whether 

 my bees would successfully winter. I knew there was an abundance of bees 

 in each hive and that each had forty to forty-five pounds of stores left, that 

 they were wintered in two stories, so they had plenty of room for spring 

 brood rearing, and that they were protected not only by being well packed 

 but by being placed in the shelter of a dense windbreak. 



Having taken all of these precautions in the fall, the question of spring 

 management of my bees was reduced to a minimum. I knew they had 

 honey enough and room enough, and I could tell from the number of young 

 bees flying in front of the hives that each one must have a queen, consequently 

 I was able to postpone the first examination until very late in the spring, 

 thus eliminating a lot of needless and really harmful manipulation. 



Just before the honey flow began these colonies were examined carefully 

 and several frames of brood were found in each colony. As young bees were 

 emerging very rapidly, they were beginning to crowd the brood chambers, 

 thus bringing about a condition which would ordinarily cause swarming. In 

 order to prevent this the queen was located in each colony, placed on one 

 frame of brood, and confined to the lower brood chamber by a queen excluder. 

 The rest of the brood was placed in the upper story above the excluder. The 

 queen was now confined to the lower story with only one frame of brood and 

 had plenty of room for egg laying. The fact that the brood chamber was 

 no longer crowded by young bees stimulated the field bees to become more 

 active. When the weather became warm the hives were blocked up so that 

 they might be more easily ventilated, which also had a tendency to prevent 

 swarming. As the queens were very vigorous and filled the frames in the 

 brood chamber with brood, it was necessary to repeat this plan of separating 

 the queen from the brood several times during the summer. Our main honey 

 flow in the vicinity of Manhattan comes from alfalfa and sweet clover, and 

 the honey from these two sources is light in color, good in quality and com- 

 mands a good price. During the fall heartsease blooms abundantly. Hearts- 

 ease honey is a very satisfactory honey for the bees to pass the winter on, but 

 in this locality it is dark colored and strong to the taste; consequently it will 

 not bring as good a price as either alfalfa or sweet-clover honey. During the 

 summer I removed the alfalfa and sweet-clover honey and sold it, and left 

 the bees all of the heartsease honey which they had stored. The total crop- 

 from these four colonies of bees was over 400 pounds, which sold for $125 

 This sum of money invested in milk at 15 cents a quart would purchase the 

 amount of milk mentioned in the opening paragraph. 



SPRING CARE OF BEES. 

 The proper time, to begin preparing for the spring care of bees is in August, 

 of the preceding year, because it is then that a new queen should be into- 



thewinL Y T re " '"If DUmber ° f y ° Ung b6eS t0 ^-ssiully pass, 

 the winter. Young bees are able to undergo the hardships of winter and still 

 retain enough energy to carry on the heavy duties of spring brood rearing 

 During the month of September, or just after the first frost, "is th duty 



