4 TIIE CONNECT! CUT AGRICUTjTUEAL COLLEGE EXTENSION SERVICE. 



After the packing is removed, each colony should be 

 looked over carefully to ascertain its condition. We wish to 

 know whether each has sufficient stores, whether the queen is 

 laying well, whether she has all the room she needs, and wheth- 

 er there is any disease in the hives. The three essentials for ev- 

 ery colony at this time are stores, room, and frotection; of 

 which stores and room are of the most importance. Colonies 

 must have abundance of food or they cannot live and develop. 

 If they have abundance of food but have not room in which to 

 rear brood, they cannot become strong enough to produce sur- 

 plus honey. A very common result of not providing room 

 enough at this time of year is to induce swarming. Bees can- 

 not cast swarms and produce surplus honey at the same time. 



Building tjp Colonies in the Spring. 



After the bees are taken out of winter quarters, they should 

 be provided with all the room they need for brood rearing. If 

 they were not wintered in two bodies, they should be given a 

 second body at this time. If the colony is strong in young bees, 

 it will make use of this second body very readily, but if it is 

 slow about using the extra room, it may be well to raise two or 

 three, frames of brood from the bottom body into the center of 

 the top one, in this way distributing the bees through both. A 

 good queen will easily occupy two ten-frame bodies, and some 

 extra good ones will do better than that. At this time of j'ear 

 an abundance of room for brood rearing is of great import- 

 ance, because we cannot get a large crop of honey without a 

 large force of field bees. 



Disease Control. 



It will be evident to every beekeeper after a little thought 

 that it is impossible to build up strong colonies if disease is 

 killing off the brood. There are two brood diseases of bees 

 prevalent in this country that are of especial importance, call- 

 ed European and American Foulbrood.* These are both 

 very destructive and very contagious. European Foulbrood 

 gets in its most destructive work during the spring brood 

 rearing period, but American Foulbrood may be present in 



