38 



ADVANCED BEE-CUr.TURE. 



to force this higher priced honey into the 

 sections, and allow the bees to fill the 

 brood combs, later on, with winter stores 

 from such sources as yield honey that 

 brings a lower price. When it is desir- 

 able, either from its cheapness, or from 

 its superiority as a winter food, to use su- 

 gar for winter stores, contraction of the 

 brood nest can be so managed as to leave 

 the bees almost destitute of honey in the 

 fall, which does away with the trouble of 

 extracting, and leaves nothing to be done 

 except to feed the bees. Such, in brief, 

 are the advantages of contracting the 

 brood nest. Where the honey flow lasts 

 nearly the whole season, with no long 

 periods of scarcity, and the quality of 

 honey is uniform throughout the season, 

 and no advantage is found in substituting 

 sugar for honey as winter stores, I see 

 little need of contracting the brood nest, 

 and would advise that it be of such size 

 that an ordinarily prolific queen can keep 

 the combs well filled with brood in the 

 early part of the season; but where any 

 of the first mentioned conditions exist, 

 the bee-keeper who neglects "contrac- 

 tion " is not employing all the advan- 

 tages that are available. 



As a rule, I don't advise the contrac- 

 tion of the brood nest of an established 

 colony. If it does iiot properly fill its 

 hive, is too weak, and the time for put- 

 ting on sections has arrived, then contrac- 

 tion is necessary if the colony is to be 

 worked for comb honey. But when a 

 colony completely fills its hive and has 

 its combs well filled with brood, I doubt 

 if much is gained by contracting the 

 brood nest. So long as the combs are 

 kept full of brood, the surplus will go in- 

 to the supers. If any of the combs of 

 brood are taken away, they must be cared 

 for by other bees somewhere else, so 

 nothing is gained. 



It is in the hiving of a swarm that I 

 have found contraction of the brood nest 

 advisable. Years ago some of the "big 

 guns " in apiculture were given to la- 

 menting the swarming of bees, because, 

 they said, with the swarm went all hopes 



of surplus. As the business was then 

 conducted, the "big guns" were correct 

 in many instances. The swarm would be 

 hived in a ten-frame hive, and no supers 

 put on until the hive was filled. If they 

 were put on they would not be occupied 

 until the lower hive was filled, and by 

 the time that this was accomplished it 

 often happened that the white honey har- 

 vest had passed. If the old colony did 

 not swarm (usually it did), some return 

 might be expected from that, unless the 

 season was nearly over. In most of our 

 Northern States the crop of white honey 

 is gathered within six weeks, often with- 

 in a month. If a colony is in condition 

 to begin work in the suoers at the open- 

 ing of the white honey harvest, and con- 

 tinues faithfully at work without swarm- 

 ing, as I have already said, no contraction 

 is needed, but, suppose the harvest is half 

 over, the bees are working nicely in the 

 supers, there may be one case of sections 

 almost ready to come off, another two- 

 thirds finished, and a third in which the 

 work has only nicely commenced, now 

 the colony swarms, what shall be done ? 

 By hiving the swarm in a contracted 

 brood chamber upon the old stand, trans- 

 ferring the supers to the newly hived 

 swarm, and practicing the Heddon method 

 of preventing after-swarming, work will 

 be resumed and continued in the supers 

 without interruption, and the surplus will 

 be nearly as great as though no swarming 

 had taken place. 



Where the brood-nest has only one tier 

 of frames, the only way by which it can 

 be contracted is by taking out some of 

 the outside combs, and filling the space 

 these left, by the use of "dummies." A 

 "dummy" is simply a brood frame with 

 thin boards tacked upon both sides. It 

 hangs in the hive and occupies space the 

 same as a comb, only it is a "dummy" 

 just as its name indicates. A frame wider 

 than a brood frame may be used, and 

 this will make the "dummy" thicker. 

 Don't have a dummy touch the side of 

 the hive, then the bees cannot glue it 

 fast. How thick a dummy should be, de- 



