BEEKEEPING IN ARKANSAS 19 



or starve to death. To prevent robbing the entrance should be 

 almost closed up with grass or weeds. The bees in this hive will 

 care for the brood and also rear a queen, so that after about 21 

 days it will be a complete colony. A better plan than allowing 

 the bees to rear a queen will be to give them a ripe queen cell, 

 (one that has been capped over, and in which the queen is nearly 

 ready to emerge). This will save considerable time, and further- 

 more, such a queen will probably be better than the one reared 

 by a relatively small number of young bees. 



Another method of artificial increase is to remove the queen 

 and four or five frames with bees and brood and place them in 

 a new hive in another location. The extra space in both hives 

 is filled up with frames having full sheets of foundation. In the 

 old hive, if none are present, a ripe queen cell should be given 

 to the colony. If such is not available, the bees will rear a queen. 



Uniting Colonies. If in the fall the beekeeper finds that 

 some of the colonies have been dwindling and are not in the 

 condition to winter well, he should unite them so as to form 

 strong colonies. Nothing is lost by uniting; even if the number 

 of colonies is decreased, the number of bees remains the same. 

 There is this to gain: a weak colony may be robbed out in fall 

 or early spring, while a strong one will not. A method of unit- 

 ing very commonly used is the one devised by Dr. C. C. Miller. 

 This method is essentially as follows : The poorer queen of the 

 two, or the queen of the weaker colony is first killed. The cover 

 is removed from the stronger colony, and two thicknesses of 

 newspaper are placed over the hive so as to leave no openings. 

 The hive with the weaker colony is now lifted from its bottom 

 board and placed on the newspaper covering the stronger colony. 

 The cover of the upper hive should be slightly raised, about one- 

 sixteenth of an inch, to allow for a little ventilation. By the 

 time that the bees work through the newspaper separating the 

 two colonies, which may be 24-28 hours, they will have become 

 "acquainted" and little or no fighting will take place. 



Feeding. Feeding the bees often becomes necessary for 

 various reasons. When bees are transferred to a new hive with 

 nothing but full sheets of foundation because of foul brood, or 

 for any other reason, they should be fed once or twice. Many 

 beekeepers feed the bees in spring to stimulate brood rearing. 

 Feeding is more especially important, however, in fall when the 

 bees have failed to gather a sufficient quantity of honey to last 

 them thru the winter. In the fall the stores should be carefully 

 estimated and any shortage should be made up by feeding. A la 

 frame Langstroth hive with bees, pollen, and combs, but without 

 cover, is generally estimated to weigh about 30-35 pounds. So 

 the approximate amount of stores is obtained by subtracting 



