INVESTIGATION PERTAINING TO TEXAS BEEKEEPING. 
_ EXPERIMENTS IN ARTIFICIAL DIVISION AND SWARM- 
CONTROL. 
By WILMon NEWELL. 
So far as his other duties permit, the State Entomologist conducts 
experiments with honey-bees with a view to perfecting or improving prac- 
tical methods of handling them under Texas conditions. 
The experiments described herein were made during the season of 1912 
in the writer’s apiary of sixty colonies, located on the Brazos river in 
Brazos county. Unfortunately, the number of colonies included in each 
experiment was smaller than desirable, but owing to the fact that the 
writer has to conduct other research work for the Experiment Station, 
has charge of the foul brood eradication for the State of Texas and in 
addition is obliged to handle a large correspondence throughout the 
entire year, it has been impossible for him to maintain and care for 
a larger apiary. For the same reason, the experiments here mentioned 
are relatively simple ones. The fact that very little in the way of experi- 
mental work with bees has ever been done in Texas is our only justifi- 
cation and excuse for publishing these results. The reader may rest 
assured, however, that the experiments, as far as they go, have been made 
with painstaking care, the records are precise and accurate, and the 
yields of honey given are exact to the pound. 
NATURE OF THE EXPERIMENTS. 
The apiary contained for the most part three-banded Italians, several 
Carniolan colonies and a few hybrid colonies. 
The first line of experimentation was to test different manipulations 
in their effect in discouraging or retarding swarming. In connection 
with this the honey production of the colonies treated by the different 
methods was also determined and compared. : 
The second line of observation was that of determining the comparative 
production of honey by both Halian and Carniolan colonies, kept in the 
same yard and under the same conditions. 
All the colonies were domiciled in the standard ten-frame dovetailed 
hives, with Hoffman style brood-frames, the combs being in nearly all. 
cases built from full sheets of foundation. The supers used were all of 
the shallow extracting type, frequently referred to as the “Ideal” by many 
Texas beekeepers. 
The production of colonies, as given below, has reference in every case 
to extracted honey, and particular pains were taken to determine the 
vield of each colony with accuracy. When the full supers were taken 
from the hives, the hive number was marked on the super with chalk. 
When carried into the extracting room the super was weighed and its 
number and gross weight set down in the record. The honey was then 
