March, 1912.] 



227 



Live Stock. 



BEE-KEEPING IN CUBA : 

 CLIMATIC CONDITIONS AND THEIR 

 EFFECT ON APICULTURE. 



By D. W. Millar. 



(From the Gleanings in Bee Culture, 

 Vol. XT? XIX., No. 23, December 1, 1911.) 



Both my partner, Mr. Curnow, who for 

 fourteen years has studied and experi- 

 mented with bees in the tropics, and 

 myself find many rules and regulations 

 for handling bees discussed in Gleanings, 

 which would be of no value here, more 

 than would many of our methods be in 

 the North. However, of late there has 

 been much discussion on swarming foul 

 brood, increasing, etc., where we believe 

 our methods would apply, and while 

 they may be old and worn out they are 

 the best we know about here, and we 

 have read nothing similar. On account 

 of the difference between bee-keeping in 

 the North and in the tropics, about all 

 we know we have had to figure out for 

 ourselves. So far as I know there is 

 nothing published on tropical bee-keep- 

 ing. This is why many Northern bee- 

 men, and the best, have had difficulties 

 in this country. Possibly what I have 

 to say may start something that will 

 help us. 



All our new blood, which we believe in 

 introducing regularly, is pure Italian, 

 although we prefer the dark leather- 

 coloured bee, which comes from a pure 

 queen mating with a hybrid drone. 

 They have the three distinct bands, but 

 cannot be pure, although they pass as 

 such. However, we make no special 

 effort to breed for them, as we keep our 

 apiaries as nearly pure as is possible, 

 where there are so many black bees in 

 the country, "We make our hives, after 

 the pattern of the ordinary American 

 single walled hive, out of native cedar, 

 and all other wood parts the same. For 

 rabbets we use a piece of No. 24 galvan- 

 ized iron, 7/8 wide by 14, fitted into a 

 slot sawed to slope a trifle inward, in 

 the dapping of the hivehead, the slot 

 being just deep enough to allow the 

 proper height above for the frame to 

 rest on. This, we find, saves time and 

 nails, and gives a smaller surface for the 

 frame to stick to. The ten-frame-size 

 hive is our preference, but in the honey- 

 super only eight are used. These will, 

 il properly spaced, be filled with as 

 much honey as ten ; and as we go in for 

 extracted honey almost exclusively, 

 there is less work in extracting. 



Moving Short Distances at Night. 

 Many long methods for moving colo- 

 nies from one location to another have 



been given, but we find here the simp- 

 lest and best way is to move the hive at 

 night, and to place a bottom-board or 

 some noticeable object in front of the 

 entrance for the next day. The bees' 

 attention will be called to the change in 

 this way, and the new location marked. 

 This we got from Anna B. Comstock in 

 " How to Keep Bees." 



Removing Brood to Control 

 Swarming. 

 We avoid swarming, if increasing, by 

 removing surplus brood with adhering 

 bees to a new hive, giving them a new 

 queen. If we do not care to increase, 

 we place a super of foundation on the 

 bottom below the honey board ; place 

 the queen in this, and the bees will come 

 down and get busy, We then destroy 

 queen-cells if there are any above. 

 After the brood above has hatched and 

 cells are cleaned, honey will be stored, 

 and they will have had enough to do 

 without swarming until they forget 

 about it. 



Foul Breed Need not be Epidemic. 



Foul breed is contagious but not epi- 

 demic here, and we consider ourselves 

 negligent if it gets beyond one colony. 

 When we notice symptoms of any kind 

 we place a small sack of moth-balls 

 between the frames. If it is of the 

 European variety, we then remove the 

 diseased brood to the honey-super, 

 where the unaffected portion will hatch 

 and the other will be cleaned out by the 

 bees. We do not consider this conta- 

 gious. If American foul brood, we get 

 a new hive and place it entrance to 

 entrance with one diseased. We place 

 in the new hive a full healthy frame of 

 hatching brood, shaking off all old bees 

 and the queen, filling the rest of the 

 super with foundation, An escape is 

 placed on the entrance of the old hive, 

 and left for thirty days, then what re- 

 mains is burned in the old hive. A sack 

 of moth-balls is placed in each hive. 



Rapid Increase. 

 Recently we noticed that someone 

 wanted to know how best to increase 

 his bees rapidly. We should like to 

 know bow to keep them from doing so, 

 or, rather, what to do with them as 

 fast as we can increase at a profit. If 

 we want a hundred or so to increase, we 

 take from the strongest colonies of 

 hatching brood one or two frames, or 

 whatever we can without debilitating 

 the old colony in the least. We place 

 one frame in a new hive between two 

 of foundation ; add foundation as fast 

 as needed, and usually in six weeks we 



