MillerThousand AnswersBeekeepingQuestions.pdf - BioBees

138 DR. MILLER^Sdangers. One is that the strange bees introduced will kill thequeen (there is not very much danger that they will harm thequeen-cells) ; and the other is that the brood will be chilled orstarved. Generally more danger of chilling than starving.Unless a nucleus has bees enough to cover three frames, it isbetter not to introduce a frame of brood with adhering bees, lestthe queen be endangered. With regard to brood, there is littledanger of harm being done if bees enough go with it to cover anadditionalframe.In any case, the more mature the brood the better, and if thebrood is all sealed you may give a frame without a"ny adheringbees, and it will be safe in a nucleus of two or three frames, even •if there appear to be only enough bees present to cover well thetwo or three frames already present. One reason for this is in thefact fhat it does not require so much heat for sealed as for unsealedbrood. As soon as most of the young bees have emergedfrom the frames given, it can be exchanged for another, and thiswill generally allow you to add a frame each week.A nice way to do to have frames of brood ready to give tonuclei is to put an excluder over a strong colony with an emptyhive-body over it, and put into this frames of brood from othercolonies ;then, a week or ten days later, there being no youngbrood present, the frames will be fine for nuclei, whether you takewith them the adhering bees or not.Q. Being anxious to increase as fast as possible, I would liketo have your opinion about it. I read one article by W. Z,Hutchinson, saying that he made his increas'e by taking two orthree frames of brood from strong colonies and giving them alaying queen; but not being able to buy my queens, would it do totake a queen from one colony and let the bees rear a new queen?Please give me some of your best plans.A. It is not easy to say what may be the best plan for you.What is best for one is not always best for another. But takingthe plan you mention, you can do very well with a little variation.Decide which colony you think has the queen of best blood, andsee that it is strong, if necessary giving it frames of hatchingbroodfrom other colonies to strengthen it. You may even filltwo stories with brood. Call this hive A. When the time comesfor bees to begin making preparations for swarming, take thequeen with 2 or 3 frames of brood and adhering bees, and putthem in hive B, on a stand a rod or more distant. About eight orten days after taking the queen away from A—don't delay longer