MillerThousand AnswersBeekeepingQuestions.pdf - BioBees

THOUSAND ANSWERS 27anything at repairing the capping, and if everything is full belowthey are to a certain extent compelled to deposit the honey above.If a good fall flow comes, that may start an increase of broodrearing,and the bees may empty some of the honey from thebrood-chamber into the super. If no fall flow comes, there isdanger, as you suggest, that brood-rearing will be so limited thatthe colony will not be so strong for winter. Yet there is thiscrumb of comfort in the case, that if there is nothing for the beesto do in the field they will not grow old so rapidly, and will notdie off so fast, so that, after all, they may not be so very weak forwinter.With extracting-combs there is less inclination to cram thebrood-chamber, yet if the bait-sections be as fully drawn out asthe extracting-combs the difference should be very little, unless itbe that extracting-combs that have been used as brood-combshave greater attraction for the bees than comb that has never hadanything but honey in it.Are you sure that your colony has enough ventilation so thatthe bees may be comfortable in the upper story?Brood-Chambers, Two-Story.—Q. Would you approve of theplan of using two brood-chambers, one on top of the other, toenlarge the brood-nest of 8-frame dovetailed hives? I do notwish to keep more than 6 or 8 colonies, but I would like to keepthem strong.A. Decidedly. It often happens that before the clover harvestis over, a good queen will be hampered in a single 8-frame hive,and then it's a good thing to add the second story. But if youare working for comb honey you should reduce to one story atthe time of putting on supers. That can hardly be said to be reducingthe room of the colony—merely giving the room in thesuper in place of the brood-chamber.Q. At about what date do you contract from two-hive bodiesto one, and do you do it by shaking? I assume that most of theworkers must be left in the single chamber, so that the gatheringforce there may be as strong as possible.A. You will find in "Fifty Years Among the Bees," that aboutas soon as clover-bloom begins, or at least within ten days afterseeing the very first blossom, I give section-supers, and at thattime I reduce to one story, leaving in that one story all the broodI can, and all the bees, shaking or brushing all the bees from thecombs I remove.Brood Dead.— Q. This fall we doubled up on a few colonies byputting the weaker colony on top and a sheet of newspaper be-