GENERAL QUESTIONS
ANSWERED BY
DR. C. C. MILLER,
Marengo, Ill.
In this department will be answered those questions needing IMMEDIATE attention, and such as are not of sufficient special interest to require replies from the 20 or more apiarists who help to make “Queries and Replies” so interesting on another page. In the main, it will contain questions and answers upon matters that particularly interest beginners.—Ed.
Contraction—Improvement in Bees.
I tried contracting the brood-chamber of four colonies during basswood honey-flow, and three of them would persist in building comb on the vacant side of the dummy. One even got so far as to have quite a comb there, (mostly drone-comb) with the queen laying in that side.
The combs in the brood-chamber were very nearly all worker, and instead of the queen using them, and the bees storing above, they capped them over half full of honey. They worked in the super some, but not like bees ought to when there is a good honey-flow. They had, I think, five Langstroth frames, maybe six.
I fitted a thin piece of board over the vacant part of the brood-chamber. One of the four stayed “contracted” all right. It had six frames. This one was a new swarm, and worked all right in the super, but re-swarmed in August.
1. I would like advice on contracting, and how to do it. Ought I to contract all summer, where the bees get enough honey to breed strong all the time? Also, there is lots of pollen here all summer.