INSTANTANEOUS INCREASE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3312, 5 September 1917, Page 8

INSTANTANEOUS INCREASE.

One day I drove to one of my outyards, intending to introduce a few queens. I found that one of the colonies that I had marked for requecning had relieved me of the job by superseding- their queen, which left me with one queen that I had no place for. As many of the colonies were so strong that they could spare both brood and bees I decided to form a new colony, little thinking that by so doing I was stumbling on to a method of increase that I had often wished for —a method that would give me comb-builders, nurse bees, field bees, and a laying queen, the whole job being completed at one trip to the yard. I placed the bottom board and empty hive-bocly on a new stand with a cover and super cover near by. The exti;a.ncq was plugged with grass, except a 2in hole in the centre. I then filled the hive-body with bees and brood from colonies that had plenty to spare; and after putting on the cover, introduced the queen by the smoke method. I returned to the yard after dinner, and because of the unusual amount of activity at the new colony my first thought was robbers; but I found the excitement was due to the young bees taking their playspell. Then I saw something else which is very unusual with artificial increase. Old bees were coming and going just as they do in any normal colony. My curiosity got the best of me, and, even though I had just introduced a queen, I looked inside the hive. The queen was there doing business, and no one would have /magined that the colony had been made artificially less than six hours before. With all other forms of artificial increase that I have any knowledge of. the old bees will return to the hivo they were taken from, leaving the colony made up largely of young bees, too young to do field work. The only explanation I can offer why they do not do so with this plan is that they are taken from different colonies, and are thoroughly mixed up, and that they received so good a smoking when the queen is introduced that, when they are released, they mark the new location. * Before I left the yard I put on a super, and at my next trip I found the colony just as far advanced as any in the yard. Knowing full well that one trial does not prove the merits of any method. I kept on trying, and the results were always the same. After repeated trials I found that the best time of the day to make the increase is in the early morning while the old bees ai-e at home. In that way a better force of field bees is secured. There is another factor that may have something to do with the success >f this method. My queens are all raised and matured at my home yard; and when caged to be taken to the outyard I do not. put in anv escorts, neither do I provide any food, so' the method of introducing that I use might be called a combination of the starvation and the smoke methods. I have seen quite a number of unfavourable reports on the emoke method, but up to date I have had but one failure, and then the fault was not with the method but ■with the man who. was using it. I knowthat queens taken from one colony and put into another one inside of an hour are very onsilv accepted, but I have also used the' plan with queens that have been ill the mail from two to five days.—Gleanings.