This method includes those systems of management in which the operator confines the queen to a brood chamber of one or more hive bodies in which he tries to maintain a brood nest of ample proportions with enough clear, usable worker cells to permit the queen to lay freely during those times when her offspring will be of value to him.

Mere use of a queen excluder does not produce a clear brood nest though it may be used as a help in securing one; but if queen excluders are used without consideration of the behavior of bees under management for honey production, the result may be restricted instead of clear brood nests.

The Eight Essentials Of Practice In All. Clear Brood Nest Systems

Eight essentials practiced by successful operators are here given, so that a progressive beekeeper may consider them in connection with different systems of management, and formulate a plan adapted to his own conditions. All these practices are subject to modifications according to local conditions and personal preferences.

1. Keep the brood chamber full of allworker combs and clear enough of honey and sealed brood so that there is always plenty of room for the queen to deposit as many eggs as needed. This is a prime essential. The use of queen excluders or of some other effective method of controlling the location of the brood nest is necessary.

The Modified Dadant hive is particularly adapted to controlling the movements of the queen without the use of a queen excluder. With its large brood chamber and shallow supers properly used, few queens go into the supers and those that do are driven down by honey storage in the supers. No excluders are used in the Dadant system.

The 10-frame Langstroth hive may also often be used successfully in this way when the two-story CLEAR BROOD

NEST system is used as discussed later on.

2. Keep all colonies approximately uniform in strength. In the spring they should be in standard spring condition. In the honeyflow they should be of standard honey storing strength.

3. Keep all colonies queenright by requeening whenever the desired uniformity is lacking. Whenever conditions indicate the need of it, be it annually or oftener, the queen is replaced so the colony is queenright at all times when it should be queenright. This is important.

4. Nuclei in full sized hives are commonly employed to provide a stock of queens for replacement and to make increase. Roomy 4-frame nucleus boxes may also be used.

5. All laying queens are clipped or similar control and record is obtained in some other way.

6. For swarm control, each apiary is visited or worked every eight to ten days during the swarming season. If the system used minimizes swarming, less frequent visits may be enough.

7. Colonies are handled in such a way that the bees remain good tempered.

An apiary with all colonies of standard honey-storing strength gets the honey. (Glenn Jones and Newman I. Lyle, of Iowa, in Lyle apiary. )

8. Control or eradication of American foulbrood and other diseases is insured by frequent inspection and careful management.

Three Systems of Management by the Clear Brood Nest Method are as follows: 1) the one-story clear brood nest system using one Langstroth or Modified Dadant hive body as the brood chamber;

2) the two-story clear brood nest system using two Langstroth hive bodies as the brood chamber throughout the year; and

3) the two-story clear brood nest system using two Langstroth hive bodies for wintering and for the brood chamber until the beginning of the honey flow, after which the colony is confined to one hive body, or, in some locations the colony may be wintered in one hive body, the second being added early in the spring.

All these systems are good if practiced intelligently, but two systems should not be used in the same apiary except for experiment. The one to be used depends on the preference of the operator, and on his experience and equipment, as well as on the location and on whether comb or extracted honey is to be produced.

For extracted honey, the Modified Dadant hive system or either of the two-story clear brood nest systems with the Langstroth hives is good. Two story brood nest systems require less labor and more equipment than the one-story Langstroth hive system which is particularly well adapted to comb honey production. However, although a one-story brood nest system requires a minimum of equipment, it requires a maximum of labor unless the brood chamber is larger than the Langstroth, as is the Modified Dadant. The one-story system is especially valuable in studying the behavior of bees and in keeping in close touch with colony performance and locality factors while the operator is working out a system of management adapted to his personality and location.

This discussion of management applies to the use of Italian bees and the Langstroth hive or Modified Dadant. If some other race or hive is used, modifications of procedure are necessary.