Increase At Little Cost

In the author's book, "Practical Queen Rearing" is told the story of a modification of this plan which has been successfully used for some years. An effort has been made to find a plan of making increase which takes nothing from the parent colony, other than the honey needed to rear the brood comprising the new colony. This involves no risk, since the colony is not weakened by removing part of the field force, and the division is not made until the new colony is strong enough to provide for itself under any conditions.

If the bees can be kept from swarming and the young queen mated in a separate compartment, she can rear her own colony in due time, and they can be removed without reducing the product of the old queen, whose progeny will remain with the parent colony.

To begin with when the colony becomes populous place the queen on a frame of brood in an empty hivebody and fill out with empty combs. This is then set on the regular hivestand occupied by the colony. The working force coming from the field will find their queen with an abundance of room in which to lay. Now place a queen excluder over the hivebody containing the queen, and over this set another body filled with empty combs. On top of this is set the body containing the brood. A hole is bored in this upper hivebody to give the bees an extra entrance above. About twenty-four hours later a sealed queencell is placed in the upper story with the brood. The queen will shortly emerge and in due time will leave the hive on her mating flight, by way of the augur hole.

Within a few days she should be laying in the upper hivebody, while the activities of the bees with the old queen will continue without interruption in the lower story. Within three weeks all the brood from the old queen (in the upper story) will have emerged. The brood which now appears in the upper story is a net addition to the resources of the colony, and, when the upper story is nearly filled with brood, it can be removed and placed on a new stand without checking the work of the colony.

To illustrate: A strong colony was given a queencell as above described on May 21st. On July 14th, the upper hivebody with a young queen and seven frames of brood were removed to form a new colony. The strength of the parent colony was not apparently affected. Possible swarming had been prevented by placing the old queen in the empty hive below. There were two colonies as good as any parent colony and swarm that we had that season. There had been no risk or loss. The new colony was not removed from its parent until the young queen had laid the eggs and reared the brood to supply her own bees. Neither had the crop been cut short by dividing the parent colony at a critical time.

If desired the process can be repeated after removal of the young colony since by that time the old queen will have again filled the lower story with brood again. By starting early it is possible to make two or perhaps three new colonies without reducing the crop from the parent colony. If it is desired to requeen it is only necessary to remove the queen excluder and permit the two clusters to unite at will.

The Rauchfuss Method

During the height of his career, Herman Rauchfuss operated about 1800 colonies of bees for comb honey production. He was very successful in controlling swarming and making increase by a somewhat similar method the details of which follow.

He wintered the bees in two story hives with an ample reserve supply of stores, sufficient to carry the bees through the uncertain spring period. His main honeyflow came in August from alfalfa and thus provided a long period of preparation. At the beginning of the first spring honeyflow his two-story colonies would be full of brood and honey. A flight hole was provided in the upper body. This was lifted off and a comb honey super set in its place over the lower hivebody. On top of this super was placed a honey board with the escape hole covered with queen excluding zinc. The upper body was then replaced on top of the original hive with the super between.

This gave the bees an opportunity to pass back and forth between the two compartments but the small hole through the escape covered with excluding zinc did not facilitate free movement. The bees soon used the flight hole in the upper body freely.

At the end of eight or nine days the division containing the laying queen was removed to a new stand. All cells were cut from the queenless portion remaining on the old stand which was then given a newly emerged virgin queen. If he had been too busy to rear a sufficient number of queens he made use of ripe queencells in the queenless portion, making sure that one was given to each new division.