Denison, Iowa.
ANSWERS.--1. I have contracted down to five, four, three, and in some
cases down to only one or two combs, having no combs built in the
brood-chamber. A division-board or a dummy was next to the comb or
combs left, and the space partly filled with dummies. One or two years
I filled in the vacant space with hay. If two dummies were put in next
the brood-comb, with half an inch space between them, there was no
trouble about combs being built in the vacant space left. But please
notice that there was no queen in the hive. Without a queen, bees don’t
seem so intent on building comb, but with a queen you would likely find
them clustering in the open space left beyond the two dummies, there to
build combs.
With the queen left in the hive, as in your case, you should have
filled up the vacant space in some way, so the bees couldn’t occupy it.
If the space for the brood-nest is limited, the tendency of the bees is
to build additional combs at the side, even if one or two dummies are
in the way. Perhaps it is not necessary to have the dummies so close to
each other as you get farther away from the brood-nest. At the farther
side, next the wall of the hive, the bees are not so likely to commence
building, even if the space is an inch or more.
I doubt if any one would advise you to contract all summer. I think
contractionists would tell you to hive a swarm on five frames, then
after those five are well occupied, and the bees working well in the
supers, to add the other frames. Some of them might perhaps tell you to
take out part of the frames from an old colony, but I rather think that
now-a-days contraction is mostly confined to swarms. I don’t, however,
count myself the highest authority on contraction, for after having
done a good deal in that line I have gone back to the plan of allowing
same number of combs summer and winter.
2. Yes, put an empty frame into the middle of a brood-nest at a time
when there was any likelihood of swarming, and I should expect a
good share of the comb built to be drone, especially if there was no
drone-comb in the other frames.
3. Bees having a young queen are not so likely to swarm as those
having an old one, and rearing a queen in a hive in the fall would not
interfere with the harvest as would rearing one before the harvest.
4. There might not be much difference, only the later a queen is reared
this year, the younger she will be next, and the less likely to swarm.
5. Yes, I’ve done that very thing, and I would keep on trying, for you
will not get through with the trying for a good many years.