April 28, 1904. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



313 



leased, yet in their eagerness to protect the qaeen they may carry tlic 

 thing too far, causing her death. Cells may be started when the 

 queen is first balled, and then when she is released they may or iim.\ 

 not be torn down. It is possible that the queen was alive and well, 

 unless you saw her dead body. Of course you can decide easily by 

 this time, as there will be eggs if the queen is all right. 



2. Your plan will tend to greater assurance of safety. 



3. Yes, it will be easier tor you and safer for the quten. Don't 

 fool with bees when they are not Hying freely, anyway. 



4. That depends. One who has been in the habit of catching the 

 queen, after clipping hundreds, would hardly be bothered with any- 

 thing of the Ivind, but it might be (juite a help to many who have not 

 had such experience. 



Pastenins Coml) Foundation In Sections. 



Jn reading your book, "Forty Years Among the Bees," I have 

 come to the conclusion that you can put foundation in sections tietter 

 than I can. I am a beginner, and fastening foundation in the sec- 

 tions bothers me more tlian anything else. I use the Daisy founda- 

 tion fastener, and do the best I can, and carry the supers from the 

 shop to the hives as though I had soap-bubbles, the foundation in 

 some of them will come out. The 4i4X't'4 sections are not as bad 

 about it as the 4x5. If you will tell me how to put foundation in 

 sections so I can put the supers in a wagon and drive to an outapiary, 

 it will be a great help to me. Ohio. 



Answers. — When you vigorously shake a super of sections, the 

 foundation should be so well fastened that none drops out. It is possi- 

 ble that you don't have enough heat. Turn up your lamp so that the 

 plate will be so hot that the wax will begin to melt as quickly as it 

 touches. Of course you must move rather lively or more will be 

 melted thau you desire. If the starter is of large size it will be neces- 

 sary to hold it after taking it from the machine just a very short time 

 before turning it over, thus giving it chance to cool a little. 



Getting Combs Built to the Bottom-Bars— Wintering 

 Bees. 



I have been keeping bees for :i years, and have 15 colonies. I had 

 20 last fall, and lost 4. One was loo light, and 1 queenless, so I united 

 them. I hunted all my bees the first year, 7 swarms, and that was 

 late (July 2('i), but they wintered well. I want logo right on and run 

 for comb honey. 



1. As I cut out all the crooked and drone comb, I saw all the 

 combs are about 1 inch from the bottom-bar. I am thinking of tip- 

 ping the hive upside down when in the best comb-building. Will that 

 work? Will it make any difference if the honey is down and the 

 brood up for 3 or 4 days? I think they will fasten it on, and then I 

 would turn it over again. 



2. Would it be better to winter bees outside, or in a cellar where I 

 can't get the temperature over 33 degrees, and sometimes less than 31 • 



Wisconsin. 



Answers. — 1. Yes, if you reverse the frames when bees are 

 eagerly building comb, they will build to the bottom-bars, and there 

 will be no trouble from having cells wrong side up for a few days. 



2. It will probably be better to have them well packed outdoors 

 than in a cellar never warmer than 33 degrees, unless yon take them 

 out every time it is warm enough for them to fly. 



Early-Reared ftueens— Laying Workers. 



Last fall I had 5 colonies of bees when winter commenced, but 

 soon twoof them died, which must have been queenless. One of the 

 3 that was left I wintered outside, but wrapped it up good, and put it 

 in a warm place. The winter has been mild here, and this colony 

 wintered all right. The other 2 colonies I put into the cave; it was 

 cold in there, but not as cold as it was outdoors. I put them in about 

 Dec. 1, and they did not have a night until March 1. At first 1 did not 

 give them enough air above, and they got damp and wet. When I 

 took them out there was a lot of dead bees and mold on the bottom- 

 board. I cleaned them all oft, and the colony seemed to be weak and 

 queenless. After a flight, I put them liack until about March IT, then 

 set them on the summer stands. I could not find a queen in one hive, 

 while in the other the queen had gone to laying. I found one piece of 

 comb with a few eggs and some larvae. I took this and gave it to the 

 queenless colony. I tried to start a queen-c^ll or two by enlarging 

 every other cell, but the bees did not care about my help. As soon as 

 I gave them this comb they set up a hum such as I had not heard in 4 

 or 5 days. I looked at this comb and they had sealed all that wa.s 

 ready to seal, and had started 2 queen-cells; one had alarva in, but the 

 other had nothing. All the rest of the eggs were gone, no sign of 

 them left, and the bees had straightened up the cell that I had spoiled. 



1. Will they rear themselves a good queen out of this? All the 

 eggs were in worker-cells. 



2. Will this queen be good, as there are no drones, and will not be 

 for quite a while? 



3. How can I save these bees* I have been thinking of giving 

 them a frame of lirood, now and then, from the other hives, as they 

 increased. How would this do' 



4. Will this queen lay before she mates with the drone? If she 

 does, will her eggs hatch ; If so, will they be drones, if laid in worker 

 and queen cells. 



5. How can she lay eggs, and what power have they to hatch; 

 (Great is the mystery of bees : i 1 have read a small ABC book on 



bees, and Dr. Miller's " Forty Years Among the Bees," and yet this 

 worker-laying business is a conundrum to me. I also read the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal, but this is one thing I cannot see into, and feeding 

 the queen-egg royal jelly — where do they get that? They cannot get 

 anything excepting what is inside of the hive. Nebraska. 



Answers. — 1 and 3. Queens reared unusually early are not likely 

 to be good, and the case will not be helped by the absence of drones. 



3. By giving them sealed brood from time to time from other colo- 

 nies you can build up this colony to be the strongest in the lot, and 

 have them rear a good queen later on. But that will cost more than 

 it will come to, for the gain to this colony will not balance the loss to 

 the others. Y'ou will be the gainer in the long run if you will unite 

 the queenless colony with another having a good queen, or perhaps 

 dividing its forces between two or more colonies. Then when all be- 

 come strong you can have a new colony or colonies, and have more 

 bees by the middle of June than if you had tried to keep the queenless 

 colony going. 



4. She may or she may not lay before being fecundated ; and if 

 she does, all her eggs will produce drones even if laid in worker or 

 queen cells. 



5. A worker-bee is a female, but with reproductive organs not 

 fully developed. Under certain circumstances not merely one worker 

 but a large number of them will take up the egg-laying business; and 

 there is no reason why the eggs should not hatch just as well as the 

 unfertilized eggs of a queen, for the queen's eggs that produce drones 

 are all unfertilized. The nurse-bees produce the royal jelly just as 

 they produce the food for the worker-babies (the royal jelly is about 

 the same thing as the food fed to the youngest workers or drone- 

 larva'), by eating what they find in the hive — honey and bee-bread. 

 You don't understand all about it — neither do I; I'm glad to learn 

 what little I can, even it I don't fully understand it. 



Spacing Extracting-Prames— Plain Zinc Excluders- 

 Porticoes on Hives. 



1. During rainy weather I nailed up a lot of shallow extracting- 

 frames, but when it came to spacing I stopped. The top-bars of these 

 frames are 'h of an inch wide. If I space them with staples I believe 

 those staples will always be in the way in the extractor. What is the 

 quickest way to space such frames, when placing supers on the hives, 

 and how far apart from center to center* 



2. From reading, I see there must be queen-excluders of zinc in 

 using extracting-supers. I ^ there room enough for the bees to crawl 

 through if I lay the perforated sheet directly on top of the frames ? or 

 would it be better to lay 34-inch slats across the frames, and the sheet 

 on these ? 



3. Of what USB is the portico on some styles of hives '. Iowa. 



Answers.— 1. With top-bars and end-bars only ',,' wide, any spacer 

 would likely be a good deal in the way when extracting, so loose- 

 hanging frames may be the best thing under the circumstances. The 

 quickest way to space will probably be by eye and finger. Practice 

 will help greatly. While pushing each frame up to place it will help 

 to let a finger be between this frame and the preceding frame; but if 

 your eye is well trained you may not need the help of the finger. Ex- 

 tracting frames may be spaced anywhere from 1^^ to 2 inches, al- 

 though few would favor as much as 2 inches. Of course there should 

 be uniformity in spacing. 



2. Yes, there will be plenty of room for the bees to pass through if 

 the sheet be laid directly on the top-bars. 



3. It is supposed to protect from the wind any bees inclined to 

 take a promenade on the alighting-board. It also furnishes a nice 

 protection for spiders, and is not much used nowadays. 



Queen-Cell Cups-T Supers. 



1. Are there queen-cell cups for sale in the market? Mr. W. H. 

 Pridgen said, in 1900, that the time is at hand when cell-cups will be 

 on the market; but I have never seen them advertised. Do you use 

 them? If so, are they a success' Would not old queen-cells do to 

 breed in again if larvic and royal jelly were transferred into them? I 

 would like to use cell-cups, but fear I have not ingenuity to make 

 them. ,, . ^. 



2. I can't imagine what kind of T supers you use. \ ou say in the 

 Chicago-Northwestern convention report that it is in four pieces, and 

 if you are not careful you will have those four pieces scattered around, 

 etc. Now, I have been using T supers for .years, and would not ex- 

 change them for any supers I ever saw. And as for the slotted sec- 

 tion-holders, I would not have them as a gift. Mine are of a style 

 made up by Elvin Armstrong. They were praised at the time, but he 

 went out of the supply business years ago, and I have never seen any 

 representation by any of the factories. The T's are supported by a 

 strip at the bottom, and when the sections are on they can not get out 

 of place. Then when the sections are all in I put a set of T's on top, 

 and when they are all fastened in I could throw them over a fence and 

 they would not come apart. If 1 had a starter on either side of the 

 section I could put the super on either side. I could not get them 

 made to order until I sent a sample to the factory. I think if you had 

 them you would be satisfied with theui. Iowa. 



Answers. 1. I don't know whether you can get cell-cups from 



dealers or not. I think they are not quoted in the catalogs. One year 

 I bought quite a number from W. H, Pridgen. They are a success, 

 but where one is rearing queens merely for his own use, it is as well, 

 or better, to let the bees start their own cell-cups, as described in 



