Sept. 1, 1904. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



601 



In any case, it was a mistake to use sections that had been 

 left over winter with honey in them. The soured honey 

 would be left in the comb to spoil that which was added, 

 and even if it was not soured it would be granulated, and 

 the least particle of granulated or candied honey in a sec- 

 tion will have a bad effect on the rest. 



The thing that should have been done was to have had 

 the sections cleaned out dry by the bees last fall before it 

 had time to granulate. 



Your plan of feeding the honey to weak colonies is prob- 

 ably all right, for the " queei- taste " is not likely to make 

 it unwholesome for the bees. Then the comb can be melted 

 up. Or you can melt up the whole business, let it get cold, 

 take off the cake of wax, and use the honey for cooking, 

 unless you object to the flavor. If it is sour it will make 

 vinegar, one to three pounds of honey being used to the 

 gallon. 



The term " go-back " is not applied to unfinished sec- 

 tions left over winter and used the following season to in- 

 duce the bees to start work in the supers — these are called 

 "baits." When supers of sections are taken off with the 

 corner or outside sections not entirely finished, these un- 

 finished sections from a number of supers are put in a 

 super and returned at once to the bees to be finished, and 

 these are the ones that are called "go-backs." 



2. Perhaps in 60-pound cans, although all depends upon 

 your market. 



3. Snakes are found under hives, and sometimes in 

 them, probably because of shelter, and it is not likely that 

 they do any harm, unless it be to frighten the bee-keeper. 



4. It is not specially noted as a great honey State, 

 although there are no doubt plenty of good honey locations. 





Nasty's Afterthoughts 



The " Old Reliable "' seen through New and Unreliable Glasses. 

 By E. E. Hasty, Sta. B Kural, Toledo, Ohio. 





RETURNING AFTERSWARIIS. 



The rule for returning afterswarms twenty-four hours 

 after will probably work nicely a great many times. I think, 

 however, that when the swarm-fever rages its worst, it some- 

 times won't work at all. Hardly time enough for the excited 

 minds of the little creatures to get level, and plainly not time 

 enough for things at home to settle to one queen. Hive them 

 in a temporary hive and set the same right by the door of the 

 old hive. Shake them home about four days later. So)ne- 

 times afterswarms occur in times of such severe dearth that 

 they have to be fed to keep them from absconding. Page 500. 



CLE.\NING SECTIONS ON Vi^IRE CLOTH. 



How about cleaning sections of propolis by rubbing them 

 over coarse wire-cloth tightly stretched? I'm one of the 

 "don't knows" on that till I see it tried once. Rather afraid 

 it's a lazy man's invention — calculated to do rapid and easy 

 work, but never a first-class job. A^so should expect it to 

 fail totally when the weather is hot. Page 501. 



COOL NIGHTS AND COMB-BUILDING. 



Now perhaps that's so. Some localities and weathers 

 such that comb-building is largely prevented by the coolness 

 of the nights — and yet the honey comes in quite lively in the 

 middle of the day. This would furnish an innocent reason for 

 the harvest of extracted honey being very much larger than 

 the harvest of sections. So we mustn't always scowl at such 

 a report and say: "He snatches out his stuff long before it 

 gets to be honey." Maybe he's innocent as a babe, after all. 

 Page SOI. 



SWARMING AND IMPORTED QUEENS. 



Even if Italians of the first generation from Italy are a 

 little less inclined to swarm than our home stock, there don't 



seem to be any practical w.ny lo realize much on that fact. 

 Can hardly afford to keep all our colonies supplied with im- 

 ported queens. The seeming quality might be — might be im- 

 agined to be — only because queens having taken a very long 

 journey seldom lay with maxinuun rapidity afterward. Page 

 502. 



THE CHUNK-IIONF.Y BUSINESS. 



It's an "illigant" berating Mr. G. C. Greincr gives the 

 chunk-honey comet on page 503. But the comet most likely 

 will keep swishing right along the heavens, with its "irregu- 

 larities" of tail and head, just as if not a word of objurga- 

 tion had been hurled at it. Sad. But zve don't have to offer 

 chunk-honey to the customers to whom we wish to sell sec- 

 tions. 



ROOMY UNCAPPING-BOX. 



That roomy uncapping-box of H. G. Sibbald's makes me 

 feel covetous. I neither have a very roomy uncapping ar- 

 rangement nor room to place as roomy a one as I have. Page 



SIS- 

 EXTRACTED VS. COMB HONEY CONSUMPTION. 



When a city uses only 700 pounds of sections to 14,000 

 pounds of extracted it shows that excellent missionary work 

 in favor of the latter has been done— and that the missionary 

 inside the can is not a hypocrite, as said missionary has been 

 known to be. Page 515. 



ADVICE ON BEE-BOOKS AND BEE PAPERS. 



Have a bee-book and take a bee-paper— more than one of 

 each if possible— you're all right, dear Boss, to ring the 

 changes on that vigorously and oft. But shall I tell you what 

 has just popped into my mind? Perhaps tTie vice of having 

 both and not reading them is more frightfully prevalent than 

 most of us have any idea of— just merely glancing at the 

 paper when it comes, and leaving the book on the shelf time 

 out of mind. I even suspect that systematic effort to make 

 "subscribers" into "readers" would eventuate in more profit 

 than the same effort to make non-subscribers into subscribers 

 would. Who'll join the class? Who'll join the class— of those 

 who promise to read their text-book through again within 

 six months? You see, if they do that they'll read the paper 

 better; and if they do that they won't drop off the list— and 

 "penny saved Ijetter than penny earned," you know. Page 

 SIS- 



THE FLIGHT OF BEES. 



Nothing can be told by that bee in the engine cab. First 

 time it got entirely clear of the air-friction of the train it 

 undoubtedlv disappeared like a flash. At first thought, hawk 

 24 miles aii hour and robin 38 seems an absurd mistake. If 

 dog went 24 and rabbit 38 how soon would he catch him? 

 Nevertheless small birds (many kinds, I think) are often 

 seen chasing the hawk, presumably in revenge for eating their 

 nestlings. They thump his back, pull his feathers, and circle 

 'round in a way that puts in many more rods to the furlong 

 than the hawk can. Page 516. 





Dr. Miller's Answers 



Send Questions either to the office of the American Bee Journal, 

 or to Dr. C. C. Miller, Marengo, 111. 





Queen That Was Probably Killed. 



On or about June l I had a prime swarm issue. I hived 

 them and in hiving lost the queen. The same day I gave 

 them a frame of brood and tliey reared a nice queen. She 

 laid about five frames full of worker-eggs, and about two 

 weeks ago she disappeared and has not returned. What be- 

 came of her, and why did she leave the hive? 



Virginia. 



Answer.— I don't know. Tt is not likely that she left the 

 hive, more likely she was killed in the hive. Sometimes a 

 queen is accidentally killed by the bee-keeper; sometimes a 

 small swarm of strange bees enter and kill the queen; some- 

 times bees ball their own queen when frightened, and may 

 kill her. 



