Oct. 27, 1904. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



729 



The " Old Reliable '' seen through New and Unreliable Glasses. By E. E. Hasty, Sta. B Rural, Toledo, Ohio. 



QUEEN-REARING WITH P.\ RTI AL-LEGGED QUEENS. 



When I think of the Broderick method of rearing 

 queens, and the tangle we got into about it, this conundrum 

 comes to me : Why should bees notice the partial loss of a 

 leg so much more than they do the partial loss of two 

 wings ? 



"FRETFUL CARES AND FEARS." 



Another conundrum : Why should Mrs. Browning find 

 bees at work, hay new mown, and corn being husked, all in 

 the same "yesterday "? Well, she is English; and corn 

 over on the other side is mostly wheat. I conjecture that 

 " husking " in this case means husks striking together in 

 the wind — a sort of fanciful variation of "rustling". No 

 discount on the advice to throw away little fretful cares out 

 in the fields with God — only most of us must work instead 

 of idle while we are out there. Joyful circumstance — and 

 handy nearly every day — that the remedy is just as good to 

 those who work alone out in the fields as to those who go 

 out there idly. Page 636. 



POORLY-FILLED SECTIONS FOR BULK HONEY. 



The suggestion, on page 639, that poorly-filled sections 

 be cut out and sold as bulk comb — that should not be 

 stretched too far. Some folks could easily be emboldened 

 to use that way sections scarcely capped at all. If bulk 

 comb has a good reputation for quality let's not do any- 

 thing tending to damage the same. 



VARIETIES OF BEBS. 



Yes, if there were 1877 more species of bee, each claiming 

 to be the best bee. and any chance for doubts and dispute, 

 we would indeed be in a sad scrape. Somebody sure to dis- 

 pute wherever there's a chance. Lucky that all but a few 

 of the multitudinous species of Northern bees are solitary 

 and not social in habits. And of the few social species, 

 luckily our bee is too far ahead of all, or nearly all, for any 

 disputation. Perhaps if we should take in all the warm 

 regions of the globe we should find that the social species 

 of bees were not so few, after all. Lots of them — divided 

 into a number of different genera : Apis, Melipona, Bom- 

 bus, Trigona, and I know not how many others — wax- 



builders,paper- builders, mud-builders, combination-builders' 

 Page 643. 



KABY NUCLEI IN OUEEN-REARING. 



Not a single laying queen from 150 of the baby nuclei 

 is a rather slim experience for O. P. Hyde. From side 

 lights, and front lights also, we may surmise that a little 

 more care, and hopefulness, and zest put into the trial 

 would have caused the loss to be somewhat less than total. 

 We see among the Texans that to one failure several report 

 success — or both success and failure. One man has a 

 leather loop on the lid of his and hangs it up, " on the tree- 

 top ", a la the rock-a-by baby. But, by the way, I hardly 

 see what it is that differentiates the present baby nuclei 

 from the ones that were tried and abandoned a great many 

 years ago. Also I fear that " success ", so-called, would 

 not exactly mean improved quality for our queens. You 

 know when the new medicine only claims to be "just as 

 good " as the old medicine, the probability is that the 

 quality will be a little below. Page 645. 



HONEY IN HIVES WHERE BEES DIEI>. 



When honey is left in hives in which bees have died 

 there are two different conditions that it may be left in. If 

 in the fluid state, and the rest of the bees are allowed access 

 to it, they will take it with a good deal of flurry and hurry, 

 and the job will soon be finished — may or may not be a 

 i good plan. If it is pretty solidly granulated they will grub 

 away at it more slowly, with the result that it will last 

 longer — incidentally giving neighboring bees more chance 

 to find out and get a large share. But the danger of put- 

 ting mischief into their heads is less in this second case. 

 Mrs. Wade's experience, on page 64S, is instructive, in that 

 she seems to have lost a pretty heavy share of the honey, 

 and then got her pay back again unexpectedly in the in- 

 creased number of wandering swarms that came and 

 alighted by her apiary. This inclination of wandering 

 swarms, that don't know what to do with themselves, to go 

 to some apiary (only so as it's not their own) and alight, is 

 not so well known as it miight be. Three in one day, of this 

 sort of gift horses, must be pretty near the record. I pre- 

 sume she'is right in assuming that previous experience in 

 grubbing honey there inclined them to come. 



Clsk Doctor ZTItUcr 



99 



Send (Questions either to the oltice of the American Bee Journal, or to Dr. C. C. .Mii.lek, .Vlarengo, III. 



Queen Excluders and Swarming— Clarifying Honey- 

 Biennial Requeening— Producing Extracted 

 Honey— Winter Storps. 



1. In running for extracted honey, using queen-ex- 

 cluders, will the bees be inclined to swarm as much as when 

 running for comb honey without excluders ? 



2. In producing extracted honey, is it necessary to run 

 it through a clarifier to make first-class honey ? or will it 

 be clear after standing in a honey-tank a few days ? What 

 do clarifiers cost ? 



3. Would )'ou advise a beginner to requeen his colonies 

 about every two years ? or let the bees supersede their 

 queens when they see fit ? 



4. Can a man handle the honey from 85 colonies with a 

 2-frame novice extractor during a heavy honey-flow ? 



5. If I tier up my extracting supers two or three high, 

 should I make entrances in each super for the bees to go in 



and out ? or can they do as much work by going in at the 

 brood-chamber entrance? 



6. If a colony requires 25 pounds of honey for winter 

 with one extracting super left on, how much less can they 

 winter on if the super is taken off in the fall ? The super 

 is the same size as the brood-chamber. 



7. Are any of the bee-feeders advertised by supply- 

 dealers patented ? 



8. Would it do to feed bees sugar syrup in the middle 

 of the winter, where the temperature does not fall below 30 

 degrees ? California. 



Answers. — 1. No, the excluder will make no appre- 

 ciable difference if there is room enough in the brood- 

 chamber. 



2. Except where honey is very thick, standing for a day 

 or so in a tank is all that is necessary, the impurities all 

 coming to the top. I don't know the cost of a clarifier. and 

 worse than that, I don't know what a clarifier is. It is 

 hardly likelv that anything can do better work than passing 



