Jan. 24, 1901. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



59 



now a day when bees fl)', and you find the bees of a colony 

 running- over the outside as if hunting- for a queen, or if 

 they continue uneasj' after the other colonies have stopt 

 flying, and have settled down to quietness, you may at least 

 entertain suspicions of queenlessness. If you pound on a 

 hive while holding your ear to it, there will be a response 

 from the bees, and then a prompt quieting down if their 

 queen is all right. It will be something more like a wail if 

 they are queenless. In the working season you may be 

 somewhat suspicious of a colony that appears very listless, 

 and that carries in little or no pollen -when other colonies 

 are carrving in big loads. 



2. If you find out the weight of a hive with its combs 

 and a good store of pollen, then add to that ten pounds for 

 the weight of the bees, you will be pretty safe in counting 

 that any excess over this is honey. One of the best ways to 

 tell how much honey there is in a hive is by actually lifting 

 out the combs and seeing how much honey is present. Even 

 then you may not be so very exact about it, for you can not 

 tell how many cells have pollen under the sealed honey. 

 The safe way is to make allowance for a liberal amount of 

 pollen, for there is little danger of harm being done by too 

 much honey in the fall or beginning of winter. 



3. Sometimes one story is allowed for the queen, then 

 an excluder, then one or more extracting stories. Some- 

 times the excluder is put over the second story, allowing 

 the queen to use two stories. If 8-frarae hives are used, the 

 two stories for the queen are more needed than if ID-frame 

 hives are used. You can use a single story for extracting- 

 frames, but that makes it necessary to extract oftener, and 

 makes it more difficult to have the honej' well ripened. If 

 for any reason you must have a single extracting story, it 

 may not be a bad plan for you to extract only half the 

 combs at one extracting, then the other half at the next ex- 

 tracting, and so on. That will give less chance for un- 

 ripened honey, but will make you extract oftener than if 

 you extracted all the frames at one time. 



Removing Bees from the Side of a House. 



A neighbor has a large swarm of bees in the side of his 

 house, and wants them taken out. How could I drive them 

 out and save them ? I would like to drive them into a hive. 

 I am told that some medicine will drive them out. They 

 are very cross, but are wonderful honey-gatherers. 



CALIFORXrA. 



Answer. — The fumes of carbolic acid are very offensive 

 to bees, and if enough of the acid is poured into the place it 

 will surely drive the bees. If a frame of brood be held at 

 the place where they come out. they would probably occupy 

 it promptly, and if it could then be put into a hive, and the 

 hive be placed so that the bees could run right into the en- 

 trance of the hive as they come out of their hiding-place, 

 the effort to hive them ought to be successful. There is a 

 possibility, however, that there is so much room where they 

 are that they would merely move to another place awa^- 

 from their combs, and you would be no better off than be- 

 fore. If so, there may be no certain way to get them out 

 without cutting away part of the wall and cutting out the 

 combs, removing bees and combs together. 



' Sections Open on Four Sides— Packing Material. 



I am about to buy my bee-supplies for this j-ear, and 

 would like advice on a few points. 



1. Is there any advantage in using sections open on all 

 four sides ? I used them last jear ; my notion in doing so 

 was that it gives the bees free access to any part of the 

 surplus department easily and readil)-. With sections open 

 on two sides, should a laden bee get in the department 

 already full, she has to look around for a place to deposit 

 her load, thereby losing valuable time. 



2. Is excelsior good for the surplus department in win- 

 ter ? 



3. Is the cork that grapes are packt in good or better 

 than excelsior ? I can get all I want of either cork or ex- 

 celsior. North Carolina. 



Answers. — 1. Some think that sections open on all four 

 sides are better, for the reasons you give. Perhaps there 

 may be some advantage in having more free communica- 

 tion, but it can hardly make very much difference, for if I 

 am not mistaken, most bee-keepers cling to the sections 

 with openings at top and bottom, and sides closed ; altho 

 some years ago much was said about sections with four 

 bee-ways, and if they were much better they ought to have 



come into general use. If a bee with a load of honey were 

 to enter a super for the first time, and should get into a sec- 

 tion already entirely filled, it would no doubt be a conven- 

 ience to have a side passage directly into a section still 

 offering room. But that is hardly the condition. Mr. Doo- 

 little tells us that it is not the lield-bees that deposit the 

 hone)' in the sections, but that the field-bees dump their 

 loads in the first convenient place in the brood-chamber, 

 and then a set of bees that do not go afield carry from be- 

 low into the sections. Is it not probable that these inside 

 carriers are quite familiar with the room upstairs, so that 

 they may go generally to those parts of the super where 

 they are sure there is room ? 



2. Excelsior, if dry, may answer for packing, but 

 planer-shavings are generally preferred to excelsior, possi- 

 bly because the planer-shavings are more compact. 



3. Ground cork is one of the very best things for pack- 

 ing-, and is considered away ahead of excelsior. 



Feeding Bees in Winter. 



What is the best way to feed at this time of the year ? 

 I have three colonies in the cellar, and three on the summer 

 stands packt in chaff. Is it best to feed syrup, candy (if 

 candy, what kind ?), or granulated sugar dry ? 



Illinois. 



Answer. — The best way is to do your feeding as soon 

 as possible after the bees have stopt gathering, whether 

 that be in August or later. But sometimes circumstances 

 are such that we can not do what we would like, and then 

 we must do the best we can. Certainly it would be unwise 

 to let a colony starve rather than to feed this time of the 

 year. Don't'think of feeding syrup now. Giving combs of 

 sealed honej' is much better. But in all probability that's 

 about as good advice as telling you how to feed last August, 

 for it's a pretty safe thing to assume that you haven't any 

 combs of sealed honey. Granulated sugar dry would be 

 little better than so much sand. The bees couldn't do any- 

 thing with it. Candy is the thing, the best perhaps being 

 the •• Good " candy, made with powdered sugar and ex- 

 tracted honey. Warm the honey (I'd say heat it, only you 

 might then burn it, and that would make it poison for the 

 bees), and stir into it all the powdered sugar you can. Then 

 knead it like dough, adding all the sugar you can work in 

 till you have a stiff dough. Put a cake of this, perhaps an 

 inch thick, over the brood-frames, and cover up warm. 

 Plain candy, made of granulated sugar, the same as any 

 confectioner makes, will also do. 



Robbing Making Comb into Beeswax. 



1. Will bees on the side of a hill rob those below, say 

 about 50 feet lower, and about 400 feet apart ? . i 



. How can make old comb into beeswax ? ^^ j 



Maine. 

 Answers. — 1. Such location would make no difference 

 in the matter of robbing. Bees are just as likely to rob 

 those below. Other conditions than those of position are 

 responsible for starting robbing. A queenless or very 

 weak colony is likely to be a victim, and the case is aggra- 

 vated if there is too iarge^an entrance, or if the appetites of 

 the robbers are whetted by having combs or honey exposed 

 so as to give them a taste. 



2. A good solar extractor is perhaps the best'thing. You 

 may have something to act much in the same way by hav- 

 ing an old dripping-pan and a cook-stove./. Split open one 

 corner of the dripping-pan, and put it in the oven of the 

 cook-stove, with the split corner projecting out. A little 

 stone, or something of the kind, should be put under the 

 end of the dripping-pan that is inside, so as to make the 

 was run toward the split corner. Of course, the pieces of 

 comb must be laid in the dripping-pan, and the door of the 

 oven must be left open. Whether you use the dripping-pan 

 or the solar wax-extractor, if you pile on a lot of pieces of 

 old comb you will find that the cocoons of the old comb will 

 act a little like a sponge, and will be filled with '.wax that 

 you will not get. There will be less waste in this way if 

 you put in your pan only a single thickness of comb at a 

 time. A good way is to soak the combs thorolyjin water 

 before putting them in the pan.^^Then break them up and 

 pile on what you like. The cocoons being already filled 

 with water can not become filled with wax as they would if 

 dry. A dish must be set on the floor to catch the;wax as it 

 drops from the pan, and it is well to have in the bottom of 

 this outside vessel a little hot water. 



