Feb. 28, 1901. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



137 



I have not been at all successful here in rearing queens 

 on the Doolittle plan. 



In Gleanings in Bee-Culture, T. Smith says that Editor 

 Pender, of Australia, gives his experiments, and claims 

 that 4 pounds of honey vpill produce one pound of wax. 

 What a foolish thing to put into type, and how unreliable 

 the statements are. I claim to be one of the sugar-honey 

 experts of the United States, and I will give a more reliable 

 statement as to how many pounds of sugar is required to se- 

 crete one pound of wax. I have written the following rule 

 which can be relied upon as very nearlj' correct, according 

 to my knowledge and judgment. 



Twenty-four cubic inches of comb will hold one pound 

 of honey, and one pound of comb honey contains one ounce 

 of wax ; therefore one pound of secreted scales turned into 

 comb will hold 16 pounds of honey. 



Now I am going to contradict myself right here, but let 

 me digress a little. I don't know how it is, but it is a fact 

 that it requires 3 pounds of sugar to produce one pound of 

 comb honey. I have had good, strong colonies that have 

 been fed with sugar syrup from June 10th to Sept. 10th — a 

 Heddon feeder kept full at all times — yet I could never 

 make the best colonies store much over 200 pounds of comb 

 honey each. 



Bees that are good comb-builders require about 12 

 pounds of honey to make 1 pound of was, and I have had 

 bees that were supposed to be poor comb-builders that re- 

 quired 16 pounds of honey to make 1 pound of wax. 



From the foregoing one can readily see that producing 

 sugar-honey, or feeding " any old thing " to produce wax, 

 does not pay. Cuba, Jan. 15. 



I Questions and Answers. | 



CONDUCTED BY 



DR. C. O. MIKI.ER. A/areng-o, 7/2. 



(The Questiotis may be mailed to the Bee Journal office, or to Dr. Miller 



direct, when he will answer them here. Please do not ask the 



Doctor to send answers by mail. — Editor. 1 



Sacctiarin as Bee-Peed. 



Some time ago I saw some remarks about saccharin as 

 a bee-feed. Is it any cheaper than sugar for bee-feed ? or 

 is it injurious to bees ? Where can it be obtained ? 



iNDI.iN.i. 



Answer. — Saccharin is said to be 300 times sweeter than 

 cane-sugar, but I think you will find a dollar's worth of 

 granulated sugar better than a dollar's worth of saccharin 

 for the bees. You can probably get it of your druggist. It 

 will cost you something like 300 times as much as sugar, 

 and while you may have as much sweetness in a pound of 

 it as in 300 pounds of sugar, you would by no means have 

 the same amount of nourishment. The amount of carbon 

 would not be present. 



A Colony Taken From a Bee-Tree. 



I found a bee-tree last fall rather late in the season, 

 and I didn't like to cut it, but I was afraid some one else 

 might come along and not think the same as I did. So the 

 next day I went to work at it. I didn't think it would 

 amount to very much, but I was after the bees, so after I cttt 

 the tree I got the hive ready to put in the bees. I was very 

 careful about the work. The colony didn't seem to be very 

 large, but after I had an opening big enough to look in, I 

 was very much surprised. In place of the hive, I had to get 

 two wash-tubs and a pail. Such a sight — nothing but 

 hone)', and yet plenty of bees also. 



After I had all the hotiey out, I started to coax in the 

 bees, but they wouldn't come. I had an 8-frame hive full 

 of honey. I got them in once, all but a handful. I thouglit 

 perhaps the queen was among them, but I could not find 

 her there, and they all came out again. Hy evening, when 

 it got a little cool, they took up a march to the hive once 

 more, and very nearly all went in. Some got under the log. 



I left the hive until the next morning, when I went 

 back to look after the bees. When I got there they just 

 started to come out, but I closed up the entrance and took 

 them home, and placed them along side of my other bees,' 



and opened the entrance again. They started to tly just as 

 fast as they could get out, for about two minutes, then they 

 stopt. There were plenty of bees there yet, so I sat down 

 and watcht them. Pretty soon, to my great surprise, I saw 

 some of the bees coming back with pollen on their legs. 



Now, what I want to get at is this : Do you think the 

 queen is there? Why should they carry pollen, and not my 

 other bees? If they have no queen, will it do to let them 

 out all winter? They seem more noisy than my other bees. 



IHINOIS. 



Answer. — Very likely the queen is all right. In any 

 case it is best not to disturb them till spring. Then when 

 bees fly freely, and you find brood in other hives, you can 

 decide whether the queen is present by looking whether 

 there is any brood. If no brood is present it may be your 

 best plan to unite it with one of your weakest colonies that 

 has a queen. 



Spacing Hives— Spring Feeding. 



1. Is four feet from center to center too close for the 

 hives in the row ? 



2. Will feeding bees when they are flying early in the 

 spring give satisfaction ? If not, why ? Ontario. 



Answer. — l. No; but here is something a little better 

 that will allow more hives on the same ground. Set two hives 

 side by side, with only two or three inches between them. 

 Then leave a space of three or four feet and put another pair 

 of hives close together, and so on. If you place a number of 

 hives with only a few inches between them, there will be 

 trouble about entering the wrong hives, but there will be no 

 trouble when only two hives are placed close together. 



2. Properly managed and under proper conditions it 

 may give satisfaction. If weather is warm enough for 

 bees to fly daily, and there is nothing they can get in the 

 fields, the feeding may be a decided benefit. If the weather 

 is somewhat chilly, so the bees do not fly freely, altho fly- 

 ing to some extent, feeding may induce the bees to fly out 

 and become chilled. 



Ventilating the Supers. 



I have been keeping bees for six years — just playing at 

 it while in the ministry, and so keep only a few colonies. I 

 am wintering 8 colonies, using dovetailed Langstroth 10- 

 frame hives with Hoffman frames. I appreciate your an- 

 swers to others very much, and so will ask one or two 

 myself. 



If a hole were bored in the end of a super with wire- 

 cloth tackt over it — 



1. Would the ventilation be helpful or harmful ? 



2. Would light entering in be helpful or harmful ? 



3. Would you advise boring a hole there ? 



4. If advisable to have a hole there, how large should 

 it be ? Il.Li.NOiS. 



Answers. — 1. I don't know. 



2. I don't know. 



3 and 4. — I would not advise it. 



Now that I've answered all your questions, suppose we 

 sit down and talk over the matter a little. Allow me first, 

 by way of parenthesis, to congratulate you on your good 

 jiidgment in choosing something so interesting to " play 

 at " while ti'orX-//;^ in the ministry. It seems just a little 

 strange that there is so much difference between this coun- 

 try and Europe as to the proportion of the clergy engaged 

 in bee-keeping. In Germany, especially, a very large num- 

 ber of leading beekeepers are clergymen or professors and 

 teachers in schools and colleges. When I say " leading 

 bee-keepers " it does not necessarily follow that they devote 

 their time mainly to bee-keeping, nor that they keep a large 

 number of bees. But in their moments of leisure they give 

 earnest attention to the subject, and are among those who 

 have added most to our stock of knowledge on this most 

 interesting subject. Father Langstroth, who brought about 

 an entire revolution in bee-keeping, belonged to the clergy. 

 So does Dr. Dzierzon, who has done more than any man 

 living to advance bee-keeping. 



But now to our subject. At one time I was on a visit 

 to Adam Grimm, who was one of the leading apicultura 

 lights up to the time of his death. He was putting on sur 

 plus Ijoxes (it was before the day of sections), and when he 

 put the hive-cover over the boxes he propt up the back end 

 of the cover something like an inch. As he was propping 

 up one of the covers, he lookt up and said in his earnest 



