April 11, 1901. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



235 



than the Italians. Possibly you have blacks that are 

 unusually good and have been unfortunate in not having' 

 the best of Italians. More likely the treatment had 

 something to do with it. The blacks veere perhaps inter- 

 fered with less than the others. If you changed their 

 queens, etc.. the Italians would not have so good a chance. 

 As you had an open winter, the bees flj'ing nearly every 

 day, the bees would use more stores in winter, and it might 

 be that the Italians were more active and used up their 

 stores faster, but that would not account for the great dif- 

 ference in the amount stored last summer. There is room 

 for considerable suspicion that the blacks had the better 

 chance. 



4. Try not to open hives unless absolutely necessary 

 until time of robbing is over, when the bees will get 

 enough to do on flowers that they will turn to honest pur- 

 suits. Certainly you should not clip till you can do so with- 

 out danger from robbers. If for any purpose you are 

 obliged to open hives, better do it toward evening ; then 

 there will be less danger of starting robbing, and if it 

 should trouble a little, darkness will soon come to your 

 relief. 



A Dozen Questions. 



1. The burning question with me is how to winter bees. 

 This is the fourth year I have tried them in North Dakota, 

 the second and third year I had heavy loss. This winter I 

 have them in the same frame building. I have 11 hives 

 closely packt together, and on top of each other, and covered 

 with some wheat chaff. I gave no upward ventilation, left 

 the honey-boards sealed down, put a wood tray two inches 

 deep under each hive, and with wire-cloth on the entrance 

 2x3 inches. No ventilation on the bee-house ceiling, above 

 the ceiling it is packt with chaff. The house is warmly 

 built. I put an extra door on this winter, which gives two 

 air spaces. I went in last week, and the thermometer was 

 29 degrees above zero. I could hear the low hum in all the 

 hives I could reach. 



2. Last season on account of the dry weather I got only 

 about 70 pounds of surplus honey from the3'2 colonies, 

 spring count, and in September when fixing them for win- 

 ter I thought they had enough to tide over till spring. Two 

 years ago I took your advice and sowed sweet clover ; but 

 for that, last season would have been a blank for honey. 

 The past seasons I have kept down natural swarming by 

 dividing, and extracting from the top hive. The coming 

 season I would not seek more than one swarm from the 

 strong colonies, and would like to know the best methods 

 of dividing for increase. Guided by the American Bee 

 Journal I have tried several ways, but had many failures. 

 I seemed to lose at least time, honey, and sometimes bees. 

 When is the best time to divide ? and to manage the half 

 that has no queen ? Is there any need to destroy the extra 

 queen-cells they make ? 



3. I sent South and got a good many young queens by 

 mail ; they all came in good order, and there were some 

 fine queens among them. Several times I lost the queens 

 by lack of care on my part, not looking out for the other 

 queen in the hive. Now tell me how long they should be 

 without a queen before they have one introduced ? 



4. In making a nucleus could I take a frame of brood 

 with bees on it and introduce a young queen at the same 

 time ? or how many dajs after ? 



5. How far apart should nuclei be set to make it 

 safe for a young queens to enter her own hive ? 



6. Do you think king-birds have anything to do with 

 my queens getting lost sometimes ? 



7. Is there any danger of crowding too many bees into a 

 hive ? In September, when taking off the upper story, 

 there were so many bees that they could scarcely all get 

 into the lower hive. Would that hurt them in wintering .' 

 or would it be better to give some of the bees to a weak 

 colony ? 



8. Is there any danger of killing the'queen when you 

 mis together bees of different colonies ?^How do you pre- 

 vent it ? 



9. In taking a frame of brood and bees from a strong 

 colony, to build up a weak one, will these bees be liable to 

 kill the queen ? 



10. Would there be any danger in introducing a young 

 queen to the part that is queenless, after dividing a strong 

 colony? How long should it be before you give it one ' 



li. Would the bees receive a matured queen-cell as 

 readily as a queen ? How long should they be queenless .' 



12. In dividing a strong colony, how or where would 

 you place the hives ? Minnesota. 



Answers — 1. It is possible you may have to give up 

 the idea of wintering in that house. It is a hard thing on 

 bees to be in a place where the thermometer stands at 29 

 degrees continuously. You may say it is much colder than 

 that outdoors. So it is, but when a warm day comes the 

 outdoor bees can have a flight, whereas your bees will not. 

 It is questionable if you should leave the covers sealed 

 down, but if there is a sufficient amount of warm packing 

 over all it may do. The 2-inch tray under the hives is 

 good, but it is not a good thing to fasten the bees in the 

 hive with wire-cloth. When bees want to come out of the 

 hive to die, they ought to have that privilege. You might 

 find that they will winter better in the cellar under your 

 dwelling. If it is impracticable to have them there, you 

 could at least have a cellar several feet deep under the 

 house in which to winter your bees, so as to raise the tem- 

 perature to about 45 degrees. If you find them troubled 

 with diarrhea, better get them out as soon as a day comes 

 that is still, with the sun shining, and the thermometer 48 

 degrees in the shade. 



2. If you want no more than one increase from each 

 strong colony (and you are wise in desiring no more), it is 

 possible that natural swarming would be the best thing for 

 you. With that it is easy to prevent second swarms. If 

 you divide artificially, do not begin before about the time 

 of natural swarming. Generally there will be no need to 

 destroy queen-cells. Perhaps the nucleus plan may suit 

 you as well as any. Take a colony that is very strong and 

 has a good queen — if not as strong as you wish, make it 

 so by giving brood in advance from other colonies — and 

 take its queen with two combs of brood with adhering bees 

 and put in an empty hive on a new stand. Seven to nine 

 days later form nuclei, giving each one two or three frames 

 of brood and bees from your queenless colony, and seeing 

 that each one has two or three good queen-cells. If the 

 queen-cells are at the outer edges of the combs, put them 

 on the central surface, fastening them with a staple or nail. 

 Put the hive with the old queen on the old stand, putting a 

 nucleus in place of the queen. A week after forming the 

 nuclei give each of them a frame of brood from the other 

 colonies that have not been disturbed ; a weak later still, 

 one or two frames of brood ; and so on till you have a full 

 colony. 



3. You may be successful by removing the queen at the 

 same time you give the new one, providing the new one is 

 not releast too soon, but it is safer to have the new queen 

 releast four or five days after the removal of the old queen, 

 and to make sure of this with the usual shipping-cage the 

 old queen should be removed two or three days before the 

 new one is put in the hive. 



4. If the queen is caged, she should be put into the 

 nucleus at the time it is formed. Two days after it is 

 formed there would be little risk in giving the queen with- 

 out caging. If the nucleus was formed with queenless 

 bees — and generally it should be — then any kind of a 

 queen, and especially a very young virgin, could be given 

 at once without caging. 



5. If there are no more than four of them they need 

 not be apart at all. Two of them may be side by side, 

 almost touching, with the other two facing the opposite 

 direction, the two pairs standing back to back. Then 

 another group of four may come with four feet of space 

 between the two groups, and so on. 



6. It may be. 



7. Don't be afraid of too many. 



8. Generally one of the queens will be saved, but it is 

 well to take the precaution to kill a day or two in advance 

 the queen of the bees to be united. 



9. Not much danger unless you add nearly as many 

 bees as were already in the weak colony. 



10. If the queenless part is put on a new stand there 

 would not be much danger after a day or two. But look 

 out in taking, bees from a queen and putting them on a new 

 stand, that they do not desert the brood. It is safer always 

 to form your nuclei of bees already queenless. 



11. Generally a queen-cell will be received more readily 

 than a queen. It will be a rare case that any colony will 

 not receive a queen-cell 24 hours after being made queen- 

 less. This does not refer, however, to bees with laying 

 workers ; hard to get them to receive anything unless it be 

 a virgin just out of the cell. 



12. If you mean dividing into two parts— a thing that 

 is of doubtful policy — you might set the two side by side 

 on the old stand ; then if one should get more bees than it 

 should have you could move it away a few inches and bring 

 up the other. 



