550 



AiMERICAN BEE lOURNAL 



Aug-. 29, 1901. 



what I told that friend to do, and you can apply it next fall 

 when it's about time to prepare your new colony out there 

 for winter — either outdoors, or in the cellar. 



" Be sure to avoid, at the outset, the too common mis- 

 take of waiting- with the winter-preparation work until cold 

 weather has set in. Here in Kansas it is generally safe to 

 wait until the middle of October — seldom as late as Novem- 

 ber. 



"The first thing you must do has to be done whether 

 the colony is to remain on its summer-stand, or to be trans- 

 ferred to the cellar, and that is this : 



"Prepare your bee-smoker as I have already shown you. 

 Then you put on your bee-veil, remembering that at that 

 season of the year the bees are much more touchy and 

 liable to sting- than during a honey-flow. Then you take 

 your prying instrument and go out to your hive — smoker in 

 full blast in your hand. If you prefer to quiet the bees 

 before beginning operations you rap sharply a few times on 

 the outside of the hive. Then you wait about five minutes 

 for the bees to fill themselves with honey before you 

 remove the cover in order to get at the super, which I will 

 suppose you put on in time to catch the late surplus honey. 

 This super you then take off, in the manner I have shown 

 you, and set it, for convenience, on top of the hive-cover, 

 where it is safe — if securely covered — until the rest of the 

 job is done. 



" You are now ready to loosen the ends of the brood- 

 frames, with the tool you have brought with you for that 

 purpose, blowing a little smoke over the top of them while 

 doing so, should the bees crowd to the surface and get in 

 the way. 



"When this is done you begin the real business to 

 which the foregoing was merely introductory ; namely, you 

 begin in the middle of the brood-nest and take out the 

 frames, one by one, examining each in succession to find 

 the queen. It is the queen you are really after, more than 

 anything else, because the prime object of this whole per- 

 formance is, to ascertain — not to guess at, as many keepers 

 of bees do — the fact that the colony has a queen. It is very 

 important for you to be sure of this, not because the colony 

 couldn't live through the winter without a queen, for it can ; 

 but because they can't begin house-keeping o.perations in 

 early spring without a mother-queen. You could not very 

 well go through such an operation in February or early 

 March in order to find out what you should know before 

 you shut the hive for the winter. I hope you'll never for- 

 get that, Mr. Bond. 



"Of course the fact will suggest itself that, after you 

 have found the queen, and have estimated the honey in the 

 frames to be fully sufficient to last them till spring, you 

 replace all the frames and cover them snugly with a piece 

 of fine burlap. You then put a rim — such as I use in tier- 

 ing-up supers — on the hive and pack the space inside with 

 chaff or soft forest-leaves. Next you put on the hive-cover, 

 placing a stone on top of it to keep it in place ; contract the 

 entrance-space to about the right width to suit the weather 

 at the time, and your work is done for outdoor wintering in 

 Kansas. 



" For cellar-wintering you do no packing on top. 

 Neither do you take the hive to the cellar before cold 

 weather has begun. Then you remove the entrance-blocks 

 and tack a piece over the brood-frames for the same pur- 

 pose. Prepared in this manner your bees are safe in a dry 

 cellar. But if the cellar is too cold — that is, below 45 

 degrees at any time — place a piece of burlap or a piece of 

 old carpet over the screen on top of the frames. It will 

 keep them warm without depriving them of needed air. 



" I have kept bees both ways for years, and have never 

 lost any irn winter-quarters on account of cold, want of air, 

 lack of food, or on account of inexcusable neglect. 



" Here endeth the lesson." 



Mr. Bond took dinner with us and then departed for 

 home, taking his colony of bees with him, as happy as I 

 had ever known a farmer to be. 



(The End.) 



Why Not Help a Little — both your neighbor bee-keep- 

 ers and the old American Bee Journal — by sending to us the 

 names and addresses of such as you may know do not now 

 get this journal? We will be glad to send them sample 

 copies, so that they may become acquainted with the paper, 

 and subscribe for it, thus putting themselves in the line of 

 success with bees. Perhaps you can get them to subscribe, 

 .send in their dollars, and secure for your trouble some of 

 the premiums we are constantly offering as rewards for 

 such effort. 



I Questions and Answers. | 



CONDUCTED BY 



DR. C. C. MILLER, Marengo, 111. 



[The Qaestioas 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 



Mulberries for Bees. 



What Dr. Peiro says on page 525 leads me to think that 

 it is possible there may be two kinds of white mulberry, 

 and if any one is thinking of planting largely it would be 

 well to make sure of having the kind that he speaks of as 

 bearing luscious fruit. In Pennsylvania I was familiar 

 with the black mulberry, of which I was very fond. When 

 I came to Illinois I found white mulberries growing wild 

 (not in this county, but further south), but the fruit was 

 insipid, and to mj' taste hardly fit to eat. I do not suppose 

 it would be difficult to get bees to work on the crushed pulp 

 of mulberries or any other fruit, but the question is 

 whether what the bees would store therefrom would pay for 

 the gathering and crushing. It would probably take a good 

 deal to make old bee-keepers believe that bees could store 

 good honey from the pulp of any fruit. 



c. c. Miller. 



Milkweed Pollen-Masses on Bees' Feet. 



I send a sample bee. By using a microscope you will 

 see a foreign substance attached to its feet, which prevents 

 walking or working. The other bees are pulling them out, 

 and carrying them off in large numbers. What is it ? 

 What particular plant or flower do they get it from ? 



Pennsylvania. 



Answer. — The milkweed is the culprit — Asclepias Cor- 

 nuti. The pollen-masses become attached to the feet to 

 such an extent that the bees appear not to be able to climb 

 upon the combs. At any rate, their sisters drive them out. 

 It is possible that enough is gathered from the milkweed 

 more than to pay for the damage done ; at any rate the loss 

 is not serious, and there is nothing- you can do about it. 



Loss in Introducing: aueens. 



A queen sent me arrived in good shape, and I intro- 

 duced her according to directions, but the bees did not 

 receive her. I have kept the colony supplied with fresh 

 eggs to prevent laying workers, if possible, and to give 

 them a chance to rear a queen, but the queen-cells they 

 have started have all been with eggs that were too old. I 

 examined them carefully before I introduced the queen, and 

 destroyed all their queen-cells, and I am very sure there 

 were no laying workers. 



1. Do you suppose the presence of fresh eggs in the 

 hive would prevent the workers from laying ? 



2. What is my trouble ? Nevi^ Hampshire. 



Answers. — 1. Laj'ing workers are not likely to occur 

 if the bees are kept supplied with eggs or young brood. 



2. In asking what is your trouble, you probably mean 

 to ask what was done wrong that resulted in the killing of 

 the queen you were trying to introduce. Perhaps there 

 was nothing at all wrong on your part. The attempt to 

 introduce a queen is not always successful. Nineteen 

 queens out of twenty may be accepted all right and the 

 twentieth rejected, although exactly the same plan was 

 used with the twentieth as with the other nineteen, and no 

 one can tell just why the twentieth failed. I don't under- 

 stand what you mean by saying they started queen-cells 

 with eggs that were too old. When bees are without a 

 queen they rarely start queen-cells from the egg ; nearly 



