Nov. 7, 1901. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



713 



2. Thp. usual way is to look over the combs till the (jueeii 

 is found, and 1 suppose that is the way you mean you have 

 done a hundred times over. After you have looked over the 

 combs two or three times without finding the queen, it is 

 hardly worth while to continue. Close up till some future 

 time, not sooner than half an hour, and yon may then find her 

 the first thing. Another way is to put the combs in pairs. 

 Put two of them into an empty hive, the two close togethm' 

 but an inch from the wall of the hive. Put another pair at 

 the other side of the hive. Dispose of the rest in the same 

 way, using another empty hive, only leaving one pair in the 

 hive on the stand. Now look at the first pair, lifting out the 

 frame nearest you. If the queen is on either of these combs, 

 you may be sure she is on the side ne.xt the other comb, so as 

 10 be out of sight as much as possible. As you lift out the 

 comb glance over the side of the comb left in the hive, and if 

 you do not see the queen on that comb look quickly at the 

 comb in your hands on the side from you. If unsuccessful in 

 your search through the different pairs, let them stand for a 

 time, and you will find the bees showing signs of uneasiness 

 when the queen is missed. The pair that has the queen will 

 remain quiet, and your search will now be brought down to 

 those two combs. 



3. Like other commodities, the law of supply and demand 

 affects the price of queens. Queens are plentier in the fall; it 

 is easy to have them in nuclei, and it is not easy to winter 

 thera except in full colonies. 



Queens Killed in Introducing— Saving Queenless 

 Colonies. 



1. .Vbout Sept. 5 I ordered half a dozen queens, but did 

 not get them until the 2bth. The breeder sent no directions 

 for introducing, so I followed as closely as possible the direc- 

 tions in the ■' A 15 C of Bee Culture." I put in five queens, 

 one being dead when received; -iS hours after I put them in I 

 looked in and found a lot of queen-cells which caused me to 

 feel uneasy, and 1 examined the front of the hives and found 

 two dead queens. I think all the others were killed, as there 

 were cells in each hive. Why was it they were all killed? 

 Ttie bees had a good lot of honey and were getting honey from 

 asters. 



2. What can I do at this sea'^ou of the year to save the 

 queenless bees? Virginia. 



Answers — 1. It is impossible to tell what may have 

 caused the loss without more particulars, and it is not certain 

 that full particulars would allow an answer to be given. 



2. You can buy queens to introduce to the queenless 

 colonies, and as they will have been queenless a considerable 

 time they ought to accept queens readily. If, however, they 

 have reared young queens already, they will make trouble. 

 It is possible you have colonies with laying queens that are 

 weak in bees, and it would be a profitable thing to strengthen 

 them with these queenless bees. 



^ 



The "Old Reliable" seen through New and Unreliable Glasses. 

 By E. E. HASTY, Sta. B Rural, Toledo, O. 



MONUMENT FOR THE BEE-FLY-ESCAPE IDEA. 



But Mr. Alpaugh's adaptation of the bee-escape to keep- 

 ing a room clear of flies — that seems to have gotten beyond 

 theory to practical success. Who knows but we shall some- 

 time vote him a monument for that? And he needn't use the 

 monument for a good long spell yet, either. 



MKLTOSE, HONEY, TUBS, ETC. 



Yes, and do you see that not only Dr. Strickland, of Ten- 

 nessee, but also the Battle Creek Sanitarium, of Michigan, are 

 pushing meltose as a substitute for honey 7 Well. ••Every 

 tub on its own bottom;" but tlie venders of the good old tul) 

 need hardly be expected to lead in singing hallelujahs to the 

 poor new tub. Page 6 LI. 



CONDUCTIVITY OF HONEY. 



Honey is queer about its conductivity. Perchance it is 

 partly because of the speed with which both the ab^iurpiinn 

 and exhalation of water from it goes on. If we try u> khi-I 

 warm honey, recently cooled air (practically sure to be ilamiii 



i ^' The Afterthought. 



at once envelops the surface. Surface seizes the vapor, and in 

 changing it from gaseous to liquid condition sets free the 

 latent heat — practically manufactures heat. If we try to heat 

 cold honey we are liable to find that a thin film at the surface 

 has got very thin in the other sense of the term. This liquid 

 water rapidly changes to vapor of water (providing »e apply 

 the heat to the surface) and so practically manufactures cold 

 at a rapid rate. The amount of heat which an ounce of water 

 vapor will change to the latent state, and so cause to disap- 

 pear, is great almost beyond belief. And that may be in part 

 the how and the why of it that it takes such an amazing spell 

 to get cold combs fit to extract. Hang them far apart — uu to 

 the top of the room — and give them two days if you possibly 

 can spare it. Another good way is to extract what you can 

 while in a half-warm condition, warm them some more, and 

 then extract again. 



WATER AS A CONDUCTOR OF HEAT. 



" Water, if kept from circulating, is as bad a conductor 

 of heat as eider-down." That's a big sentence. Better we 

 keep it on probation awhile before we swallow it whole. An 

 ounce of water distributed in the chaff of a cushion is pretty 

 effectively kept from circulating. Would it, or would it not, 

 affect the cushion like mixing in an ounce of eider-down? I'll 

 choose the down for my bees. But when it comes to honey, 

 I'll admit without argument that honey is a poor conductor — 

 and tbe lack of mobility in its particles helps it to be so, very 

 likely. Page 6 i 3. 



POSITION OF BEES IN WINTERING. 



'•Observer" does well to call our attention to the fact that 

 wintering each individual bee in a four-inch cluster must fur- 

 nish heat twice as fast as a bee in an eight-inch cluster. Also 

 we have thought that spacing the combs a little further apart 

 for winter was a help. I, for one, feel about ready to tumble 

 to his argument that it is not a help, but a disadvantage. But 

 the case of bees massed in a " Hill's device," with their backs 

 up against a warm, dry cushion, and getting honey from be- 

 low — "Observer" does not handle that case, I should say. 

 Page 613. 



BULK COMB HONEY VS. SECTION HONEY. 



Mr. O. P. Hyde, bees do not create honey out of nothing. 

 If your bees store twice as much bulk comb honey as of sec- 

 tion honey it must follow that somehow or other, actual or 

 potential, there is a waste of one-half by the section-storing 

 bees. That's not the way bees do at my yard. Y'et I'm not 

 sure but some strains of bees will do just that when you try to 

 get thera to work in sections. Page 61t5. 



CRABBEDNESS .\ND DYSPEP.SIA. 



" Zatso," Prof. Cook? Does crabbedness breed dyspepsia? 

 The popular impression is that dyspepsia breeds crabbedness. 

 Perhaps the bottom fact is that they mutually foster each 

 other. Page 618. 



SCREEN HIVE-TOP AS A ROBBER BOTHERER. 



Take off the cover of the hive, and fasten on the screen 

 top as if for moving. We had several excellent devices to 

 bother robbers before, and this evidently adds another. Good 

 plan to " have our quiver full of them " — and wit enough to 

 select quickly the right one to shoot in sudden need. Page 621. 



THE IJUFEN AND LAY'ING OF DRONE-EGGS. 



The sharpness of the queen's desire to have some drone- 

 comb to lay in is alluded to by Mr. Atchley, on page 630. 

 Probably many of us have noticed this. He thinks the queen 

 finds It easier to lay drone-eggs. How about the probability 

 of that, brethren? If not the precise fact, I think it at least a 

 near approximation. May be supposed that a sort of nerve- 

 exhaustion has been run up by the long laying of myriads of 

 fecundated eggs, and that the laying of unfecundated eggs 

 does not make so large a demand for nerve force, nor exactly 

 the same kind of a demand. She is taking a rest not by 

 quiesence, but by change of action. Even ye sapient editor 

 may write, and write, and write, until it is a rest to saw dry 

 hickory wood. Howsomever, it is also imaginable that the 

 (|ueen stops laying worker-eggs simply because there are no 

 more spermatic particles ripe enough to use. 



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