Nov. 14, 1901. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



729 



even a practical apiari.^t. We will suppose slu' is alilc tn ob- 

 tain iiuirc tliaii my estimated yield for the county, wliicli I 

 have put at 2U pounds for non-experts, say she obtains a casi> 

 to tlu' colony, and gets it all Xo. i, she has. after dedui'tiny 

 interest and" taxes on capital invested. SI. TO a colony. 11 

 she has lUO coloni(^s she has $170 as returns, and she to do 

 all tlu' work. 



Hut. hold on. it is necessary to have a honey-house to 

 carry on this business, and this. too. costs somethintr. It also 

 costs soiuetliinir to crpt the honey delivered to market. A 

 smoker and other tools are needed: these all add to the cost 

 or capital invested, upon which we must have returns, aiul 

 the slock should bring again, at ordinary sale, the first cost. 

 •■ Hee-tixins "' if sold at forced sale, such as administratiM''s 

 sale, or if the owner desires to •■ unload "' and quit the busi- 

 ness, ready-cash purchasers are not lying around waiting for 

 these things at tirst-cost prices. The average apiarist does 

 well to get lialf lirst cost of stock. I care not whether that 

 stock !)(> purchased or produced. To buy stock and then in- 

 crease, the owner supplying new hives and labor to get the 

 increase, this same increase always costs all we can get for it. 

 unless possibly we put it into o or lO cent boxes, and even 

 then there is no profit in producing stock. Bees and bee-lix- 

 tures as an investment, are of little valiu\ Put your money 

 into real estate, and ii' you get ten percent dividend, you 

 are fairly safe: but a dollar in such perishable and uncertain 

 stock asbees is very poor investment indeed unless i/iat capi- 

 tal outlay can be made back quickly from the product or in- 

 come from the stock. Count your stock as nothing, your in- 

 come as everything, and the income to pay back tlie capital 

 invested and all running expenses, and pay the apiarist for 

 his time employed. Any other basis of calculation in thi' 

 bee-business is not safe. Larimer Co., Colo. 



\ Questions and Answers. 



CONDUCTBD BY 



DR. O. O. airiiJER, Afareng-o, Dl. 



(The Questions may be mailed to the Bee Journal office, or to Dr. MiUer 



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



Doctor to send answers by mail. — Editor.1 



Moving Bees. 



1. I wish to move several colonies a distance of 30 or 3.i 

 miles, either by rail or horses. They are packed for winter 

 on the summer stands, are in S frame, staple-spaced hives, 

 with four inches of packing all around and chaff on top the 

 depth of the supers. The cases are the same size as the 

 stand. If I leave the hive-entrance open the full width, and 

 fasten wire-screen over the case, entrance, and to hive-stand, 

 would top ventilation be necessary if moved now or in March? 



•>.. Would frames need fastening if moved on bob-sleighs? 



3. Would they have to be moved at night during cold 

 weather? 



i. Would it be safe to move them now, or would they do 

 better moved toward spring, say February or March? 



New York. 



Answers — 1. Something depends on the kind of bottom- 

 board and entrance. With a deep bottom-board and a large 

 entrance, there would be no need of top ventilation. With an 

 entrance less than three or four square inches there might bo 

 danger to a strong colony. 



2. Staple-spaced frames, or any fixed-distance frames, 

 ought to need no fastening. 



3. They could te moved in daylight. 



4. While they might be safely moved now, there might be 

 some advantage in moving them in early spring. The combs 

 would be lighter then and less likely to break. There would 

 be fewer bees present, so less danger of smothering. Some 

 think It important that bees should have a chance to fly soon 

 after being moved, and they would probal)ly be able to fly 

 sooner in March than in December. 



Queens for Breeding Purposes. 



I have a lot of queens all reared from the same mother: 

 of course, the mother's bees are nicely marked and are line 

 gatherers. But one of th<' young queen"s bees show to lie very 



finely marked and are extra-fine gatherers. Xow, if one of 

 the queens liad to be used as a breeder — the young (|neen just 

 mentioned or the mother — which would be the better one to 

 use? If the young queen is used as a breeder the drones will 

 be principally of her sisters, and if the old queen is used as 

 a breeder the drones will be of her daughter. 



2. Now, if you think I would l)etter get a new queen to 

 breed from please let me know where I can get one that is sec- 

 ond to none in every resp(>ct. South C.4^rolin.v. 



AsswKRS — 1. Your question is not an easy one. The rule 

 that has been generally given is to breed from the best. Mr. 

 F. B. Simpson, who seems to be unusually well informed in 

 malters of breeding, says that instead of breeding from a 

 queen whose workers are phenomenally good, it is better to 

 breed from one which is only a little above the average, pro- 

 viding the breeder is from a mother whose queen progeny are 

 nearly uniform in character, the general average being good. 

 In your case I think I should risk breeding from both the old 

 and the young queen. The drones prevaiing in the apiary, as 

 you intimate, will be the sons of the sisters of the young 

 queen, and will be practically of the same blood as the young 

 queen. Assuming that these are the drones that will be used, 

 if you breed from the young q\ieen, her daughters will meet 

 drones tliat have half the same blood, practically, as them- 

 selves. If you breed from the old queen, her daughters will 

 meet drones practically of the same blood as themselves. The 

 assumption, iiowever, that the said drones will be the ones 

 used, is, in most cases, not very reliable. The drones from 

 surrounding apiaries within a radius of a mile or more must 

 be taken into account. 



2. It depends much upon the character of your present 

 stock as to whether or not it may be again to get a new queen. 

 If your stock is not good, you could improve by fresh purchase. 

 But I could not direct youwhere to purchase, and for two 

 reasons: It would hardly be fair to the other advertisers of any 

 bee-paper to have one special breeder pointed out as the one 

 from whom purchases sbould be made. In the second place, 

 even if the publishers should allow it, I could not tell you 

 where to get the very best, for the simple reason that I don't 

 know. There are. no doubt, many who are trying to rear 

 good queens, and it is possible that a large portion of them 

 may be nearly on equal footing. 



Arranging the Hives in an Apiary. 



I am going to move lOU colonies of bees to the country 

 this winter. How would you arrange them? I will have 

 plenty of shade and ground. I want to avoid the loss of virgin 

 queens as much as possible. Al.^b.^m.v.. 



Answer — With plenty of ground, you could place them 

 regularly in rows a rod apart, each hive a rod from the near- 

 est. That would make it all right for the virgin queens, but 

 it would make it very inconvenient for the bee-keeper. In 

 order to get at a satisfactory answer, suppose we talk the 

 matter over a little. It is not so much the distance between 

 hives that allows a bee to find its own hive as it is other 

 things. Set a.hundred colonies of bees in a row on a perfectly 

 level plain, not a tree, bush, stump or anything of the kind in 

 sight, and if the hives are a rod apart there will probably be 

 more danger of bees getting into the wrong hive than there 

 would be in a dense, natural grove with the hives only a foot 

 apart. Let two hives be placed touching each other, and if 

 no other hives are about there will be no danger of bees get- 

 ting into the wrong hive. Have two nuclei in the same hive 

 with entrances facing the same way and only six inches 

 apart, and there is little danger that the bees of the right side 

 will enter the left entrance. 



Understanding this we can take advantage of it in placing 

 our hives. Where shade is plenty, as you say it is in your 

 case, there are trees present to help mark locations, and there 

 would be little danger of confusion if hives were placed singly 

 six feet apart. Suppose we place them so. As already said, 

 there is no danger of mistake if two hives are set close side by 

 side. So by the side of each hive already placed let ns set an- 

 other hive." Now put back of each pair another pair, back to 

 back. That is, the backs of the second pair are placed 

 against the backs of the first pair. Now we have our hives 

 placed in groups of four, and if there is any mistake as to en- 

 tering wrong hives, it will not Ik; that any bee enters a wrong 

 hive in its own group, but that it will enter the hive corres- 

 ponding to its own hive in another group. This method of 

 grouping I have used for years, and you will sec that it allows 

 you to have 100 colonies on a given piece of ground with just 

 as much safety as though you had only 25 placed singly on the 

 same ground. 



