60 



February, 1913 



American ?ee Journal 



smoky as I can breathe without much 

 difficulty. 



This cuts off the odor of angry 

 bees and also sets the bees to making 

 the scared hum one hears when they 

 run to cluster. It is well known thai 

 when bees are disturbed, a certain 

 number act as "guards" and rush to 

 the entrance to attack whatever is dis- 

 turbing their home. When they are 

 thoroughly roused, a little of the 

 poison is ejected which gives the pe- 

 culiar odor of "angry" bees. This 

 odor in a close place like a cellar or 

 a cave seems to have a tendency tc 

 rouse up other bees, or make them 

 worse if already partly aroused. 



So instead of arousing the bees to a 

 condition of defense or offense, it is 

 better to give them a scare, use a lit- 

 tle intimidation in the way of smoke 

 it saves time and bees. 



I pile my hives five to six high with 

 11/2 or 2 inch strips under , each end 

 and bottoms off. Sometimes an extra 

 cross colony gets aroused to the point 

 of crawling out and jumping off when 

 first set in the cellar, in which case I 

 do not hesitate to smoke them enough 

 to make them go back. If, accidentally, 

 a colony or a pile is jarred so as tc 

 thoroughly arouse them, I shade my 

 light to leave them in shadow, for s 

 time, and also blow a lot of smoke 

 alongside the pile. Of course I do not 

 get hot smoke close enough to the 

 cluster to scatter the bees or make 

 them run off their combs, but use 

 enough to thoroughly intimidate them 



Some may fear damage to the bees 

 by this way of doing, but I can assure 

 them no damage results, at least in 

 "this locality," and I have used these 

 methods on hundreds of colonies for 

 over 10 years. I would not leave bot- 

 toms on and use screens on entrance 

 unless mice were very numerous. I 

 try to trap most of the mice in my 

 caves, but I have yet to see any dam- 

 age, excepting once in a while a lit- 

 tle hole or two in a comb. Not enough 

 to pay me for bothering with screens 

 and nothing compared to the damage 

 bottoms do in the cellar, unless one 

 takes off the covers. 



Feeding: in Cellar. 



Another question is, "Can I feed my 

 bees syrup in the cellar?" The an- 

 swer is usually "better feed them 

 enough in the fall to last 'till flowers 

 come in the spring." This is good ad- 

 vince but does not fully answer this 

 question. Many times, for one reason 

 or other, a colony or more, may not 

 have enough, and if good comb honey 

 is not to be had and one does not 

 know by experience that he can make 

 candy right, you can feed them syrup 

 If it is a fairly good colony of bees, 

 and a cellar with temperature of 44 de- 

 grees or higher. One winter our bees 

 were thought to have stores enough 

 until in March we discovered one col- 

 ony dead, and on examination found 

 them starved. We had previously made 

 a hatch of hard candy, being very 



careful to make it just as directed, and 

 lost every colony we fed with it, so 

 we concluded to try syrup this time. 

 We had a fair idea of how many light 

 or doubtful colonies we had, so we 

 filled super combs with good thick 

 syrup, by means of a tin can with per- 

 forated bottom held tw-o or three feet 

 above the combs , which were laid in a 

 large pan to catch the drip. 



We thus prepared a super with three 

 combs containing about 10 pounds of 

 good thick sugar syrup for as many 

 as we expected to find light. After let- 

 ting these set a few hours over some 

 receptacle to catch what would drip 

 off, we lighted our smoker, took our 

 candle, and after smoking the cellar 

 fairly well, anJ having our feeding 

 supers near at hand we began at one 

 end of the pile of hives and taking off 

 the top one put it on the proper foun- 

 dation for a new pile, just the strip 

 across the next hive to rest on, and 

 whenever a hive was lifted that we 

 were in doubt of having plenty to last 

 six weeks or two months, our assist- 

 ant would put one of the feeding su- 

 pers on the strips, then we would sel 

 the colony on top of the super, and 

 so on until we piled over all the piles 

 in the cellar. 



The bees were in fair condition ex- 

 cept some were short of stores, and 

 as we handled all carefully and 

 quickly, none were much aroused ex- 

 cept those which were fed. Every bee 

 man knows that when a bee gets a 

 load of sweets, whether from a feed- 

 er inside the hive or elsewhere, the 

 rest rush out as though their lives 

 depended on getting out of the hives 

 instantly. 



Well, as soon as a bee from the 

 cluster got a lick of that rich syrup 

 there was a stampede for out of doors 

 but as the feeding combs were in 

 place of the bottom board and all tight 

 between, they simply bumped their 

 noses and stuck their toes into that 

 syrup. The three shallow combs di- 

 rectly below the cluster caught the 

 whole force as there was no way oul 

 of the hive except through this super. 

 There certainly was quite a "hum" in 

 that cave for a couple of hours, but 

 after the syrup was taken up, all set- 

 tled down and every colony came ou( 

 fine shape. One or two even whitened 

 their brood combs a little in the mid- 

 dle, in handling the syrup. Of course 

 when Vie set the bees out we took them 

 off of the now empty extracting su- 

 pers. 



If one has the bottoms on in the 

 cellar it would perhaps be easier to 

 remove the cover and put the feed- 

 ing super on top, and the bees would 

 be all the more certain to find it for 

 it being on top, although all fair 

 colonies will find it, as described 

 above. In a cellar of proper tempera- 

 ture. If no empty extracting combs 

 are on hand, one can, by using plenty 

 of smoke, and working quickly, re- 

 move the outside combs, fill them and 



return them, but this would be toe 

 much labor perhaps except where one 

 had only a few hives. 



There is one way of feeding, which I 

 believe, insures perfect wintering in 

 99 cases out of 100, yet I've never seen 

 it mentioned in print. Set your colony 

 in cellar, preferably well up from the 

 ground, and use a deep entrance or no 

 bottom, or the regular summer en- 

 trance may do, as it don't seem to mat- 

 ter so much about the entrance with 

 this method. Now have your cover so 

 it can be taken off easily and quickly 

 and as soon as your colony is reason- 

 ably well settled in the cellar, remove 

 the cover and lay enough good section 

 honey directly over the cluster to run 

 them until taken out of the cellar. This 

 section honey does not need to be 

 fancy, or number one or any better 

 than culls, just so it is good ripe 

 honey. Lay the combs down flat, the 

 sections will hold the combs a bee 

 space off the top bars, and after laying 

 six or eight directly on the top bars, 

 pile up a small pyramid if necessary, 

 in order to get plenty on, then throw 

 one or two thickness of heavy cloth 

 over all, and let it fall over the sides 

 of the hive 3 or 4 inches or more. A 

 couple burlap sugar sacks or an old 

 grain bag or two wil do. 



In the spring set the colony on its 

 summer stand with an entrance board 

 reaching the ground, puff some smoke 

 over the sections, shake what bees are 

 clustered on them in front and replace 

 the cover. A colony thus treated will 

 come through in perfect condition al- 

 most invariably, but I confess I do not 

 quite understand why. 



I have often wondered how many 

 who recommend hard candy have made 

 and used it themselves. I do not doubt 

 it can be made and used successfully 

 yet as I said, I have found it very 

 easy to lose bees when depending on 

 it. As for me I would choose syrup in 

 a good cellar in preference to candy 

 if I had no safe honey to use. 



Just one word on feeding, and the 

 veteran can skip this: When you have 

 fed your colony what you are quite 

 sure is plenty, then feed it about five 

 or ten pounds more If you follow this 

 rule many a colony will be saved that 

 would not otherwise be. 

 Dunlap, Iowa. 



Plural Mating of Queens 



BV .\RTHUR C. MILLER. 



Mr. SchoU's inquiry concerning the 

 mating of queens, in the September 

 number of the American Bee Journal, 

 deserves more than passing notice. 

 That queens do mate more than once 

 before commencing to lay is a fact so 

 well established that it seems almost 

 unnecessary to re-assert it. But some 

 bee-keepers seem to be unaware of it. 

 and so are not infrequently at a loss to 

 account for the appearance of offspring 

 of certain queens. 



For those unacquainted with the 



THE BEEWARE BRAND rr*'"""'" 



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