September, 1913. 



315 



American Hee Journal J 



will succeed best, and as yon have no troiible| 

 with the lighter foundation sagging it wil 

 be economy to use that. 



Don't hesitate to send all the qnestionsj 

 you like. 



I ainly prefer to have the coinh> exposed to 

 reezing in winter. 

 !. That will be all right. 



Venli lati on —Swarm ing— Prevention 



1. I feel at times perplexed about ventilal|^ 

 tion. Most of my hives have bottom boardsQ 

 with removable blocks in back, so that when? 

 the latter are removed, there is a clear sweep 

 of breeze; entrance being of same size as^ 

 gap at back. Towards winter, the bees propo-' 

 lize the back block airtight. Yesterday wasf- 

 a hot sultry day. evidently the bees appre-'; 

 ciated the ventilation. About 10:00 p. m.' 

 there was a cool mild breeze from the north- 

 west. It seemed to me a good idea to close 

 up the rear of hives, as many of the hives 

 face south. The north wind could enter the 

 back. 1 attended to this before going to bed 

 and while doing this a number of the hives 

 had bees clustered thickly outside at the en- 

 trance and up the front. Why do you sup- 

 pose the bees did this, when the heat of the. 

 day let up by fi:On p. m.? Were they es- 

 caping the mild north wind or protecting the 

 brood by almost closing the entrance? 



2. Please give an opinion of the follow- 

 ing for discouraging- swarming: With regular 

 examinations of all of one's colonies always 

 take away entirely every frame with a queen 

 cell, using su^ frame elsewhere and substi- 

 tuting, should this be rather depleting, with 

 a new frame with full foundation? 



Pennsylvania. 



Answers — 1. Your ideas of ventilation 

 seem to be right enough, but you don't know 

 how to carry them out. Neither do I, The 

 ideal thing is to change the ventilation as 

 often as the weather changes, even if that 

 be several times a day. Plainly, such a thing 

 is impracticable. I don't know of any bet- 

 ter way to approximate it than to go some- 

 what by continued spells of weather. Of 

 course through the summer season hive^ 

 should be more open than in winter. When 

 a hot spell comes that is likely to continue 

 for several days, then it is well to open up 

 as much as possible. If a cool spell conies, 

 then close up. The part that you don't 

 know, and I don't know, is what the weather 

 will be within the next few days. If we 

 open up for a hot spell, it may be cool 

 and vice versa. The only advice I have to 

 give is to lean toward too much rather than 

 too little ventilation. 



Regarding that colony 'that closed the en- 

 trance by. clustering there when it became 

 cooler, I don't at all think they did that to 

 keep the brood warm. It was the same reason 

 as always; it was too warm inside; and I 

 don't suppose they felt like thanking you any 

 for closing it up. 



2. If you mean to substitute a frame 

 tilled with foundation for each frame found 

 with one or more queen-cells on it. and to 

 keep that up say every 10 days, I think it 

 would not only discourage swarming bu^ 

 [)revent it entirely. At the same time it 

 would discourage if not prevent entirely a 

 good crop of honey. 



Bee-Space Above Frames 



I build my own bive^. li it necessary to 

 [have bee-space between cover and brood 

 jjframes? I find some hives do not have this. 



Minnesota. 

 Answers. By all means have a space of 

 pabout y^ inch between cover and top-bars, 

 ii'his for the sake of allowing a passage over 

 >.the frames in winter, and also because if 

 ^there is no such space the bees will glue the 

 cover tight to the top bars. This is on the 

 supposition that there is nothing between the 

 cover and top bars. Formerly it was a more 

 or less common practice to have a sheet or 

 .quilt over the top bars, and in that case no 

 space is needed except enough room for 

 sheet or quilt. 



Exposing Combs to Coid 



1. Does it injure empty extracting combs 

 to keep them where the temperature goes Ue- 

 low freezing? 



2. If not, would it be safe to stack them 

 up in the yard with a sheet of heavy tarred 

 paper between each super? Wisconsin. 



Answers — 1. The combs may be slightly 

 cracked with very hard freezing, but that is 

 a small matter compared with the advantage 

 that freezing kills all the bee-moth, their 

 larvae, and even their eggs. T should cer- 



Bi^st Kinds of Clover and Locust— Buckwheat 



1 . Which is the best kind of clover for 

 bees, the ordinary white clover or the big 

 sweet clover? 



2. Our nurserymen do not seem to know 

 what kind of locust trees I should set out 

 for my bees. Will you please tell me? 



3. I have a patch of buckwheat now in 

 full bloom but my bees do not pay any at- 

 tention to it. What do you think is the 

 cause of this? Oklahoma. 



Answers — 1. Circumstances alter cases. If 

 you mean which is the best kind for you to 

 encourage, then it depends upon what you 

 already have. If white clover is plentiful and 

 yoxi have no sweet clover, by all means en- 

 courage the latter. If you have plenty of 

 sweet clover and little white clover, then pur- 

 sue the opposite course. It should be said. 

 however, that it is much easier to increase 

 sweet than white clover. Unless you own 

 land by the hundred acres, so as to change 

 the land from cultivated crops to grazing, you 

 can have little effect on the amount of white 

 clover, while you can easily scatter sweet- 

 clover-seed in waste places where it will mul- 

 tiply. 



Your question may, however, be as to which 

 is better, a place where the bees have all 

 the white clover they can take care of, or all 

 the sweet clover. I don't know the answer 

 to that question. I have always suppposed 

 that bees could gather nectar more rapidly 

 from sweet than white, and have supposed 

 that was the general belief, but in Gleanings 

 for August 15 the editor says: "It is probable 

 that there is no great amount of -nectar at any 

 one time in the sweet-clover- blossoms; for 

 very often, in spite of the abundant growth, 

 the bees do not get very much surplus." 

 Possibly we may, before long, have reports 

 from those whose bees have access to large 

 areas of sweet clover that will help settle the 

 question. Until that statement in Gleanings, 

 I should have said that sweet clover would 

 give more surplus than white. But I'd rath- 



er have both, for white clover yields before 

 sweet, then both run awhile together, and 

 sweet continues after white is all done. 



2. I don't know. I have an impression 

 that the common black locust is the better 

 honey-yielder, but the honey-locust may be 

 l)etter than I think. Certainly the name 

 would indicate it. Can any one tell us about 

 this? 



3. I think buckwheat sowed about the first 

 of July yields nectar better than that sowed 

 earlier, and yours may have been sown too 

 early. However, buckwheat is like white 

 clover and other plants, it sometimes fails 

 to yield nectar, no matter whether early or 

 late, and I don't know why. 



Chickens Eating Bess—Supers— Moving Bees 



1. Is it a common thing lor chickens to 

 eat l>ees ? We had one that would stand in 

 front of a bee-hive and eat bees until it was 

 full. I thought it would die but it kept it 

 up for two weeks and was doing well. 



2. I have a colony of bees that wouldn't 

 accept the super. I put in a section of honey 

 and still they wouldn't accept it. I exchanged 

 their super for one on another hive with a 

 few pounds of honey and lots of bees; gave 

 them a little smoke and put it on their 

 hive. I watched for dead bees but didn't see 

 any. Did they stay in the hive or go back 

 to their old home? 



3. The super is now nearly full. Is it 

 advisable to take it off? 



4. Next spring I want to move 20 colo- 

 nies in a wagon. When would be the best 

 time to move them and bow wrnld be the 

 best way to load ? Indiana. 



Answers—!. Testimony is somewhat mix- 

 ed on this subject. For the most part it is 

 claimed that chickens do not eat bees, or it 

 they do it is only the drones. Some, how- 

 ever, say that chickens eat workers, especially 

 some chickens that have learned the trick. 



2. Like enough your colony was not strong 

 enough to do much in supers. The bees that 

 you gave in the super from another colony 

 probably staid where they were put, at least 

 most of them, but if there were any field 

 bees among them they would likely return 

 to their old home. 



3. It is well to take away sections as of- 

 ten as a complete superful is ready, although 

 it is hardly best to wait until the corner 

 sections are_ all sealed, for if you do so the 

 central sections will have their cappings 

 darkened. The unfinished section may be 

 assembled from different supers into one su- 

 per and returned to the bees to be finished. 



4. It doesn't matter such a great deal 

 what time in spring you move them. If you 

 move them when it is freezing hard, there is 

 danger that the combs will break. If you 

 move them after they have begun to fly 

 freely, you must take the precaution to close 

 the hives the evening beAjre moving, other- 

 wise you will lose some of the field bees. 



Put them in the wagon with the frames 

 running crosswise, as the greatest shaking is 

 from the wagon swinging from side to side. 



Queen-Breeding Notes 



It looks as if every man has a way of bis 

 own and believes his way- is best. On page 

 23G, American Bee .Tournal. Mr. A. D. U. 

 Wnnd shows his way of catching and clipping 



a queen's wings. While that way will do, 1 

 have one that I like better and gives no 

 chance to injure the queen. 



I pick up the queen by botli wings witr. 

 niy right hand and put my first finger under 



