November, 1913. 



American ?ee Journal 



the occupants of the hives? The hives '30 in 

 number) are in a small orchard of young 

 trees, and most of them are out of sight of 

 the house, only two or three being plainly in 

 view, and it seems to me that the cross has 

 come from these hives. Would a high fence 

 be a pretty sure cure for the trouble, or will 

 it be necessary to move the apiary to a 

 greater distance from the house, which I 

 would very much dislike to do. as they are 

 in a nearly ideal location now? 



3. This has been a remarkably good honey 

 year with me. Is this due in part to my Ital- 

 ian-Caucasian crosses ? South Dakota. 



Answers.— I. I don't know what is the 

 trouble, but I can make up a pretty good an- 

 swer by adopting the suggestions made in 

 your questions. It may be said in advance 

 that there seem to be times when bees be- 

 come ^specially cross without any apparent 

 reason. Caucasians started out with the 

 reputation of beint' the gent lest bees known; 

 but some strains of them have been reported 

 as cross. Generally, too. any cross is likely 

 to be crosser than pure stock. 



2. A high fence would be a help, and might 

 be a full remedy. If a bee upon leaving its 

 hive is obliged to rise above a certain level, 

 it is not likely to go below that level any- 

 where in the vicinity of the hive. An en- 

 tirely close fence is not .it all necessary. A 

 fence with slats or palings having 2 inches 

 space between them will answer. Vines or 

 bushes will do. only so they are high enough. 

 Poultry netting answers. Instead of a shield 

 at each hive (which, however, might be all 

 right;, it will likely be better to have a single 

 fence of some kind to answer for all; say 6 

 feet high or more. Quite often all the bees 

 in the apiary will seem cross when really 

 only one or two colonies are the culprits. If 

 you will recall, you will probably remember 

 that at most not 50 cross bees are threaten- 

 ing you. A single colony can easily furnish 

 that number. It isn"t the easiest thing in 

 the world to spot the cross colony, but by 

 persistence you can do it. and then change 

 the Queen. For some reason I don't know; 

 the bees upon receiving a good-natured 

 Queen become gentle before the bees of the 

 old stock have all died off. 



3. Most likely it's the season that deserves 

 the chief credit. You're not the only one 

 who has found this the best season ever. 



Questions from China 



1. I have several colonies of English black 

 bees. They are smaller than the Italians, 

 but more active and diligent. They are so 

 small that the bees rear drones in worker- 

 cells, so there is always a great number of 

 drones in the hive. On this account I tried 

 to Italianize them, but without success. 

 They absolutely refused to accept the Ital- 

 ian Queen. nor were the Italian queens 

 themselves willing to jointhem.no matter 

 how long the queens were caged in the 

 hives. A friend of mine told me that the 

 English black bees, as well as the native 

 bees in China and Japan, cannot be re- 

 queened with queens of other species. 

 ■Will you please tell me if there is a special 

 way of Italianizing them ? What do you 

 think of the English black bees? Are they 

 worth keeping for profit ? The worst is that 

 they have always too many drones which 

 consume and reduce the honey crop. Hav- 

 ing such a disadvantage. I wonder why the 

 British apiarists prefer them to other spe- 

 cies. 



2. I have just bought some Italian bees of 

 red clover strain from Japan last month, 

 but I found that they don't work as ener- 

 getically and actively as the English black 

 bees. My friend in japan told me that the 

 Italians are not active during a dearth of 

 honey, but when the flow comes on they will 

 excel the other species. Did you have the 

 same experience with the Italians in your 

 country ? The queens of my Italian bees 

 have the whole of their abdomens of dark 

 red color; the workers have also red abdo- 

 mens, but with two or three black bands, 

 and the tip of the abdomen is also black. 

 Thedrones are very large; they must have 

 large drone-cells to rear them. Are my Ital- 



ian bees mentioned above pure red-clover 

 strain? China. 



Answers — i. I have some doubt whether 

 your black bees are the same as the black 

 bees they have in England, which are, I 

 think, of the same size as the black bees of 

 this country. I have never seen it stated 

 that English black bees are noticeably dif- 

 ferent in size from the Italians. There is no 

 special trouble in introducing an Italian 

 queen into a colony of black bees here, and 

 the same combs that the one kind of bees 

 build are acceptable to the other kind. 

 Neither is it the case that black bees rear 

 drones in worker-cells, unless in the case of 

 laying workers or a drone-laying queen. 

 Certainly tiie English black bees are worth 

 keeping for profit, and probably the majority 

 of bee-keepers in England think them more 

 valuable than Italians. Neither do the 

 blacks rear more drones than Italians. If 

 you get such black bees, combs and all. as 

 are in use in England, you can easily change 

 them into Italians. 



2. The reputation of Italians here is just 

 the reverse of that given by your Japanese 

 friend. The Italians here keep gathering 

 at least a little at times when the blacks 

 gather nothing. Red-clover strains are not 

 always reliable. Some of those sold as red- 

 clover bees do not work on red clover. Even 

 if they do work on red clover, the trait is 

 not a permanent one, and the next genera- 

 tion may not work on red clover at all. Red- 

 clover bees are not considered different in 

 appearance from others, so that it is im pos 

 sible to tell from description whether you 

 have such bees or not. The only way to tell 

 them is to see whether they work on red- 

 clover blossoms or not. 



Screen Colony House to Prevent Robbing 



Have you in your country or elsewhere 

 ever tried to make hives and keep bees in 

 the following manner; Seeing the bees in 

 an apiary, during a dearth of honey or even 

 in a light honey How. often resort to robbing, 

 it occurred to me to build the hives with 

 wire-cloth on the two longer sides, and put 

 them in an outer case, so that the wire- 

 cloth sides of the hives touch each other, 

 and all stand on a long bottom-board which 

 is divided with scantling for each hive to 

 stand on. and with a separate entrance for 

 each hive. The outer case may be built for 

 holding from one to ten hives, each side by 

 side crowded together. 



In this way. I think, colonies that are so 

 put together will be prevented from rob- 

 bing, because the colonies are only sep- 

 arated from each other by two pieces of 

 wire-cloth on the sides of the hives, and the 

 smell of each colony is thereby mixed, so 

 that when the bees enter any of the hives in 

 the same outer case, they would not be able 

 to detect it is not their own hive. On the 

 front of the outer case the entrances are 

 separated or partitioned by nailing pieces 

 of tri-angular boards between each. The 

 front wall is to be painted in different colors. 



Do you think such a combination of hives 

 in one outer case practicable ? I think it 

 has the advantages: ist, prevents fobbing 

 at least among the colonies so put together; 

 2d, it saves room, as one outer case to hold 

 10 hives would only occupy about 14 feet; 3d, 

 it gives mutual warmth in winter, and 4th, 

 you can take any number of bees from one 

 colony and put it in the other without fear 

 of fighting. 



If you think my above suggestions are 

 practicable, and will not affect the working 

 and well being of the bees. I will make one 

 and try it. China. 



Answer.— Your scheme is quite ingenious, 

 and ought to work all right if the four foun- 

 dation stones you mention are all right. 

 Taking the four in reverse order; the 4th 

 may be all right; the 2dand 3d certainly are; 

 but how do you know about the ist. which is 

 the chief corner-stone ? Have you any proof 

 that bees will not rob from another colony 



having the same odor ? On the contrary, 

 have you never heard of cases called "silent 

 robbing?" I don't think they are common, 

 but they do sometimes occur. A swarm is 

 found to be carrying away honey from the 

 mother colony silently, and without any 

 fighting, and the explanation given is that 

 the bees of the mother colony do not recog- 

 nize the robbers as outsiders because they 

 are of the same odor. 



A plan somewhat after the same order 

 was exploited in the British Bee Journal a 

 few years ago. but little has been said about 

 it lately. Two colonies were side by side, 

 separated not by wire-cloth but by excluder- 

 zinc, and allowed to work in the same su- 

 pers. One trouble was that too often one of 

 the colonies went queenless. perhaps be- 

 cause of the similar odor the queenlessness 

 was not recognized in time. 



Swarm Prevention 



About the time that natural swarming 

 may be expected to begin go through the 

 hives, cut out queen-cells and cage all 

 queens. Seven or eight days later go through 

 the hives again, cut out all queen-cells ex- 

 cept a choice one in each hive, and remove 

 all caged queens. The cell left in a hive 

 need not necessarily be from that hive. The 

 choice hives would probably have several 

 frames with queen-cells in them, and these 

 could be distributed among the inferior 

 hives. 



I judge from "Forty Years Among the 

 Bees." that if this method were carefully 

 carried out. there would be little or no 

 swarming, but 1 am uncertain as to the effect 

 on the honey crop. In my locality the sur- 

 plus season is generally from about the mid- 

 dle of May to sometime between luly i to 15. 



Virginia. 



Answer.— If swarming begins, as it does 

 here, at about the beginning of the harvest, 

 then you would cut cells and cage queen 

 about May 15. Then May 23 you would re- 

 move the queen and leave one of the cells 

 started after the queen was caged. A queen 

 would issue from that cell about May 27. 

 provided the bees started cells promptly 

 upon the caging of the queen, and provided 

 you happened to leave one of the oldest 

 cells. Then, at the earliest, the queen might 

 be laying eggs about June 4, and workers 

 would emerge from them June 25. becoming 

 fielders about June 30. There's a break in 

 laying from May 15 to June 4, or 20 days, and 

 all eggs laid in that 20 days could have been 

 counted on to help gather the crop. In a 

 good many cases you will find that every- 

 thing would not work up to schedule time, 

 making the break still more than 20 days. 



I don't just see what you gain by keeping 

 the queen caged instead of removing her at 



Baits — Swarm Prevention 



I. One of my colonies did nothing in the 

 supers (comb honeyjall theseason. I wanted 

 to give it a new queen. The queenarrived 

 nearly dead; her company all dead. On ex- 

 amining that colony it was found heavy, full 

 of bees. eggs, and every kind of brood and 

 honey. So I had no heart to kill the queen. 

 I was so hurried for supers that I made a 

 few hive-bodies myself, and ordered insides 

 to come by mail. Before the latter arrived 

 I put on a home-made super and just threw 

 in helter-skelter odd pieces of wood. By 

 the time the insides had come quite a lot of 

 honey was stored; so I thought I had gotten 

 those bees to work, and put on a full-fledged 

 comb-honey super, but in that they again 

 did nothing. I have this year tried shallow 

 frames at each side of the super and sec- 

 tions between, with but very indifferent re- 

 sults, and cannot thus agree with Townsend 

 who asserts that such beat hiits. 



Baits, I contend, are the thing. What I 

 will try next year is with some colonies in 

 the start, to give them supers all full of shal- 

 low frames, and after work has been done 

 in them, 'swap "for section supers, and I 

 will keep on again and again using initia 



