January, 15 



American "Bee Journal 



'%dor Niller^s 



Send Questions either to the office of the American Bee Jotirnal, or to 



DR. C. C. MILLER. Marengo, 111. 



Dr. Miller does not answer Questions by mail. 



Swarming — Sections in the Brood- 

 Chamber. 



1. Suppose in swarming time my col- 

 ony A swarmed once. Two or 3 clays 

 afterwards colony B swarms also. While 

 this B swarm is still hanging on the 

 tree I go to A and cut out all queen- 

 cells, insert 2 fresh, empty combs in 

 the center of hive, and then get the 

 swarm on the tree and put it into A. 

 Will it work all right, or will they 

 swarm out again? 



2. Will it work better if A has 

 swarmed twice or even three times, or 

 does it make no difference? My idea is 

 to keep down increase and at the same 

 time put A to work in the super. Of 

 course I should treat B the same way 

 if I had a swarm from C, and so on. 



3. What do you think of putting sec- 

 tions down into the brood-chamber, say 

 perhaps 2 framefuls on each side? 



New York. 

 Answers. — i. I don't know. I think it 

 would work sometimes and sometimes 

 not. 



2. I think it will make a decided dif- 

 ference, whether a second swarm is- 

 sues from A or not. If you hive swarm 

 of B in it a week or more after the 

 prime swarm issues from A, there will 

 be less danger of swarming out than 

 only 2 or 3 days after. 



3. The plan is not used as much as 

 formerly, if indeed it is now used at 

 all. If you leave the sections below 

 to be finished, you are likely to have 

 pollen in them, and also to have the cap- 

 pings darkened. When sections have 

 been put below it has generally been 

 merely to get the bees started in them 

 and then to put them up. But it is 

 hardly advisable to put them below at 

 all. 



Sweet Clover — Keeping Bees on 

 Shares. 

 I see you have experimented with 

 sweet clover, and I would like to have 

 you tell me about it. 



1. What are the objections to it? 



2. How would it do to put it on poor, 

 bare spots in a pasture? 



3. Would the stock keep it eaten 

 down till it would not spread? 



4. Forty miles southwest of Spring- 

 field, 111., I have 60 acres of apple-trees 

 just coming into bearing, and I think 

 of starting some bees. .As I farm by 

 pro.xy what should I do for a start, and 

 how can my man learn what to do? 

 I shall give him half the surplus honey 

 to pay him for the care of them. All I 



know is what I would like to have the 

 bees to pollinate the fruit-blossoms. I 

 don't know how many, what kind, when, 

 or anything about what I should have. 

 There are bees about 2 miles from my 

 place, but I believe they have too many 

 blooms to the bee. Illinois. 



Answers. — i. The objection to sweet 

 clover is the same as to red clover or 

 any other plant that may be in a place 

 where it is not wanted. On the road- 

 side, where wheels carry the seed along, 

 it will spread many a rod in a few years, 

 but in a field it will spread very slowly, 

 and it is perhaps no harder to kill out 

 than red clover. Many value it as pas- 

 turage for horses and cows, or for hay. 

 Perhaps it would not be a bad answer 

 to your question to say there is no ob- 

 jection to it, for the objection given may 

 also be made to any of the clovers or 

 grasses. 



2. It will do all right ; only if the 

 pasture be poor, forcing stock to eat it 

 down too close, the young sweet clover 

 plants may be killed out. 



3. I'm not sure what you mean by that 

 question. If you mean, would the stock 

 keep it eaten down so that it would not 

 spread as much as you desire, so as 

 to have the bare places filled up. I 

 would say that unless pastured down 

 quite close the first year, the likelihood 

 is that there would always be enough 

 blossoms and seed left to keep the 

 ground seeded down fairly well. For 

 you will understand that it needs con- 

 stant reseeding, being a biennial, com- 

 ing from the seed the first year, bloom- 

 ing the second year, and dying root and 

 branch the following winter. 



If you mean to ask whether the cat- 

 tle would keep it eaten down enough to 

 keep it from spreading on adjacent 

 ground where not wanted, the probabil- 

 ity is that the cattle would make no dif- 

 ference, unless they should be able to 

 kill it down altogether. But as already 

 said, it is not a rapid spreader in fields. 



4. The easiest way to make a start 

 would be to buy 2 or 3 colonies of bees 

 from some one near by, so as to avoid 

 charges, and if you can not do that to 

 buy nuclei or full colonies from some 

 one farther away. 



If you have to send away, get Ital- 

 ians; if you can get them near by, you 

 needn't be so particular ; get any kind 

 you can, and you can change the breed 

 afterward. 



I said get 2 or 3 colonies. That's the 

 stereotyped advice for a beginner ; begin 

 on a small scale, and any mistake you 

 make will not be very expensive. In 



your case it may be better advice to say 

 at least 5 or 6. For if no bees are within 

 2 miles, you can count on very little 

 help from outside to fertilize your blos- 

 soms, and it may pay richly in the mat- 

 ter of better fruit crops for you to buy a 

 larger amount of bees even if they all 

 die the first winter. 



For any sort of success with bees, it 

 will pay well to spend a dollar or so for 

 a good book on the subject, and the 

 small amount of 50 cents for the .Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal will also be a wise in- 

 vestment. 



Some Prime Essentials in Bee-Keep- 

 ing. 



I would like your opinion as to wheth- 

 er the matter in that article on page 

 724 copied from the Dallas News is en- 

 tirely reliable. Kentucky. 



Answer. — When I first read the ar- 

 ticle to which you refer, I made the 

 mental comment that Mr. Robinson had 

 not only written a very readable article, 

 but that it was also quite reliable, much 

 more so than a good deal of the matter 

 published about bees in publications 

 other than bee-papers. Now that I have 

 read it over again I see no reason to 

 change my view in general ; only that 

 for the sake of strict exactness some 

 little items might be changed, although 

 for the sake of brevity Mr. Robinson 

 may not have thought it worth while to 

 be so very exact. 



Mr. R. says the dovetail hive "is 

 made of such dimensions as to contain 

 8 or 10 frames, known as the Hoffman 

 self-spacing frame." That is strictly 

 true. It would have been equally true 

 if, instead of saying Hofifman frames 

 he had said Miller, or Langstroth, or 

 any other frames I7%x9% outside 

 measure. The trouble is that as Mr. R. 

 has expressed it, some may suppose that 

 only Hofifman frames are used in dove- 

 tail hives. While the Hofifman frame is 

 largely used in dovetail hives, there are 

 many using dovetail hives who could 

 not be induced to use the Hoffman 

 frame. 



If one desires to be very critical, one 

 might take exception to the statement 

 that in a frame of comb "there are 25 

 cells to the square inch." Of course 

 Mr. R. knows there are less than 25 

 cells to the inch in drone-comb, and 

 even with worker-comb there is varia- 

 tion. Worker foundation has not al- 

 ways been made with cells of the same 

 size and where bees build worker-comb 

 w-ithout foundation there may be less 

 than 25 cells to the square inch, or 

 there may be more. 



If a rule be laid upon a worker-comb, 

 without being very exact one will be 

 likely to say there are 5 cells to the 

 linear inch. It must be remembered, 

 however, that 5 cells to the linear inch 

 does not mean 25 cells to the square 

 inch. That would be correct if the cells 

 were square, but into the same space 

 there can be got more hexagonal cells 

 than square ones. Cheshire, Vol. i, 

 page 176, gives it as 28 13-1S to each 

 square inch. 



Now comes a rather serious error, 

 evidently from carelessness in making 

 the wrong figure. Mr. R. says : "A 

 frame contains 136 square inches of sur- 

 face, and as there are 25 cells to the 



