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American Hee Journal 



2. There are two bee-keepers within about 8 

 miles of my place who have several colonies 

 in box-hives which they want to sell. What 

 would be a fair price for me to pay per col- 

 ony for them f 



3. In transferring would it be all right to 

 let each colony swarm once, remove the old 

 hive from the old stand and let it go until 

 the honey-flow starts, then place it beside the 

 new hive on the old stand with a bee-escape 

 on its entrance, and thus run the bees from 

 the old hive into the new one? 



4. My apiary will be on the south side of a 

 larRe hill. I expect to run for comb honey. 

 If the colonics arc left without shade would 

 the crop of honey be likely to be shorter than 

 it would be if shade were provided? 



5. The queen in one colony this season 

 slacked up on egg-laying in July. Previous to 

 this she did very well, having filled 14 Dan- 

 zenbaker frames in 21 days. About the first 

 of August she commenced laying again as be- 

 fore. There was some honey in both brood- 

 chamber and super. Why did she slow up 

 on egg-laying? If a detriment can such con- 

 duct be prevented? 



District of Columbia. 



Answers. — i. That's a very hard question, 

 Let us suppose that the principal honey-plant 

 in the case is heartsease — a very supposable 

 thing. It will especially flourish in a wet sea- 

 son, although it may do more or less every 

 year. The principal matter of uncertainty in 

 the case, however, is the amount of it. It 

 may be so little in amount that those 6 colo- 

 nies were able to take care of all the blos- 

 soms in reach, and if you had had 7 colonies 

 your surplus would have been reduced. That, 

 however, is not likely to be the case, and as 

 guessing is the only thing that can be done, 

 my guess is that 50 colonies will give you 

 more surplus than a smaller number, and pos- 

 sibly 75 to 100. 



2. That's one of the things that depends upon 

 "locality," and you can find out only by in- 

 quiring what prices have been customary. Pos- 

 sibly it may be only $2 or $3 per colony; possi- 

 bly $5. 



3. Yes, with some modification. When the 

 colony swarms, put the swarm in its new hive 

 on the old stand, and put the old hive close 

 beside it. A week later, move the old hive 

 to the other side of the new one. Two weeks 

 later still (3 weeks after hiving the swarm), 

 cut up the old hive and brush all the bees into 

 the hive with the swarm. Then you can melt 

 \ip the combs, although it may be well first 

 to set the combs off some 3 or more rods until 

 the bees have robbed out all the honey. 



4. The matter of shade will probably have 

 very little effect on the crop. 



5. There may be more than one answer to 

 the question. Vou say she filled 14 frames in 

 21 days. Now suppose that in the first part 

 of that 21 days she began laying lightly, grad- 

 ually increasing throughout the whole time, at 

 the end of that time having the frames entirely 

 filled with either brood or honey. Don't you 

 see that she could find vacant cells in which 

 to lay, only as cells were emptied by the 

 ■emerging of young bees proceeding from eggs 

 laid 3 weeks before ? So you see that she 

 would be obliged to slow up so as to lay no 

 faster than she did at the beginning of the 3 

 weeks. It may also be that a heavy flow of 

 honey may have made the difference, for it 

 often happens that when a heavy flow occurs 

 the bees seem to turn their attention almost 

 €ntirely to storing, to the neglect of brood- 



just what you want in the columns of it. I 

 have some bee-books, such as "A B C of Bee- 

 Culture," but I find the Amrican Bee Journal 

 the best of them all. for it is up-to-date. I 

 feel that I can not say too much fo: 



Golden City, Mo., Dc 



H. W. Gamble. 



h„rc\l 



'ded. 



Sports 



Requeening — Reading Bee Literature. 



I sec throufih the columns of the American 

 Bee Journal that a great number of bee-keep- 

 ers practise requeening every few years. I just 

 wish to say that if all hacf'had the same ex- 

 prience that I have had, llii-re would be but 

 little requeening done, as I have tried several 

 times to introduce new queens, but have never 

 yet been successful in it, and I have tried 

 to follow very closely the instructions. I think 

 that evryone who keeps bees should read the 

 American Bee Journal or some other bee-paper, 

 for it comes in so handy. I consider it worth 

 more than any other paper that costs twice as 

 much, for when you are at your wits* end, 

 then pick up the American Bee Journal and 

 your trouble is over, for you can always find 



Good Results from Nuclei. 



I had 14 colonies in the spring, but was 

 comoellcd to double them up to save them. 



1 made S good ones the last of April, and 

 the latter part of May I placed them back in 

 the same number (14), and requeened. I have 

 3 colonies in 24-frame hives; that is, 3 bodies 

 of 8 frames each. Kach was started on 3 

 frames of brood and bees and empty combs in 

 June, and each turned out about 50 sections 

 of honey. They are very strong, having fully 

 60 pounds or more of honey for winter. I 

 call them my 3 warm numbers, and shall take 

 some queens from them in the spring. I have 



2 colonies of Caucasians, but shall keep only 

 one hereafter. C. B. Palmer. 



Bradshaw, Nebr., Dec. 16. 



Poor Season for Bees. 



We had a very cold, wet summer, and the 

 bees did little or no good until the buckwheat 

 time. I turned my attention to rearing bees, 

 and now have 18 colonies all in fine shape, 

 with plenty of stores. I am hoping to be able 

 to report a good crop of honey next season. 

 I have one out-apiary of 4 colonies, and ex- 

 pect to start 2 more in the spring. We have 

 street-cars running out 6 to 10 miles into the 

 country, thus giving me a chance to attend to 

 out-colonies. H. S. Buchanan. 



Indiana, Pa., Dec. 16. 



Why Bees Don't Do Well. 



The bees were in good shape here when 

 the honey season closed, September 15, but 

 the weather still continues warm and the bees 

 are flying out almost every day. Lots of them 

 are still rearing brood, caused from the fact 

 that they have continued to gather pollen up 

 to the present time. They are using up lots 

 of stores; are getting lighter every day, and 

 with those who never feed nor care for their 

 bees, if this weather continues there will be a 

 great loss next spring, and those colonies that 

 do pull through will be so weak that they will 

 hardly do anything all summer. And there 

 will be lots of bee-keepers who will wonder 

 why their bees did not do as well as some 

 other people's bees! J. W. Fercuson. 



Pierce City, Mo., Dec. 2, 1907. 



Queer Things Bees Do. 



Speaking of the freakish things that bees do, 

 if we would watch them very closely, we would 

 find out that bees do things that would aston- 

 ish us. During the past season I had one 

 colony of bees that were infected with moth — 

 so bad a case that I had to give them a new 

 hive, and new outfit, honey and all. I took 

 frames from extracting supers that were heavy 

 with honey, and fitted them up very snugly. 

 It is natural for bees to want to rob when 

 anything of this kind occurs, and they did 

 come around thick and fast, so much so that 

 I had to contract the entrance so it was possi- 

 ble for only one bee to pass at a time. I had 

 nothing to do but to watch them. I found that 

 once in a while a robber-bee would creep in, 

 and if it managed to get its load, it was held 

 up at the entrance by 2 bees, while one bee 

 made it give up the honey. They pumped it 

 out of the robber-bee, then let it go. 



Now I expect there is more than one bee- 

 keeper who will criticize this statement, Imt it 

 is just what we would do under similar cir- 

 cumstances if we had the help. There are a 

 great many queer things that bees do. 



Dawson, 111., Dec. 20. S. T. Crim. 



Sowing Alsike for. Honey. 



The farmers are sowing alsike clover, which 

 does very well here and the bees work well on 

 ■it. It makes our best honey. My bees are all 

 in good shape, and if the prospects hold out, 

 we will have a good crop next year. 



D. A. FiNKENBINDER. 



Stockton, III, Dec. 23. 



A Very Short Honey Crop. 



My bees came out all right last spring. I 

 lost one colony the latter part of August. 

 I had II swarms, which built up very slowly, 

 but finally gathered stores to take them 

 throuj?h the winter. There appeared to be 

 abundance of 'white clover, but the bees did 

 not work it very strong. They barely got a 

 living till black-heart bloomed, and that did 

 not yield much till late. The Illinois Uiver 

 being out of its banks almost the entire sum- 



1906 I put my 4-year-old 

 March 20, I put the bees 



mer, the wild cucumbers had no show at all, 

 and the Spanish-needles were but few, so my 

 honey crop was about 1-5 of what it was last 

 year. Some bee-keepers got only about i-io 

 of last year's yield. 



Geo. B. Slack. 

 Mapleton, III., Dec. 20. 



Half a Crop — Two Queens in One 

 Hive. 



The crop here in Missouri was not one-half 

 a crop. I fed over 700 pounds of sugar to my 

 bees for winter stores, extracting everything 

 above the brood. 



I found 2 queens in several hives this fall — 

 mother and daughter. Some were above ex- 

 cluaers and some together. Both always lay- 

 ing, but when left together after the flow one 

 always disappeared. I have saved some to 

 test next year. Irving Long. 



Marceline, Mo., Dec. 18. 



Late Mating of Queens. 



In the fall of 

 queen in the cellar 

 out, and I was anxious to 

 alive. On opening the hive I found a young 

 queen just emerging from its cell. I caught 

 her and put her in a spiral cage. Then I sent 

 for a laying queen, and waited for 30 days, 

 but no queen came. So I released the virgin 

 queen in time. She was mated, and was as 

 prolific a queen as ever was in a hive. In 

 time she cast an extra large swarm. 



Now this does away with some of the theo- 

 ries that have been advanced. I had 2 in the 

 spring of 1905, but they were no good. It was 

 about 6 weeks before the queens were mated. 



DeKalb, 111., Dec. 18. Wm. Marshall. 



A Queer Season. 



We have had one of the queerest seasons 

 I have seen since I began keeping bees. The 

 bees came out fine in the spring and gathered 

 quite freely from fruit-bloom, and later on 

 the country was pure white with clover, but 

 not a bee visited it. There was lots of other 

 bloom — more than I ever saw before — but not 

 a drop of nectar in it. We had more days of 

 good weather than usual in this locality, but 

 in spite of this no honey worth speaking of was 

 gathered. O. K. Rice. 



Grays River, Wash., Dec. 20. z 



Pays to Feed Bees for Winter. 



I bought 8 colonies of bees last winter, and 

 secured 24 pounds of section honey to the 

 colony during the season. I took only one 

 super from each colony. We had a very bad 

 drouth last summer, and bees did not do very 

 well. I have 5 colonies that did not swarm 

 during the whole summer; and 2 colonies that 

 swarmed 3 times each. The ones that did not 

 swarm are in better condition than those that 

 did swarm. They refilled their super. The 

 last swarms that came off did not make much 

 of anything, but I gave them empty combs and 

 fed them syrup in September and October, 

 and I think they will get through the winter. 

 I may have to feed them in the early spring. 

 I did last spring in April. One of my neigh- 

 bors lost several colonies in April last year 

 by not feeding. They worked in March, and 

 he thought they were all right, but it stayed 

 cold through April and part of May, and they 

 starved. John Detherow. 



Springfield, Mo., Dec. 16. 



Fine Crop of Fall Honey. 



We failed to get a sirring honey-flow in 

 1907. July I there was not an ounce of 

 honey coming in — bees out of business. July 

 7 some honey was coming in. but not one 

 section of honey, so the bees and myself went 

 out of business at that time; but in the fall 

 we renewed business and secured a fine crop 

 of fall honey. If not a large crop, it was 

 fine honey, most of which I have sold at 15 

 cents per section. 



The bees are in excellent condition for win- 

 ter. I have wintered my bees in the cellar 

 the past 3 years, and have not lost one col- 

 ony yet. I have a dirt floor and let them 

 stand out until it gets very cold, then I carry 

 them into the cellar. F. McBride. 



McGuffy, Ohio, Dec. 16. 



Wintering Bees in Out- Yards. 



I nut 183 colonics of bi-cs into the cellar 

 Monday. Dec. 2, and all indicate chances of 

 wintering. Mr. Thomas W. Chantry spent 3 

 days with me last week, and we fixed up 2 

 colonies of bees for experiment, as follows: 



We made the entrance-board even with the 

 front of the hive so that snow can not clog 

 the same, and contracted it to about 4 ^c n 

 inches. Three or four thicknesses of news- 



