March, 1908. 



American l^ee Journal 



the hive-body and supers. A local authority 

 told me to paint the inside of the hive with 

 coal-oil and burn it out and the hive would 

 do to use again. Now I did a good job of 

 this, I know, and I then took sand-paper 

 and cleaned off the charred particles. The bees 

 did not go into the supers; tliat is, they never 

 did anything towards drawing out the start- 

 ers, or even put a particle of honey in the 

 bait sections. The same person told me that 

 as no honey was carried into the super they 

 would be safe to use. I burned the sections 

 and separators. 



Now, can I use those hives and supers 

 again? They are are all new, and I don't 

 want to lose the whole thing. I have just 

 finished reading " Forty Years Among the 

 Bees," but failed to find what I want to 

 know. Nebr.\ska. 



Answer. — Very good authorities say you are 

 perfectly safe in using the hive and supers 

 without burning out or doing anything to 

 them. Certainly the burning could do no 

 harm. 



Getting Increase Otherwise Than by 

 Natural Swarming. 



1. As I don't like tm have natural swarming, 

 ■do you think it would be safe for me to try 

 Alexander's method of increase? (Page 423, 

 in Gleanings for 1906). 



2. Is there no danger of the bees all enter- 

 ing the lop story, leaving the queen all alone 

 in the lower? 



3. When taking the top story off, how many 

 bees should go with it? 



4. Do you consider the above method better 

 than allowing natural swarming with clipped 

 queen, or dividing bv forming nuclei? I have 

 two bee-books. "A B C of Bee Culture" and 

 "Forty Years Among the Bees," so I have 

 read of different methods, but I should think 

 the above to be best. Having only a few 

 colonies I don't want to run the risk of losing 

 any. Minnesota. 



Answers. — i. What's best for one is not best 

 for another. Mr. Alexander depends largely 

 upon late harvests, has thousands of acres of 

 buckwheat, and for him it is all right to 

 divide his colonies and increase his crops. 

 For me it would be a dead failure, and I'm 

 pretty sure it would be for you. 



2. Enough bees will remain below to care 

 for the queen. 



3. I think Mr. Alexander takes all that are 



Moving Bees — Increase — Italianizing 



— Best Hive for Wintering 



Out-doors. 



1. Can hives be r 

 place, say 50 or 10 

 the bees? Are ther 

 obs 



3ved from their original 

 feet without confusing 

 any special rules to be 



2. I have 4 colonies of bees. How many 

 times can these be increased by the end of the 

 season without weakening them too much? 

 How should this be done? 



3. My bees are hybrids. Could I change 

 to Italians? If so, how? 



4. What kind of a hive is best for wintering 

 out-of-doors in this latitude? 



West Virginia. 

 Answers. — i. If you move them before they 

 have had a spring flight there will be no trou- 

 ble. After that there will be lots of trouble, 

 as the bees returning from the field will return 

 to the old location. One way to help is to 

 fasten the bees in the hives in the evening 

 or very early in the morning before moving; 

 after moving, leave them shut in till the mid- 

 dle of the day, pound on the hive until the 

 bees roar, and then let them out, putting in 

 front of each entrance a board for them to 

 knock their noses against. 



2. In a very poor season once may be too 

 often. In a phenomenally good season an ex- 

 pert might increase 8 or 10 times. On the 

 average, doubling will probably be enough. 

 You have your choice of all the different 

 ways — natural swarming, shaking swarms, the 

 nucleus plan, etc. A thorough study of prin- 

 ciples in your bee-book, and a careful consid- 

 eration of your conditions will help to decide 

 which way is best for you. 



3. Yes, by introducing Italian queens. But 

 you can take a short cut on that. Intro- 

 duce an Italian queen early enough into a 

 colony, give it frames of hatching brood from 

 other colonies to make it very strong, so it 

 shall swarm first. Call this No. i. When it 

 swarms, hive the swarm on the old stand, 

 set No. I on the stand of the strongest re- 



probably 



colony did thi: 



2. Do you 

 enough for 



maining colony, and move the latter to a new 

 location. In a week or 10 days a second 

 swarm will issue from No. i. Set the swarm 

 in place of No. i, and put No. 1 in place 

 of the strongest remaining colony, setting the 

 latter in a new place. A day or 2 later No. 

 I will swarm again, and it will continue to 

 swarm several times more, and every time 

 you will put the swarm in place of No. i 

 and put No. i in the place of the strongest 

 remaining colony. Thus you will have an 

 Italian queen jn every one of your colonies. 



Queer Swarms — Price for Honey — 

 Wintering Bees on Platform. 



1. I had trouble with my bees last year. 

 They would swarm and after I had hived them 

 they would come out of the new hive and go 

 back to the old home hive. 'hey would 



m again the next cjy with the 

 doing this several times. One 

 did this 5 times. What was the reason? 

 think 10 or i2j^ cents cash is 

 >mb honey in the home market, 

 or could I get more by shipping to some 

 firm buying honey? This is all I can get here, 

 and it is hard work to dispose of it at these 

 prices. 



3. I place my bees on a platform about one 

 foot high and set the hives on this about 

 one foot apart, to winter them. I then put 

 hay or straw around them except in front of 

 the hive. I put boards or rubber roofinc on 

 top of this to keep them dry. Do you con- 

 sider this a satisfactory way to winter bees? 

 Iowa. 



Answers. — i. Bees are freaky creatures, and 

 it isn't easy always to give reasons for all they 

 do. A swarm often deserts the hive in which 

 it is hived because it is too hot and close. 

 The remedy is to have the hive shaded, and 

 with large opening for ventilation. Swarms 

 leaving their hives in this way, however, are 

 more likely to take French leave than to re- 

 turn to their old homes. Sometimes a queen 

 is not able to fly with the swarm (it sometimes 

 happens that bees tear a queen's wings), in 

 which case the bees may return immediately 

 to the hive, or they may settle and allow you 

 to hive them, and then return. 



2. No, it is not enough, if the honey is 

 first-class and put up in good style. You may, 

 and you may not, do better by shipping; but 

 you can find out by inquiry. A very small 

 outlay in advertising might bring good re- 

 sults. But you should make some effort be- 

 fore being satisfied with too low a price. 



3. Verv likely ; although surroundings may 

 make a difference. 



Preventing Afterswarms — Chunk 

 Honey vs. Section Honey. 



I. I intend to let my bees swarm once, 

 and if possible prevent any afterswarms by 

 cutting out cells. Would you advise me, when 

 a colony swarms, to put the swarm on the 

 old stand, removing the parent colony to a 

 new location? Of course we are told in our 

 books to hive in this way, but I would like 

 to have your opinion about it. 



8. Can I get more surplus in this way than 



to leave the parent 

 putting the 

 3. If the 

 most likely 



years old? 



; any differ 

 leave, a ; 

 year old. 



locati( 



the old stand, 



ith 



duction 

 honey, clai 

 sections. 



advocating the pro- 

 'nstead of section 

 to fuss with 



me bee-keeper 

 chunk honey 

 ng it is cheape 

 What is your idea about it? 



Texas. 



Answers.— I. Yes. the plan is good. Only 

 instead of cutting out cells I would set the 

 old hive close beside the swarm, and then a 

 week later move the old hive to a new place. 

 Then the bees will destroy the cells them- 

 selves. 



2. Yes, in nearly all cases. 



3. One is perhaps as likely to abscond as 

 another: if any difference the younger queen 

 might be first to go. 



4. If I were in Texas I'd likely go in for 

 bulk honey. 



Difference in Bees — Drone - Laying 



Queens and Laying Workers. 



My bees arc all hybrid?, and during the past 

 summer I sent for Italian queens from 3 dif- 

 ferent breeders with a view to improving the 

 stock. The queens were accepted and bred 

 up strong in bees, but the fielders issued about 

 a week after the honey harvest was past, 

 so that there was nothing for them to get in 



the fields. I could see no difference between 

 2 of the colonies of Italians and our own, 

 except that they had a little more yellow on 

 them. The bees of the third colony had still 

 more yellow than the other 2, and are very 

 pretty to look at, but — oh, my ! such robbers I 

 Even when the weather wasn't fit for our own 

 bees to fly, that colony would De out sneaking 

 around at every hive, trying to get in. 



One cold morning, when few bees were 

 Hying, 1 took a chunk of comb honey out 

 about 20 rods from the apiary. I waited 10 

 minutes, and in that time there were about 

 100 of the real yellow bees on the comb, and 

 about 10 hybrids, and half an hour later there 

 WL-re thousands of yellow bees, with few hy- 

 brids. The wind was coming from the direc- 

 tion of the apiary, so that the bees would 

 have to be out in the field in order to smell 

 the honey. There were 57 colonies of hybrids. 



1. Is it safe to breed from such a queen, 

 and will they not be liable to rob the others 

 out of house and horned 



2. Different writers claim that drone-laying 

 workers are the only ones guilty of laying 

 eggs to the sides of a cell. Last fall I found 

 a colony with a drone-laying queen of iqo^'s 

 rearing, and I found lots of worker-cells with 

 2 and 3 eggs in a cell, some at the bottom 

 and others stuck to the sides half way down. 

 In such a case, is the colony liable to have 

 laying workers acting in conjunction with the 

 drone-laying queen? 



3. Another colony had a queen that laid both 

 drone and worker eggs in worker-cells, but 

 there were mostly small drones hatching out. 

 The queen was a wee, small thing, so I killed 

 her, took out all the brood I saw, and intro- 

 duced a tested queen. Eleven days later the 

 queen was dead in front of the hive, and on 

 looking through the hive I found 3 small 

 queens, and 3 open queen-cells in a bunch, 

 but with not an egg nor a particle of brood 

 elsewhere in the hive. Two of the virgins were 

 killed, and the other will be a drone-layer, 

 as it was October 10 when she was hatched. 



4. Did I do righ#to kill that queen, or 

 would she have turned out all right next year? 



Ontario. 

 Answers. — i. It will probably be all right 

 to breed from her. It looks as though it might 

 be that the robbers are unusually active and 

 the robbed rather lazy, and that the same 

 activity in robbing might show in a more favor- 

 able direction in time of a good honey-flow. 



2. I think I never heard of laying workers 

 being present with a laying queen, at least 

 for any considerable time. Queens sometimes 

 lay eggs on the sides of cells. 



3. The probability is that the queen you 

 killed would have got worse instead of better, 

 and you did right to kill her. The drones 

 were small because reared in worker-cells. 



Air-Space in Super Cover. 



Should there be an air-space between a 

 ^^-inch flat super-cover and H-inch telescope 

 cover 9 inches deep, with painted tin over the 

 top? The hives are set out in the open and 

 are run for comb honey. 



The above is a regular Danzenbaker super 

 and the Root cover and K telescope cap. It 

 amounts to 2?^-inch boards and a sheet of tin 

 (or galvanized iron), all tight together. 



Pennsylvania. 



Answer. — An air-space will be warmer in 

 cold weather, and cooler in hot weather; for 

 that air-space is a poor conductor of heat. 



Foul Brood — Hybrids vs. Italians — 

 Wintering Bees Under Bank Barn. 



1. Can foul brood be cured without destroy- 

 ing all the bees? If so, how? 



2. What is the cause of foul brood? Is it 

 some poison that they bring in with the 

 pollen that kills the brood? 



3. Can bees gather honey and pollen at the 



4. How many eyes does a bee have? 



5. Are hybrids just as good to gather honey 

 as full-blooded Italians? Will they gather just 



6. Can bees be wintered under a bank barn 

 even if it freezes where they are? Is it better 

 than leaving them out-of-doors where they have 

 no protection whatever? Subscriber. 



Answers. — i. No need to destroy the bees; 

 the disease is only in the brood. The Mc- 

 Evoy plan is generally used in curing. In the 

 honey season, when the bees are gathering free- 

 ly, remove the combs in the evening and shake 

 the bees into their own hive; give them frames 

 with comb-foundation starters on and let them 

 build comb for 4 days. The bees will make 

 the starters into comb during the 4 days and 

 store the diseased honey in them which they 



