:\Iarcli, 1908. 



American Hee Journal 



in the sections. Now, then. Doctor, here is 

 where the bees fool the bee-keeper, the con- 

 sumer, and the pure food law. what I wish 

 to know is, if you can tell me how the bee- 

 keeper, consumer, and the pure food law are 

 going to know when there are foreign sub- 

 stances in comb honey. Is there an instrument 

 on the market that will tell if comb honey 

 is pure? If there isn't, then I will venture 

 to say that every comb-honey producer in the 

 world will violate the pure food law, because 

 no matter how fast honey is coming in, you 

 will always find some bees that will insist 

 on loitering around bakeries, grocery stores, 

 and candy factories, loading up with the stray 

 sweets of those places. This is generally the 

 rule with my bees in this city (Troy, N. Y.). 

 Now, how am I going to overcome this diffi- 

 culty, as I do not wish to violate the pure 

 food law by putting on the market comb 

 honey that is not pure? 



2. Can you give me the name and address 

 of any insurance company that insures bees 

 when housed in buildings? 



3. In your opinion, what race of bees is 

 most suitable for New York State ? 



4. Doctor, why don't you tell us in the 

 columns of this Journal some of your good and 

 valuable ideas that you use in connection with 

 the management of your apiary? You know 

 right well that we would all be pleased to 

 read them over a great many times. 



New York. 

 Answers. — i. I don't know. As you state 

 the case it's entirely outside my experience, 

 and if I were in a place where my bees would 

 do as you think yours do, I'd go out of the 

 business. But I can't help wondering a little 

 whether you may not be mistaken about your 

 bees. One thing that makes me think it pos- 

 sible is, that you are so very wide of the mark 

 in venturing to say that without a certain 

 instrument "every comb-honey producer in the 

 world will violate the pure-food law." I spent 

 a delightful day once at one of Mr. Mercer's 

 apiaries in California, away out in the lonely 

 California hills, and no matter how fraudu- 

 lently his bees might be inclined they just 

 couldn't violate the law by storing from candy 

 factories, molasses barrels, etc., for nothing of 

 the kind was within reach. And there are 

 enough situated like him to make your asser- 

 tion a very reckless one. Neither do I be- 

 lieve my bees and the bees of others any more 

 guilty. It is true that when the harvest stops 

 bees will skirmish around for anything in the 

 line of sweets, but in this locality, at least, 

 they never get it in quantity enough to meet 

 their daily needs, to say nothing about storing. 



2. No, but probably your local insurance 

 agents can tell you all about it. 



3. So far as I know, Italians. 



4. Bless your heart, that's just what I'm 

 trying to do all the time. There isn't a num- 

 ber of this paper in which I don't give some- 

 thing of my experience, generally in the form 

 of opinions based on experience. [Dr. Mil- 

 ler's book, "Forty Years Among the Bees," 

 contains quite a number of his "valuable ideas." 

 — EnlTOR. 1 



Queens in Cells by Mail — Average 

 Yield Per Colony — Painting Ship- 

 ping Cases — Comb Honey 

 Shrinking. 



1. Would queens sent by mail before hatch- 

 ing (in queen-cells) during warm weather, care- 

 fully protected, stand a chance of living? Has 

 it been tried? What do you think of the plan? 



2. Has the Hoffman frame the same measure- 

 ment for the top-bar? If not, which do you 

 prefer, in width? 



3. Can you tell me your average yield of 

 honey per colony on a run of the past 10 

 years? 



4. Do you consider it advisable to paint ship- 

 ping-cases white after they show age, stain, and 

 shop-wear? 



5. If I should weigh each section of honey 

 and mark its weight when perfectly ripened and 

 cased, would there ever be any danger of its 

 shrinking in weight from storage? 



ROCKTON. 



Answers. — i.' Virgin queens have been sent 

 by mail successfully: in Switzerland more or 

 less success has been obtained in sending eggs; 

 but I think I never heard of sending a young 

 queen in a queen-cell. If the young queen 

 were just about ready to emerge wTien mailed, 

 she ought to go through all right, providing 

 that would be any advantage over sending a 

 virgin. At any time earlier than that it would 

 hardly be worth while to try a sealed cell; 

 if the orthodo.x teaching is correct any care- 

 lessness in handling while the young queen is 

 in the pupa state results in crippled legs and 

 wings. I see no reason, however, why an 

 unsealed cell might not go through all right. 



You have, I think, an untried field to experi- 

 ment in. 



2. I don't understand: "same measurement 

 as what? Top-bars of Hoffmans have been 

 as narrow as i inch, and perhaps as wide as 

 ij^. I prefer the width that will m.ike bees 

 build the least between 2 top-bars, and that is 

 probably about I's, supposing the spacing to be 

 ijg from center lo center. 



3. I can not tell without a lot of looking 

 up, and if I did the next 10 years might not 

 be the same. Perhaps it will be about as satis- 

 factory to say that the crop has varied all the 

 way from nothing to an average of about 120 

 pounds of section honey per colony. 



4. I never get shipping-cases back, and never 

 painted one. I'or a home market it might be 

 better to paint them than to have them look 

 dirty. 



5. I hardly think so. 



Foolish Questions? — Hardly. 



I sent several questions to Dr. C. C. Mil- 

 ler last month, but was very much disappointed 

 not to find them answered through the columns 

 of this Journal. I don't know, but probably 

 the Doctor thought they were so foolish that 

 he could not spare the time to answer them. 

 However, I would consider it a very great 

 favor to hear what he has to say about them. 

 New York. 



No. I'm not at all likely to think questions 

 too foolish to answer. The memory of the 

 many, many questions that came up in my early 

 experience is yet too fresh to make me hesi- 

 tate to let in the light wherever I can. Of 

 course it is not expected that in this depart- 

 ment things will be repeated that are to be 

 found in every book on bee-keeping; but after 

 one has read all that is to be found in the 

 text-books, there are plenty of questions still 

 to be answered. So, if answers to your ques- 

 tions have not appeared by the time this is in 

 print, you mav be sure that is not because of 

 the character of the questions, but because your 

 letter has miscarried, or because of some other 

 accident; and if you will kindly repeat the 

 questions I will take pleasure in answering 

 them to the best of my ability. Bear in mind, 

 however, that if a letter is not received before 

 a certain time the answers can not appear until 

 a month later. 



Italians vs. Hybrid Bees. 



I started last spring with 4 colonies of good 

 hybrid bees. I hived 9 swarms, and sold $20 

 worth of honey at 20 cents per pound. The 

 honey-flow lasted about 3 weeks. Before and 

 after that it came very slowly. Now I have 

 12 colonies in fairly good condition. One was 

 lost by robbing. I learned a great deal by it. 

 The last of Tune I put back some unfinished 

 sections, and found nothing added to them 

 during the season. Two colonies had ample 

 stores for the winter, and 2 I am feeding with 

 sugar syrup. Now I want to improve in quality 

 and quantity. 



1. Should I introduce Italian queens to such 

 colonies as seem to lack as honey-producers? 



2. Should I divide the strong colonies so as 

 to make 2 or more? If so, when and how 

 should it be done? 



I have "A B C of Bee Culture," and the 

 Bee Journal. Kentucky. 



Answers. — i. Most emphatically it is advisa- 

 ble to get in better queens wherever the work 

 of a colony shows that the bees are not up to 

 the work. ' Sometimes, however, a colony may 

 do poor work when the queen is not at fault, 

 as when in a weak colony that for some rea- 

 son has not had a fair chance to become 

 strong. Whether it is better to buy pure Ital- 

 ian queens depends on what stock you have; 

 for I take it for granted that you mean to buy 

 the pure stock. At any rate, get a good queen 

 wherever there is a poor one, either by buying 

 or by giving a queen from your own best stock. 

 A big lot depends on the quality of your stock. 



2. Whether you should divide your strong 

 colonies depends on circumstances. If you 

 care for honev. and not for increase, of course 

 there should be no dividing. If you care for 

 increase, then it is a question whether it is 

 best to depend upon natural swarming or to 

 take the matter of dividing into your own 

 hands. 



If you prefer to do the dividmg yourself, 

 there are so many ways that it is hard to say 

 what may be best for you. Possibly the nu- 

 cleus plan, taking away from one of your best 

 colonies its queen with two frames of brood 

 and adhering bees to form a nucleus, and about 

 10 days later dividing the colony into as many 

 2-frame nuclei as you can, having one or more 

 gueen-cells for each, and gradually building up 

 the nuclei into full colonies by giving brood, 

 or brood and bees, from other colonies. It 



will help if you previously build up very strong 

 the colony to be divided, giving it frames of 

 sealed brood from other colonies. You can 

 in that way have it with 12, 15, or more 

 frames of brood, and of course the more brood 

 the more nuclei. If you happen to have the 

 book "Forty Years Among the Bees," you will 

 find the matter of artificial increase more fully 

 treated than in most of the text-books. 



Management for Increase of Honey. 



In the fall of 1906 I had 2 colonics of bees 

 which were blacks. I decided I would intro- 

 duce some new queens to them. Well, I looked 

 them over and found only one with straight 

 combs, so I ordered one queen. I thought the 

 other almost too much to undertake so late irj 

 the fall. I succeeded in introducing her all 

 right. Both colonies came through the winter 

 very well. Last spring being a very bad one 

 on bees here, being so cold, they got but little 

 honey from fruit-bloom. Then I had one Ital- 

 ian and one black colony to run the race in 

 1907. Well, I never saw bees work like those 

 yellow bees did. They seemed to be in a big 

 hurry all summer, and the blacks took times 

 easy, the only time they were in a hurry being 

 when they heard it thunder and rain, and 

 then they made very good time to get home. 



In the fall of 1907 those yellow bees had 

 stored 121 pounds of comb honey, and the 

 blacks 45. This is correct, for I kept an ac- 

 count, and now I have both Italian colonies for 



1. Can I increase to 5 colonies from the 2, 

 and get 500 pounds of honey? 



2. Will this plan do? .\bout the first of 

 May take the one with crooked combs, lift 

 from the bottom and place an 8-frame hive with 

 full sheets of foundation on, and then set the 

 bees on it and smoke them down into it. Make 

 sun- that you have the queen below and then 

 raise the top hive up and place an excluder 

 between. Let them stand say 5 days and then 

 set the old queen and hive on a new sUnd. 

 Then 5 days later take a new hive with full 

 Jheets of foundation and divide the crooked 

 combs and bees, each one to have 4 frames ot 

 foundation and a queen-cell. 



If this is the wrong road to travel, please 

 show me the right one. Virginia. 



Answers.— I. I can only make a guess in the 

 case, but my guess is that if you increase from 

 2 to 5 you'll fall a long ways short of 500 

 pounds of comb honey in surplus. Please re- 

 member that it takes honey to make 3 new colo- 

 nies, and a lot of it. , ■ . 



2. Sorry to tell you that your plan is not 

 very good. If you wait 5 days before taking 

 away the old colony, there will not be very 

 much brood young enough to start good cells 

 from. Beside that, the bees will be in too dis- 

 couraged a condition to rear good cells, for 

 all the field-bees will desert and go back to the 

 old stand, and no honey will be carried in. 



In the first place, you'll probably find it 

 harder than you think to smoke the bees down. 

 It will be much easier to smoke and drum 

 them up. Then move the queen with its swarin 

 to a new stand, without waiting any 5 days, and 

 the old colony on the old stand will be in good 

 shape to start the best kind of cells. A week 

 later make your division. It will be well, also, 

 at that time to put the hive with the old queen 

 back on the old stand, and put one ot the 

 nuclei on the stand you took her from. 



Storing Much Pollen in Frames of 

 Comb Honey— Personal Rem- 

 iniscences. 

 Last winter I made a number of supers deep 

 enough to take in frames 6 inches m the clear, 

 and was much pleased when I found the bees 

 had filled nearly every frame. They worked 

 in them much better than in the sections. But 

 imagine my disappointment when 1 discoverea 

 that fully i4 of the cells were filled with poUeil 

 in all the frames, but not a single brood-cell 

 in any part of them. I have sometimes, but 

 not often, found brood in the sections, and the 

 same with pollen, never having used a ciueen- 

 excluder, though I have a number on hand. 



I. What, in your opinion, caused the bees to 

 store so much pollen in these frames? 



"'mid a qucencxcluder have prevented it? 

 an idea that the bees thought it a good 

 ) rear brood, so stored a good supply 

 n in the frames, but evidently the queen 

 otherwise. 

 1 can not resist the temptation to trespass a 

 little further on your valuable time. While 

 reading your biography in "Forty \ears Among 

 the Bees." I was quite impressed with the simi- 

 larity, in some respects, of our lives, though 



I have 

 place ti 

 of polle 

 thought 



