September, 190S. 



AmgricairBQc Journalj 



when thus uniting. Some sprinkle with sugar 

 syrup, taking care not to start robbing. Some 

 smoke both lots thoroughly, dumping those to 

 be united in front of the hive, first a few close 

 to the entrance, and then the others farther 

 out. A good way is to put in the frames 

 alternately, first from one hive, then the 

 other. 



4. Apifuge is the name of some combination 

 of druKS, which combination is not made pub- 

 lic, and is advertised and sold in England. I 

 don't remember its being advertised or used 

 on this side. It probably helps to prevent 

 stings. I have seen it claimed that oil of win- 

 tergreen rubbed on the hands would prevent 

 stinging. 



5. I know of no way to get the honey out 

 without spoiling the comb except by an extrac- 

 tor or by letting the bees empty the comb. 

 If the comb is not to be saved, then it can 

 be melted, using only enough heat to melt 

 the comb, letting it cool and then taking off 

 the cake of wax. 



6. The small extractor does as good work, 

 but ot course does not do as much work in a 

 day. A 2-frame extractor will be all right for 

 a dozen colonies. 



Pollen for Winter — Chunk Honey in 

 Jars — Concrete Winter Cases. 



1. I have 6 colonies of bees. I took out 90 

 pounds of surplus honey from the best colony, 

 and one superful is on yet, but the lower half 

 of the extracting frames are chock-full of pol- 

 len. I am thinking of leaving this super on 

 during winter, as it is a large colony and the 

 bees have no room in the lower story. Will 

 that pollen do them some good during winter? 



2. Can honey which is cut out with comb 

 and put in glass jars be stored away for winter 

 use? 



3. How would concrete do for winter-cases, 

 if the walls were about I'A inch thick, where 

 the coldest days are 32 degrees below zero? 



Minnesota. 

 Answers. — i. No, the pollen will not be like- 

 ly to do any good, neither any harm. Bees do 

 not consume pollen to any extent except when 

 active. But when they commence rearing brood 

 in the spring it is absolutely necessary. 



2. Yes, except that it is more likely to candy 

 than if left uncut, 



3. The probability is that it would not do 

 very well. 



Weak Colonies and Moths — Trans- 

 ferring. 



1. In case you have some weak colonies, 

 what is the best remedy for moths? 



2. What would you do in case they got to 

 robbing one another? 



3. \Vould it be all right to put them in a 

 building through the winter? 



4. Suppose 2 swarms come out in one day 

 and both are weak. Would it be a good plan 

 to put these 2 together and kill one queen? 



5. My grandfather had 23 colonies at his 

 death and I took charge of the bees. All 

 died except 3 colonies, and last spring they 

 sent out 1 1 swarms. They are in common box- 

 hives and the comb is crooked. What would 

 you do with them? They are doing_ well and 

 are strong colonies with the exception of 2, 

 and the moths are bad. I have to clean them 

 out every morning. What is the best plan to 

 kill the moths? Subscriber. 



Answers. — i. No remedy for moths is bet- 

 ter than bees, plenty of bees. Strengthen weak 

 colonies by doubling up till they are strong. 



2. The comon thing is to contract the en- 

 trance, so the bees can better guard it. Straw 

 or hay piled up and kept wet about the en- 

 trance discourages the robber-bees. But pre- 

 vention is better than cure. Be careful not 

 to do anything to start robbing. Don't let 

 combs of honey stand exposed. A weak col- 

 onv especially .* queenless, is a temptation to 

 robbers. Unite it with another having a good 

 queen. 



3. No, unless the building is underground, or 

 there is some way to keep a constant tempera- 

 ture of about 45 degrees. 



4. Yes, only you needn't take the trouble 

 to kill one of t.ie queens. The bees will see 

 to that. However, if one should be of better 

 stock than the other, it would oe well to kill 

 the oorer queen. But again prevention is 

 better than cure, and you ought to have no 

 weak swarms. Don't allow any swarms after 

 the first swarm. 



5. Let them stay in the box-hives till they 

 swarm next year, and 21 days after swarming 

 the worker-brood will all have emerged, when 

 you can cut up ine hives, unite the bees with 

 the swarm, and melt up the combs. There's no 

 patent way of killing moths, just_ mash 'em. 

 But depending upon strong colonies to keep 



them under, especially if you have Italians. 

 Introduce Italian blood in your apiary, and 

 even a weak colony will keep down the moth. 



Mating Italians with Blacks — Clip- 

 ping Queens' Wings. 



1. I have some Italian queens. If I rear 

 queens from them and allow them to be mated 

 with black urones, or those with a little cross 

 of Italian in them, will the drones from those 

 queens be Italians good enough to breed from? 

 I have been told that they would be as good 

 as if mated with the pure-bred Italian queens. 



2. If I clip one wing of my queens will it 

 do as well as to clip both? Will the queens do 

 as well as if not clipped? Kentucky. 



Answers. — i. Dzierzon taught that the mat- 

 ing of a queen has nothing to do with her 

 drone progeny. That looks reasonable from 

 the fact that only the eggs that produce queens 

 or workers are fertilized. Some insist that in 

 some way the drones are also affected by the 

 mating, but certainly it can hardly be anything 

 appreciable. 



2. It is better to clip the 2 wings on one side. 

 Then when a queen tries to fly it tumbles her 

 over sidewise. A clipped queen does just the 

 same work as if not clipped. 



Honey in Winter Brood-Chamber — 

 Incubator for Bees — Honey- 

 Knives. 



1. How shall I proceed to get enough honey 

 into the brood-chamber for wintering? You 

 will remember I wanted it out of the brood- 

 chamber in the spring. I got it out in the 

 worst case I had, by replacing the old queen 

 with a young and more vigorous one, as you 

 advised, but it was done later than it should 

 have been. I have had trouble in having honey 

 distributed in too many half and quarter filled 

 frames in the fall. The bees would not put 

 it below, or "bulk" it. Dzierzon is reported 

 to have said, "Keep honey out of the brood- 

 nest in winter." He meant out of the cluster. 

 The reason given was that it gave the bees 

 cold feet. If this is preferable, must we tier 

 up or put 2-story hives in the cellar and most 

 of the honey in the upper one? Mine are 

 Danzenbaker hives, only they are 2 inches 

 deeper than his. How would it do to add 2 

 inches below each hive for clustering space 

 between hive and bottom-board when there is 

 much honey in the brood-chamber? I made 

 new bottom-boards 2 inches deep at the en- 

 trance, tapered to nothing in the back, and 

 use no slats underneath as you do. I had a 

 few bits of drone-comb of little account built 

 below, and eggs put in some of them, but pre- 

 fer the open, deep entrance for hot weather. 

 I dislike your slats below, as they harbor 

 moths when preparing for their change. I 

 found a moth the other day penned up in a 

 hole cut by himself into a solid top-bar, and 

 only his head visible from his nearly completed 

 retreat. With one-story hives in the cellar 

 there are fewer combs to get moldy, not to 

 mention saving room. 



2. What is the exact number of days be- 

 tween the first showing of the brown streaks 

 on the top of the head of the worker-bee in 

 the cell, and the day of her coming forth as 

 a perfect bee? In introQUcing queens on 

 hatching brood, it is well to know this, and 

 we can't find it in the books, and it would 

 take too much time to work it out. 



3. What do you think of an incubator for 

 bees in the spring? I tried an experiment 

 on one colony last spring that may be inter- 

 esting. One of the colonies had lost its queen, 

 and a friend gave me a queen that had lost 

 nearly all its bees. I put her in the hive that 

 had bees enough to cover 3 frames. When 

 I took them out of the cellar I put them in 

 the living room or kitchen of the house with 

 the entrance out under the window, and 2 or 3 

 weeks later (too late) I thought to set a lamp 

 under them at night, or whenever there was a 

 bad wind. I had nailed on a half-inch bottom- 

 board, cut from the heart of a big log on one 

 side of the heart, like the old-time split shmgle, 

 that would not split with the heat of the lamp 

 and poison the bees with its smoke or fumes, 

 and then the wick from a small lamp turned 

 up a very little way made things so comfort- 

 able that everything was soon going finely. 

 I suppose I mav as well give you all the 

 details of the whole story, so that some one 

 may avoid any blunders. When the weather 

 got warm I moved the hive half out of the 

 window, and the next day all the way out, and 

 the next day the width of itself sidewise. We 

 read about the intelligence of bees, but in 

 some ways they can be anything but intelli- 

 gent. They were bound to return to that win- 

 dow. So I determined to move them far en- 



ough next time, and moved them to a scaffold 

 that projects aoove another roof, till one day 

 I opened the hive and everything was going 

 well, but the queen had run out of the en- 

 trance, and one of her wings being clipped, she 

 fell onto the roof some 3 feet below, and I 

 stepped on her, and though I returned her 

 to the hive I never saw her again. Her bees 

 started a dozen queen-cells, and seeing so 

 many good cells capped over and from a good 

 queen, I decided to give them two chances 

 to save some of her blood, so I divided them 

 up, and one of the colonics in a Danzenbaker 

 hive of 9j4-inch deep frames has bees and 

 white honey enough to winter on, and can 

 spare a frame of honey into the bargain, and 

 must have a super at once if the weather comes 

 good for the buckwheat. The other colony, 

 however, occupying the old stand, seems to 

 have got less bees in the dividing, so I gave 

 them a frame of brood from a very strong 

 colony, and expect them to be well fixed for 

 winter. 



Since writing the above I have examined 

 this colony and find it better than the first one 

 of the two. It is just boiling over with bees 

 and brood, and honey galore. It must have 

 a super to-day. 



4. Is it a common occurence for a queen to 

 go out at the entrance of her hive when it is 

 being examined? This is not the first time 

 it has happened with me. 



5. When writing to you before I intended 

 to make some remarks as to the seeming com. 

 bination ot the editorial staff of the bee-papers 

 not to allow criticism in their papers. One 

 of them informed me that he had no room 

 for criticisms, at the same time acknowledging 

 that there were statements made in his paper 

 that were "rather wild." Now, why do they 

 not shut out these "wild" statements, or allow 

 them to be pointed out? Is it because their 

 papers are more and more run in the interests 

 of advertisers, and no one regards the truth 

 when the money for the advertisements is at 

 stake? The meeting of the many editors at 

 the conventions, where every one desires to 

 please and be pleased, no doubt has also an 

 influence, hut an association, whether of bee- 

 keepers or bee-editors, that prefers the dimes 

 and falsehood rather than the truth, m spite 

 of what becomes of the dimes, ought to go_ to 

 wreck, and the sooner the better. We find 

 the Review editor differing from the advertiser 

 of uncapping knives as to the need of insert- 

 ing them in hot water to do the proper work, 

 and he gives Mr. Bingham plenty of space in 

 his defense to "put his foot in it." Here is 

 a point that shows his knives to he better 

 able to cut butter while hot than when cold, 

 than anything Mr. Hutchinson could say. Mr. 

 Bingham says he uses an ordinary scythe- 

 stone for sharpening his knives. This goes to 

 show that his knives are too soft to take a 

 good edge, or they would be ruined by his 

 scythe-stone. I have fought out this thing with 

 Mr. Bingham privately, but to no purpose, and 

 I have a "ood old "Rogers" jacknife with 

 which I could cut holes clean through a Bing- 

 ham knife, which I am sorry to say I possess. 

 Let him harden his knife till it will take a 

 good edge on a "Wachita" or "Washitaw 

 oilstone, and then the bee-keepers and himself 

 will be, or ought to be, thankful to me for 

 having written this letter. I have been en- 

 gaged in sharpening tools nearly every well 

 week-day for more 4han 50 years. 



Another point Mr. Bingham will make by 

 taking the advice given will be this. He will 

 have less trouble removing the wax from the 

 knife edge that he now complains of, for when 

 he, by properly hammering and hardening, 

 makes it capable of taking a fine oilstone edge, 

 he will have fewer teeth like a saw to collect 

 the wax on the edge while in use. 



Ontario Novice. 



Answers. — i. I think it is true that with 

 a small space under bottom-bars and bees win- 

 tered out, solid frames of honey with no empty 

 cells in the middle of the brood-nest might 

 mean death to the bees. The bees can not get 

 together in mass sufficiently solid to keep one 

 another warm. The case is not so bad in mild 

 climates, or in the cellar. But up in Canada 

 some of the successful ones advocate solid 

 combs of honey. With the deep space under 

 your combs there is room enough for the bees 

 to cluster under the combs, and thus keep 

 warm. 



Your question is how to get in compact 

 form the honey that is scattered through the 

 frames. Generally as the season draws toward 

 a close, especiallv if there is a fall flow, the 

 matter takes care of itself; the brood-nest 

 gradually diminishing and the honey crowding 

 upon it. In any case, you may rely on the bees 

 to take care of the matter and have the honey 

 !" the right place, if there is enough honey 

 the broodchaiUber. But you may have 



