December, 1908. 



American ^ee Journal 



373 



^^^^^ 



1V2 pouiuls of lioiicy every day. In my 

 locality tlinl means 4 months, or 180 

 pounds. During tlie latter part of tlie 

 summer and the fall, tlic work docs 

 not cease entirely. Allowing only half 

 a pound a day for about 3 months, we 

 would have 45 pounds. Winteringf out- 

 doors, in more or less open winters, 



with brood reared even in January at 

 least occasionally, the winter months re- 

 quire not less than 2 pounds. Total : 

 J50 pounds I Provided no mistake has 

 been made in the above estimates. 

 However, I would very much like to 

 know exactly, if it can be done. 

 Kiioxville, Tcnn. 



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'^ocfor Miller^ 

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Send Questions either to the office of the American Bee Journal or to 

 DR. C. C. MILLER. Marenffo. 111. -TD 



Dr. Miller does not answer Questions by mail. 



Late Laying of Queen for Young Bees 

 in Winter. 



What is the best method of having the 

 queen lay late in the fall so as to have all 

 young bees to winter with the queen? 



New York. 



Answer. — The two principal factors that 

 keep up late laying are a honey-flow and 

 warm weather. If you have no late honey- 

 flow, you can to a degree replace it by daily 

 feeding a small amount of thin syrup. I 

 don't know of any way you can mend the 

 weather if it should be cold. 



Changing Supers. 



Will it pay in dollars and cents, and be 

 less work, to discard ray old 4J4 bee-way su- 

 pers and buy new supers to hold plain sec- 

 tions? 



I have 12s colonies. New York. 



Answer. — I don't know. If you have a 

 market in which you can get a much better 

 price for the plain sections, then it ought to 

 pay; not otherwise. But it is not always 

 necessary to throw away your old supers and 

 get new. I used plain sections in the same 

 supers in which I used the il^i bee-way. 

 I also used plain sections in supers specially 

 made for them. After trying them on a fairly 

 liberal scale, I have concluded that for me 

 it is better to use the 4 5'4 bee-way. I cannot 

 answer for you. 



Late Pollen — ^Divisible Hive. 



• 1. What do bees do with pollen that they 

 carry in at this time of the year (Oct. 19) ? 



2. Is a divisible brood-chamber hive a good 

 hive to winter bees in? 



3. If you set an old hive over a new 

 empty hive with one-inch foundation start- 

 ers, what will be the result? Would the first 

 set of frames be large enough for a brood- 

 nest in a divisible hive? New York. 



Answers. — i. They eat some of it and keep 

 the rest till spring. 



2. Reports of successful wintering in such 

 hives have been made. 



3. If the bees get the upper hive filled 

 with honey, it will crowd them down so the 

 lower hive will be filled, and the brood-nest 

 will be below. If a divisible chamber be put 

 below, of course the combs will be all right 

 for such a hive; otherwise not. But you must 

 remember that using only an inch starter in 

 brood-frames will be an expensive business, 

 for the likelihood is that the bees will build 

 entirely too much drone-comb. 



Cellar or Second-Story for Bees in 

 Winter — Best Super Arrangement. 



1. I liave J colonics of bees which I wish 

 to winter in the cellar. Our cellar is under 

 ground on the north and east. At the west 

 is a furnace cellar, and at the south is a room 

 we use for a wood-shed. We keep potatoes 

 and vegetables in it. Do you think that 

 would be all right for bees? Or how would 

 a room in the second story be? 



2. I am going to make ray own hives so 

 I would like to know the inside measure- 

 ment of an 8 and a lo frame hive. 



3. I am going to run for comb honey. 

 Which is best with the plain 4x5 sections — the 

 plain section-holder or the T-super? 



I am a subscriber of the American Bee 

 Journal and like it very much. I started this 

 fall by finding 3 bee-trees. Two I united 

 so that leaves me 2 colonies to start with. 

 Iowa. 



Answers. — i. In the second story would 

 probably be bad, but the room in which 

 you keep potatoes may be all right. For best 

 results the temperature should remain with 

 some degree of evenness at about 45 degrees, 

 with the air as pure as possible. The fur- 

 nace cellar may do if the air is constantly 

 fresh and not above 50 or 60. 



2. An 8-frame dovetailed hive, inside, is 

 18 5-16 long, gy2 deep, and I2l4 wide. That 

 allows room for a dummy beside the 8 frames 

 spaced i^^ inches from center to center. Add 

 to that 2^ inches for 2 more frames, and you 

 have 14^ for the width of a lo-frame hive. 

 However, lo-frame hives are usually made only 

 14 inches wide, the dummy being omitted. 



3. My own preference is for the T-super. 



Unpainted Hives — Saltpeter Rags — 8 

 or 10 Frame Hive? — Equipment 

 for Extracted Honey — Intro- 

 ducing Queens. 



I notice in Gleanings Mr. 

 unpainted hives. Do experin; 

 bees do better in unpainted hives, or is it 

 just a notion? Can you give any reason why 

 bees will not do as well in painted hives as 

 in unpainted ones? 



2. Explain how you prepare saltpeter rags 

 for smoker-fuel. 



3. All my hives are 8-frame, but as I can 

 not give so much attention to the bees, I 

 was thinking that ail of the bees I bought 

 in the future would be in lo-frame hives. 

 Can you use the supers of an 8-frame hive 

 on a 10-frame hive, and will the frames 

 of an 8-frame hive fit a 10-frame hive? Would 

 you advise me to get 10-frame hives from 

 now on? 



4. What is the necessary equipment to run 

 for extracted honey? Can comb-honey supers 

 be used for extracting frames? 



5. When you introduce a new queen, how 

 would it do to remove the old queen and 

 all of the brood ? Would they accept a new 

 queen any better if they had no queen and 

 no brood whatever from which to rear one ? 



Virginia. 

 Answers. — i. I think Mr. Doolittle's idea 

 is that moisture will pass through unpainted 

 walls better than through painted ones, al- 

 lowing hives to dry out better, preventing 

 dampness and mold. I don't know that any 

 conclusive experiments have been made on 

 the subject. I know that one winter a 

 painted hive showed more dampness and mold 

 in my cellar than unpainted hives, but that 

 was on a small scale. My faith in Mr. Doo- 

 little's view, together with the fact that at 

 any time I might throw away my hives to 



adopt others, made me give up painting hives 

 years ago. 



2. I take a 2-gallon stone crock perhaps half 

 full of water, put in it half a pound or less 

 of saltpeter, fill up with cotton rags, lift the 

 raps out and let the water drain back into 

 the crock through a colander or leaky pan, 

 spread the rags out on the grass for the sun 

 to dry, and they're ready to use. I use 

 them only to start the fire, filling up the 

 smoker with hardwood chips or some other 

 fuel. 



3. A super for an 8-frame hive will work 

 nicely on a 10-frame hive if you simply cover 

 ttie open space with a piece of board. The 

 t'vames of an 8-frame and a lo-framc hive 

 I re alike, although of course there may be 

 iifferent frames in different kinds of hives. 

 I 'nlcss you give close attention, better have 

 10-frame hives. Indeed it is possible they 

 Tiiay be better, anyhow. 



4. About all you need different from your 

 Lomb-honey outfit is an extractor, uncapping- 

 knifc, extracting-combs and supers, and con- 

 tainers. It depends on the size of your comb- 

 In tney -supers whether they can be made over 

 into extracting-supers. 



5. The removal of the old queen is im- 

 !>frative, and the removal of the brood will 

 help to make the bees accept a new queen. 



]jlroor01ndni 

 rMl^perienccsJ 



Better Crop Than Usual. 



The honey crop in this locality is some- 

 what better than last year, about 50 pounds 

 per colony being the average — last year noth- 

 ing. In extracted honey I got about 1800 

 pounds of white and 700 pounds of buck- 

 wheat, and 1 00 pounds of comb honey, from 

 ;i7 colonies,^ spring count. I have 70 colo- 

 nies to put' into winter quarters, having in- 

 creased from 37. 



Westbrook, Ontario. A. M. Bridge. 



Honey from Sunflowers. 



I see on page 333 a complaint in regard 

 to sunflowers. The sunflower gives out nec- 

 tar at night, and the bees work on them be- 

 fore it is clear daylight, as I have found 

 by watching the bees at that early hour. The 

 honey forms on the sunflowers in large 

 drops, and as many other insects work upon 

 the sunflowers besides bees, the bees try to 

 get to work as soon as possible in the morn- 

 ing. The bees do not work on the flowers 

 after sunrise, but carry water to thin the 

 sunflower honey. That is the case here. 



Kansas. 



Device for Cappings — Handling Ex- 

 tracted Honey. 



There is one thiny; that I am particularly 

 interested in, and I feel sure that many 

 others are likewise interested. That is a 

 device for taking care of Cappings in a 

 small way so as to save as much of the 

 honey as possible in a marketable condition, 

 and dispose of the cappings with as little 

 muss and smear as possible. I run mostly 

 for comb honey, and not having an extract- 

 ing house, the extracting is done in a room 

 in the house we live in. I have about a 

 bushel of cappings each extracting, and would 

 have more if the combs were uncapped deep, 

 which I mipht do later on. I would like 

 to dispose of them without having them sit- 

 ting around in dishpans, etc., and draininj; 

 through a colander a few at a time, having 

 to keep them out of reach of the bees until 

 a convenient time to render them into wax, 

 making too many dirty vessels and too much 

 loss of honey, also too much tinie spent for 

 the amount of extracting done. If any one 

 can describe a device to meet the above re- 

 quirements, which any one can have made 

 near home this winter, or^ make himself at 

 moderate expense, and which will not take 

 up a large amount of room, to take care of 

 the cappint^s from 500 pounds of hone/ at 

 one extracting with a 2-frame machine, giving 

 system of use if necessary, I think it will 

 be a help to many small producers of ex- 

 tracted honey. 



Plans and devices for straining the honey 

 and putting it up in mason jars convcnifntly 

 might also be of value to many other small 



