January. IQII. 



American Bee Journal 



wihich had clustered in a difficult place 

 to reach, do you think the bees would 

 enter the box ? 



5. I want to have some honey gath- 

 ered in shallow extracting frames filled 

 witJi extra-thin foundation. The best I 

 want to sell as comb honey and the bal ■ 

 ance I would like to extract. Will the 

 above cojnb be strong enough to be put 

 through an extractor without breaking? 



6. Is it necessary to wire shallow ex- 

 tracting frames when medium brood foun- 

 dation is used? 



7. Which is best in a double-walled 

 hive, a dead air .space or planer shavings 

 packing? Ohio. 



Answers. — i. Unless there be some 

 special reasion to the contrarj-, it is bet- 

 ter to take with the brood the adhering 

 bees. It strengthe^ns the weak colony 

 more, and, besides, there is danger some- 

 times that when additional brood is given 

 wiithout additional bees, a cold spell may 

 happen, chilling some of the brood. Of 

 course care must be taken not to take 

 the queen from the strong colony. Judg- 

 ment must be used not to give to a weak 

 colony at once too great a proportion of 

 strange bees. If to a weakling with 

 brood in 3 frames there be given from 

 a strong colony 2 frames of brood with 

 adhering bees, the queen of the weak 

 co.liony might be in danger. The danger 

 wioiild .be less lif the 2 frames given were 

 from 2 different colonies, or if the 2 

 frames from the same colony were given 

 a day or two apart. The safest way is 

 to give queenlcss bees, for queenless 

 bees are not likely .to attack the queen 

 of ainy colony to which they .are given. 

 It will 'be safe to give several frames of 

 queenless bees from the same colony if 



that colon.y has been queenless 2 or 3 

 days. 



2. I don't know of any way. 



3. Now you're bearing down pretty hard 

 on me. I wisW I k.n«w. I don't. If you 

 insist upon a guess, I should say some- 

 where from 75 to 200. That is meant to 

 include those who depend upon bees 

 alone. Of those who make at least half 

 their living from ibees there may be 5 

 times as many. I know it's a rather reck- 

 less thing to make even a guess in such 

 a matter, and I shall be delighted if 

 some cne w.ould call me down a.nd give 

 a reliable aiiswer instead of guesses. 



4. They would be quite likely to enter. 

 The matter would be madie a little surer 

 li a piece of bro.od-oo.mb were in the 

 box, the older the better, and all the bet- 

 ter with .some broo.d in it. It might 

 merely lie on the floor of the box. You 

 say a "small" hole. N.ot too small. On 

 a hot day that might be too close for the 

 beos to remain. 



5. I feel pretty safe to say no, although 

 I never tried anything of the kind. 



6. Hardly, especially if care be taken 

 at the first extracting, emptying one side 

 only partly, reversing and extracting the 

 other side, and again reversing to empty 

 the first side. 



7. It is generally considered better to 

 have packing in the space. Theoretically, 

 ai.r niigiht be thought a better non-con- 

 ductor than .shavings, and so it is if the 

 air would remain stili : but the trouble is 

 that it will -not remain still, but when a 

 part of it becomes warm, at the warmest 

 part it travels to a cooler part to give up 

 its heat there. The packing stops it from 

 traveling so miuch. 



Report for Season of igio 



One colony of leathered-colored Italian 

 bees .gave me 160 sections of fine honey. 

 I took something over 400 .pounds of 

 ihoney from 5 colonies, spring count. I 

 now have 10 colonies, having sold 2 dur- 

 ing the past summer. 



I can't get along without the American 

 Bee Journal. (Rev.) Edgar Reed. 



Bethany, Mo., Dec. 14. 



A Discouraging Report 



We have not had a honey-flow here 

 worth mentioning since June, 1909, con- 

 squently the bee business is rather dis- 

 couraging. The outlook is poor for an- 

 other season, and 90 per cent of the 

 bees in this part of the country are dead. 

 However. I am going to try to hang on 

 a little while longer. 



Edw.\rd Blackstone. 



Cumberland, Ohio, Dec. 26. 



It was dead and swollen up, and some of 

 the bees were still stinging it. 



The next night, at the same hive was 

 an.other one caught by the hind leg. The 

 bees had left it for me to kill. I began 

 thinking how to get rid of it without 

 having the odor in the bee-yard, and it 

 came to my mind what I had read some 

 years ago in "Josh Billings." He said 

 the reason a skunk was called pole cat, 

 was because the best thing to kill it with 

 is a i5-'fiOot pole. I kept just such a 

 pole about the bee-yard, so I took it and 

 .pulled the stick out of the -ground to 

 which the trap was fastened, ho.oked the 

 end of the pole to the chain, and led it 

 out of the yard and let it walk off some 

 distance, then I gave it a god lick over 

 the head with the pole and fled to a safe 

 distance. No more have troubled me 

 since. J. G. Creighton. 



Harrison, Ohi.o. 



the pepper-grass with great balls of gold- 

 en 'polien on her legs. 



In watching the bees that morning, I 

 saw many rise up off the dandelion and 

 finish up with a load of nectar from the 

 pepper-grass, but I did not see a singile 

 bee go from the pepper-grass to the dan- 

 delion. They all seemed to load up their 

 baskets first, and then finish on the flower 

 of altogether a different color. For fully 

 one-half hour the patch seemed to be alive 

 with bees, but it being a hot, sultry morn- 

 ing, a shower put a stop to the feast. 

 C. B. Palmer. 



Bradshaw, Neb., Dec. 2. 



A Stinking Bee-Pest — Skunks 



Last fall I discovered that something 

 had (been .molesting 3 or 4 of niy colo- 

 nies at night, and one colony more than 

 the others. I found about a quart of 

 bees with the queen hanging under the 

 hive, and they seemed to be cross. I 

 could see marks about the hive as though 

 claws had been used, and I made up my 

 mind it was the skunk that was molest- 

 ing them. So I set a steel trap at the 

 entrance of the hive, and the second 

 night I had set it I went to the apiary 

 and found one caught by the front legs. 



Gathering from Different Bloom 



Co'lor of bloom seems to .make little 

 difference. In passing through my bee- 

 yard itliis spring, I noticed pepper-grass 

 had come up where red clover stood 

 thickly the previous season, and grew 

 very rank and tall. I let the pepper- 

 grass grow, as the bees are fond of the 

 little white blossom, and dandelions also 

 came on very thickly. The dandelion 

 stems greiw very tall to get to the light, 

 and when the pepper-grass was in full 

 bloom, tfhe dandelions were also, and such 

 a pretty sight. I waded out into the 

 mass, and the first bee I saw was sipping 



Season Too Dry for Honey 



My bees did not get much honey the 

 past season, as it was too dry here, and 

 I lost most of them last winter after the 

 snow went away. I have 4 colonies left 

 out of 16 that I had a year ago. 



Otto Burkh.\rt. 



Missouri Valley, Iowa, Dec. 22. 



Unusually Severe Winter 



We are having an unusually severe 

 winter. Snow came Nov. 5, and we have 

 had nearly or quite 3 feet up to the pres- 

 ent time. The bees had to go into the 

 cellar with the hives more or less cov- 

 ered with snow, so that the prospects of 

 good wintering are not entirely satisfac- 

 tory. During this month the mercury has 

 hovered about the zero marlc much of 

 the time.. G. M. Doolittle. 



Borodino, N. Y., Dec. 21. 



Results of the Season of igio 



I had 1 8 colonies in the sununer of 

 1909, and almost all of them had foul 

 brood. I reduced to 16 colonies and 

 cuTed them before putting them into win- 

 ter quarters. They wintered successful- 

 ly, and all were alive and in fine shape 

 in the spring of 1910. I got 1000 pounds 

 of section honey, and 500 pounds of ex- 

 tracted. The section honey retailed at 

 20 cents a pound, and wholesaled at 16 

 cents; and the extracted at 60 cents a 

 quart, or 30 cents a pint : one pound jar 

 a 25 cents. Almost all of it is sold. I 

 increased 12 colonies by dividing in 1910. 

 I am now winterin.g 28 colonies. 



Elgin, III., Dec. 28. John Reichert. 



Honey Crop Report for 1910 



I had a good crop of honey the past 

 se.ason. I started in the spring with 66 

 strong and 18 weak colonies. My bees 

 began swarming May 17, and I put them 

 back, giving them full sheets of founda- 

 tion, taking the brood and some of the 

 young bees to build up weak colonies, so 

 i ih'ad them all in pretty go-od shape 

 when the clover bloomed. I secured 5 

 tons of light honey (©lover and bass- 

 wood), and 1700 pounds of buckwheat. 

 1 sold the entire crop for $1035.00. It 

 was all extracted with the exception of 

 about 300 sections. By bees went into 

 winter 411 irters in fine shape, and I had 

 but very little feeding to do. I put 59 

 colonies into the cellar, and 48 packed 

 in sawdust outside. I think we have the 

 best plan for outdoor wintering there is. 

 A. M. Bridge. 



Frontenac. Co., Ont., Dec. 26. 



Foul Brood — Use of Honey 



There was an interesting meeting of 

 bee-men at Falmouth, Ky., Dec. 5. 1910. 

 Mr. E. D. Sipple, our county bee in- 

 spector, was there and reported his work 

 so far. He received his appointment 

 late in the summer, and was able to work 

 only 28 days when cold weather stopped 



