no 



May, igii 



American Bag Jonrnai] 



of the day. and as soon as the drones are all 

 out closing it again. 



3 Yes. G. W. Demaree, a prominent Ken- 

 tucky bee-keeper, gave it to the public a 

 good many years ago. 



4. Probably for most bee-keepers an ex- 

 cellent plan. A few have reported that bees 

 would swarrr after being so treated, but for 

 most it has stopped swarming entirely. 

 Some have reported that after being put be- 

 low the excluder, the queen has swarmed 

 out. Very likely this would not happen if 

 one brood-comb were left below, preferably 

 one with the least brood in it. 



Some Questions from Ontario 



1. I have been going to write all winter, and 

 hoped to get this ready for the March num- 

 ber, but now fear that the fraternity will not 

 profit by my blunders until after April, 

 when they will have time to read for the 

 spring rush. But I can't help ill health, and 

 it is no use talking to no purpose. 



In the first place, I am told that bees can't 

 rear brood on sugar syrup; is it true ? The 

 bee-papers should be written more for be- 

 ginners than for experts. I have read them 

 for years, and only now learned through the 

 report of the National that to get a large sur- 

 plus it is imperative that we feed between 

 fruit-bloom and clover, and. dear Doctor, 

 you yourself have warned beginners against 

 stimulative feeding in the spring, as we 

 might do more harm than good, and it is 

 true; yet we have had more success with 

 feeding than without- I think I told you of a 

 colony last year that were fed until they 

 were too lazy to do anything, and I have 

 more to relate to the same effect further on, 

 for the past season. 



2. How can we keep the bees from putting 

 cells of pollen here and there, perhaps a 

 dozen OH a side of every comb? The Car- 

 niolansdidit worse than any of the Italian 

 or Italian black hybrids. 



3. Do you think that cutting the heads off 

 drones tend to make the bees cross ? I did 

 this frequently to prevent swarming, and 

 have got mine so cross that they will 

 meet me to sting me an eighth of a mile 

 when returning home after an absence of a 

 half hour. I cut the heads off a frame of 

 capped worker-brood, much against ms' will, 

 in one hive, as recommended by Dr. Jones 

 in the West, and. I judged, with injury; less 

 honey and more pollen. It looks to be such 

 an unreasonable practice. 



4. Do you not think that every colony has 

 an individuality of its own. and ought to be 

 studied separately ? I had only one colony 

 that would put up fine comb honey in shal- 

 low frames to perfection, equal to the best 

 section honey. What I mean is this, if any 

 p&rson came along who was anxious for a 

 frame of new honey. I was likely to get it 

 here if none of the other dozen colonies 

 could supply it. 



5. Can you suggest why my bees would not 

 put a speck of white honey in sections that 

 had been on the hives for 3 weeks or more, 

 yet would put dark honey in them, with 

 coaxing? I was never built for a bee-keeper, 

 and am tired of experimenting because I 

 have not brains for the business, and the 

 bees " checkmate" me at every turn ? 



6- I took my bees from the cellar on April 

 5th. about 44/^ N. latitude, N. of Lake Onta- 

 rio. My yard is on a knoll exposed to a jJi- 

 mile sweep of southwest wind that by strips 

 of woods is directed to my place as if it came 

 from a funnel. I can scheme no satisfactory 

 shelter, and last season I moved part of the 

 bees from a hollow where there was no sun 

 after I o'clock, and placed them in pairs 10 

 feet apart for all of them on the knoll, and 

 painted one hive of each pair blue in front 

 for guidance. 



7. In one of the bee-papers I read that Mr. 

 Danzenbaker had. after many years use of 

 the shallow bottom-boards, gone back to 

 •deep ones, so I made all my bottom-boards 

 nearly ih deep at the entrance off to Ys or % 

 at the back. Father Doolittle also said he 

 used a wire entrance-guard coarse enough 

 to allow bees to pass and mice could not. 

 These two eminent men taught me the les- 

 son not to believe all that even an eminent 

 man writes. After fitting all my hives with 

 the wire screens. I found that any metal or 

 even paint on a bottom-board condensed 

 moisture in the cool of the morning, to be 

 an injury to the bees. With the deep bot- 

 tom-boards the bees would fly clear from 

 the cluster out of the entrance, and at least 

 one-third of them would catch their wings 

 in the dew on the painted bottom-board. 

 Part of them would be turned on their backs 

 with both wings entangled in the wet, and be 

 half exhausted in their efforts to escape; 

 the rest might catch by only one wing, and 

 they would escape easier. 



8. It is barely possible that locality may 

 have made some difference to the deep 

 Danzenbaker entrance, but the Carniolans 

 taught me something worth while; one of 

 them from which I was trying to rear drones 

 for crossing with my Italians, having seen 

 the cross spoken well of by some writers. I 

 had fed them until they occupied a good half 

 of the full-depth super above the excluder, 

 when, on June 13th, the warm weather start- 

 ed, and while the other bees were getting 

 honey, seeing but little movement around 

 the entrance to this one. I opened it up. and 

 I believe there were not200 bees in the upper 

 story, but it seemed so much more comfort- 

 able to cluster below out of the heat and 

 wait until somebody fed them. I don't think 

 they had one ounce of honey. I promptly 

 gave them a shallow bottom-board and took 

 away all their combs but one, giving them 

 full sheets of foundation instead, and told 

 them to go to work or starve! I think I 

 ought to have taken away even the last 

 comb, which I did 2 days later, and they 

 started to gather a little honey and build 

 combs, and I thought I would make them 

 build combs for other hives, but found it 

 difficult to steal combs from them early 

 enough to be of any use; for they would 

 have cells of pollen or eggs in them before 

 they were one-third built, and eventually 

 had their hive filled with pollenized combs 

 before I could take them away, in spite of 

 all I could do. 



Q. The first Carniolans I had balled their 

 Queen late in igog, and reared another— I 

 supposed too late to mate, and I tried to 

 find out if they had a queen by the sifting 

 process through an excluder, when they all 

 decamped, being a few on one bush and a 

 few on another, or went into the hives. I 

 should have said that the brood taken from 

 the other hive I distributed in weak colo- 

 nies for convenience. I did this onCe be- 

 fore, and judged it an injury by their teach- 

 ing others their bad tricks. Their third Car- 

 niolan swarmed and went away, and never 

 did any good afterward; so I made myself 

 happy by giving them all in both hives a dose 

 of bisulphide of carbon, and dug a hole and 

 buried them. No more Carniolans for me. 

 The breeder of these Carniolans was well 

 recommended to me, and I sent for untested 

 queens, probably too late in the fall, and he 

 sent me tested ones at the same price- 

 likely all he had left; and the next season he 

 advanced his prices 50 cents. I should have 

 been glad to return my queens for 10 cents 

 each. 



10. I learned one other lesson by the deep 

 bottom-board, and the high southwest wind. 

 The wind drove the bees from the front of 

 the hive until there was not a bee visible in 

 the first 3 spaces between the combs, the 

 frames being short. set crosswise of the hive, 

 and the entrance at the end. or the ib% way 

 of the Danzenbaker hive. 



11. Through continued ill-health eversince 

 I tried to keep a few bees. I have always 

 been behind. I have never had either su- 

 pers or combs enough; yet on the advice of 

 our worthy manager of the National Bee- 

 Keepers' Association, N. E. France. 1 deter- 

 mined to try for some honey with one hive 

 worked, except one blunder, on the Allen 

 plan given on page 80 of the National Report 

 for igoQ. I tiered this 4 stories high with 

 full-depth supers of q}2 combs in 3 of them; 

 the fourth one they built combs for, from 

 full sheets of foundation, except 3 partly- 

 built ones that I stole for them from the 

 worthless Car niolans.and I got them all filled 

 with honey, bees or pollen. I extracted one 

 full super of white honey from them when 

 ripe, and left 2 others on too long. I had 

 read of having too many bees in a hive, but 

 never had the happy experience until last 

 season, without apparent injury; but before 

 I could get through with the extracting, 

 after leaving them, as I supposed, enough 

 combs for winter, all I had was about 8 

 pounds of surplus over and above that of 

 the first super extracted. If they consume 

 honey in the cellar as they did in November. 

 they may starve. 



12. I can't find the date of putting the bees 

 into the cellar, but certainly late in Novem- 

 ber. I put this hive in the cellar 2 stories 

 high, because it seemed impossible to get 

 the bees into one; I never did so before, and 

 the water was running out at the entrance 

 when I looked at them a few days later 

 (porous covers). I have always hoped to get 

 my bees in the cellar in October, but am 

 always behind. I think Oct. 15 preferable to 

 Nov. 15. There was frost every night. Tem- 

 perature 26 degrees this morning— April 11. 

 Not a blade of grass to be seen in the most 

 sunny corner, and a bit of snow in the gar- 

 den yet. This colony became the most 

 vicious one I ever had. Novice. 



Ontario. Canada. 



Answers.— I. No; and neither can they 

 rear brood on honey alone. They must have 

 pollen. With pollen they can rear brood 

 with either honey or sugar syrup. It is 

 claimed, howevei, that honey is better ma- 

 terial from which to rear vigorous bees, be- 

 cause it contains matters not to be found in 

 sugar. Especially Swiss authorities insist 

 that however sugar syrup may be as a win- 

 ter food, it should not be used when brood 

 is being reared; and it is hard to find any- 

 where in the world abler authorities than in 

 Switzerland. 



It is imperative to feed between fruit- 

 bloom and clover, only where there is so 

 long a dearth between the two that brood- 

 rearing stops entirely. I think that does 

 notoccur in a great many places. Certainly 

 not here, and I doubt if it occurs often with 

 you. It occurs in Colorado, and probably in 

 some other places. 



I can hardly agree with you that bee- 

 papers should be written more for begin- 

 ners than for experts. Please remember 

 that beginners are becoming experts con- 

 stantly, and if every bee-keeper becomes 

 an expert there ought to be as many experts 

 as beginners. Indeed, some think too much 

 attention is given to beginners, and as you 

 become an expert you may look upon the 

 matter in a little different light. 



2. You do not say whether you refer to pol- 

 len in brood-combs or in surplus. In brood- 

 combs I know of nothing to prevent it, and it 

 is not very objectionable. In surplus comb 

 honey it is very objectionable, and it is 

 within the power of the bee-keeper to en- 

 courage or discourage it. The closer to the 

 brood, the more pollen in sections. Shallow 

 brood-chambers make more pollen in sec- 

 tions than deep ones. Thick top-bars, or 

 anything else that increases the distance is 

 a help against pollen. Another thing of 

 much importance is the foundation in sec- 

 tions. If drone-comb is as scarce in the 

 brood-chamber, as it should be. and small 

 starters are used in the sections you may 

 be pretty sure that drone-comb will be built 

 in the sections, and when drone-brood is 

 started there, worker-brood is likely to ac- 

 company it. Either use a queen-excluder to 

 keep the queen below, or else fill the sec- 

 tions full of foundation. 



3. I don't know for sure, but it hardly 

 seems that beheading the brood should 

 make the bees cross, unless exposure to 

 robbers or something else accompanies it. 



4. Yes. there can be no doubt that each 

 colony has its own characteristics. By pay- 

 ing attention to the difference in colonies, 

 and breeding accordingly, one should be 

 able to improve one's stock. 



5. I suppose it merely so happened that 

 they were not getting enough white honey to 

 store surplus, having only enough for daily 

 use, and then when the dark honey came 

 there was more of it so that they had enough 

 for daily use and a surplus beside. 



That very fact, that the bees outwit one so 

 often, is one of the beauties of bee-keeping. 

 Keeps one on the alert all the time, and if 

 one comes out ahead at least part of the 

 time there's a lot of comfort in it. A game 

 of ball would lose its interest if you knew to 

 a dead certainty that one particular side 

 would beat every time. 



6. You took your bees out a week earlier 

 than I. I'm in latitude 42. but the sweep of 

 prairie winds is such that the cold may be 

 worse on the bees here than with you. 



You give your bees a good deal of room. 

 Mine are placed in groups of 4—2 pairs back 

 to back— and I never feel there is any need 

 to have fronts painted different colors. 



7. I wonder if there is not some mistake. 

 What is called the Danzenbaker bottom- 

 board is really the Miller bottom-board, and 

 has one side deep and one side shallow. So 

 that Mr. Danzenbaker uses a deep bottom- 

 board part of the year, reversing it and 

 using a shallow bottom-board the rest of the 

 time. I have given up the reversible board, 

 using a bottom-board 2 inches deep all the 

 year around, filling in a bottom-rack to keep 

 the bees from building down in summer. 



I think Mr. Doolittle does not use a coarse- 

 meshed wire-cloth to close entrances at a 

 time when bees are flying, but in the cellar 

 in winter. It works well then. 



8. I hardly think the deep entrances were 

 to blame for the bees not working. Cer- 

 tainly my bees do good work with a 2-inch 

 space below the bottom-boards, only I must 

 put in a rack to keep them from building 

 down. But the rack is so open that they 

 have nearly the whole benefit of the 2 inches 

 of space. 



You can not get bees to build out comb 

 much ahead of their filling it. Likely % inch 

 deep is the best you can do. But a little 

 honey or pollen in a comb can do no harm if 



