September, igir. 



American Vee Journal 



277 



wheat (but very little.) I ought to get 

 something from this if my colonies are 

 strong in bees, by that time, hadn't I ? 



4. I have contracted the entrances to 

 all hives of colonies that need feeding, 

 or that are weak in bees. The strong 

 colonies don't need any contracting, do 

 they? New Jersey. 



Answers. — i. "Johnny - on - the - spot" 

 saved the balled queen, but are you sure 

 that "Johnny-on-the-spot" was not also 

 responsible for the balling? The likeli- 

 hood is that the queen was not balled un- 

 til you disturbed the hive, and that she 

 would not have been balled otherwise. 

 \ou did the right thing, however, to 

 rescue her when she was balled. 



The last queen-cells were from the eggs 

 of the new queen. It is not at all un- 

 common to have the bees start cells after 

 a new queen begins laying. I don't know 

 why they do it. but it seems just a little 

 as if they said to themselves, "Here is a 

 chance to start queen-cells, and we have 

 had so much trouble lately about having 

 a queen that we better improve the pres- 

 ent opportunity and be on the safe side." 

 I don't know whether the bees would 

 later destroy these cells or supersede the 

 queen, as I have always destroyed the 

 cells, and then the queen went on all 

 right. 



2. It is hardly likely that the bees were ■ 

 dissatisfied with the queen for not laying 

 enough, as usually it is the bees that stop 

 .brood-rearing, the queen continuing to 

 lay after the bees give up attention to 

 the eggs. If you look in the hives in the 

 fall, you will often find sealed brood and 

 eggs present, but no unsealed brood, 

 showing that the queen has continued lay- 

 ing at least a week after brood-rearing 

 ceased. It is nothing unusual for the bees 

 to supersede a queen soon after swarming, 

 even if the queen be not very old. I 

 don't know why they destroyed that vir- 

 gin (I suppose the workers destroyed 

 her.) They sometimes do such things with 

 no apparent season. 



3. I dare not risk a guess as to whether 

 your bees will find enough to fill up for 

 winter. I would rather know (irst whether 

 there is usually a good fall flow, and then 

 guess that the usual thing would happen. 

 Buckwheat sometimes does not yield. In 

 some places goldenrod and aster yield 

 nothing. They are- abundant here, but a 

 bee is seldom seen on them. 



4. It is not so important to lessen the 

 entrance, as to avoid everything that may 

 start robbing. This year my nuclei have 

 the same entrance as the full colonies — 

 J 2 by 2 inches — and there has been only 

 one case of robbing, and there has also 

 been one case of robbing at a full col- 

 only with a normal laying queen. \'ery 

 likely some unwise thing had been done 

 to start the robbing. 



Getting Hives Full of Worker-Bees — 

 Ventilating Hives, Etc. 



1. What are the best ways to get hives 

 full of workers in place of frames being 

 almost all filled up with honey and no 

 'fork being done in the supers? Do you 

 believe that putting on supers with shal- 

 low brood-frames, early in the season, is 

 a nearly absolute remedy for this, to be 

 removed as soon as they are one-quarter, 

 one-third or one-half filled with honey' 



2. What is the way to contract a brood- 

 chamber of Hoffman frame (10 to a 

 hive) ? 



J. I have been deterred from ventilat- 

 ing colonies, by putting blocks between 

 the hive-bottom and the body of the hive. 

 l)ecause of pretty cool for rather cold) 

 nights, even when the day is quite hot 

 Is there any validity in such deterrence? 



4. In putting frames of capped brood 

 into inferior colonies, is it not of im- 

 portance to put in first one Tor scarcely I 

 two, or may a greater number be put in ? 



I amagine that the surface of brood must 

 be proportionate to the number of bees 

 in a colony relatively weak. 



Pennsylvania. 



Answers. — i. I'm afraid in the case 

 you first mention that you had robbing. 

 You could hardly get bees to drown in 

 honey by uncapping combs, but you could 

 get a lot of bees killed by robbing. 



It isn't certain just what the trouble 

 was that made the bees fill up the brood- 

 combs with honey without working in 

 the super. One reason might be that the 

 queens were not the best. Possibly it 

 was partly because there was nothing to 

 attract them in the super. The plan you 

 propose will probably be satisfactory. 

 But I have no difficulty without going to 

 so much trouble. The drawn-out comb in 

 the extracting-frame is so nice for the 

 bees to deposit honey in that they are 

 likely to begin work there just as soon 

 as there is extra honey to store. But did 

 it never occur to you that drawn-out comb 

 in a section is just as attractive as in 

 an extracting-frame ? I put just one sec- 

 tion filled, or partly filled, with drawn- 

 out comb in the center of the super, and 

 when the bees start in that — and they 

 start in it as soon as they would start in 

 an extracting-frame — they keep right on 

 filling up the adjoining sections if there is 

 flow enough. 



2. Oh, yes, you can contract if your 

 dummies don't come within an inch of 

 the floor. All you need to do is to fill 

 up the space with dummies. Nor does 

 that take so very many dummies. Your 

 dummies may be as thin as you like (mine 

 are 5-16 of an inch thick), and you can 

 space them an inch apart from center to 

 center. Indeed, if you have as many as 

 3 dummies they may not want to build 

 in the space beyond. 



?. I don't think any harm will come 

 from that greater ventilation in cool 

 nights. 



4. You must use caution or you may 

 have a lot of dead brood. If all the brood 

 in the comb be sealed, and if it be old 

 enough to be hatching out, then very lit- 

 tle care is needed, for such advanced 

 brood will keep up its own heat nearly 

 as well as the mature bees. But you will 

 seldom have such combs, and if there be 

 considerable unsealed brood, or brood that 

 has been sealed only a short time, then 

 there rnust be enough bees in the hive to 

 cover it well. One way to avoid chill- 

 ing is to take with the frame of brood 

 the adhering bees. Only if you add too 

 many strange bees you may jeopardize 

 the queen. Let the strange bees never be 

 more than half as many as the bees al- 

 ready in the weak colony. 



.•\nother way to do is to swap frames. 

 Take from the weak colony a frame con- 

 taining mostly young brood, and put in 

 its place one containing brood more ad- 

 vanced. ."Ml the better if nearly all is 

 scaled and just ready to hatch. 



Did the Bees Help in Perfect 

 FertiliEation? 



In Connecticut there was perfect weath- 

 er for the peach-bloom this year. One 

 extensive grower said, "The lack of mois- 

 ture and lively movement of the air were 

 the agencies I attributed to the perfect 

 pollenization this season." Don't you think 

 the bees had .something to do with that 

 "perfect pollenization"? Connecticut. 



-Answer. — It certainly looks reasonable 

 to believe that where the air is depended 

 on to carry pollen dry weather is favor- 

 able, for wet pollen is too heavy to be 

 carried well. "There is a possibility, how- 

 ever, that too dry weather would not favor 

 the pollen adhering to the sligma. A 

 "lively movement of the air" is also fav- 

 orable, for in a dead calm the falling pol- 

 len could strike only what happens to be 



directly beneath it. Even with the favor 

 of dry weather and the air constantly 

 on the move, the chances that a grain of 

 pollen will alight upon a spot where it 

 will do the most good are not very many. 

 No matter how dry the pollen, it is still 

 heavier than air, and is constantly fall- 

 ing, so that it soon gets too near the 

 ground to do any good even to the lowest 

 blossoms, while the blossoms at the top 

 of 'the tree would stand a very slim 

 chance. Compare that with the work of 

 a bee that comes well dusted with pol- 

 len, which it does not scatter promiscu 

 ously, but dusts only on the blossoms. I 

 leave you to figure out how many hun- 

 dred times the amount of pollen would 

 have to be increased to make the wind 

 equal to the bee. 



Mating of Queens — Yellow Sweet 

 Clover — Yellow Combs — Morn- 

 ing Glory as Honey-Plant 



I. I see by the bee-papers that there are 

 other bee-keepers in this State having 

 trouble about getting queens mated. I 

 have lost as high as 6 queens to the col- 

 ony the past spring, and have had to 

 watch every colony tha-t swarmed and give 

 them brood, after the queen hatched, to 

 see if they started queen-cells. Nearly 

 all had to rear their second queen, and 

 some even 6. I started to rear Italian 

 queens the past spring, and to every col- 

 ony I would give 2 capped queen-cells. 

 When they hatched I would date them 

 and watch them. I was proud of my 

 queens, as the past spring was my first 

 experience in queen-rearing ; but they 

 didn't seem to mate, so I soon "became 

 discouraged. I would give eggs and brood 

 at the proper time, after the queens 

 hatched, and I thought it time for them 

 to begin laying, but in every case, where 

 I gave queen-cells, they built queen-cells, 

 so I thought I would give up queen-rearing 

 for the present. I am satisfied the trouble 

 is bee-martins, as I think they pick the 

 yellow or black queens up every time they 

 see one. I had several nice swarms while 

 I was in the bee-yard, and as soon as all 

 the bees would get out, I would remove 

 the mother colony and mark it queenless, 

 so I could give them a queen-cell and 

 pinch out theirs. Several times the swarm 

 would return after flying around for a 

 few minutes, to the old stand, where I 

 would have a new hive with full sheets 

 of comb foundation, and they would go 

 right to work and build queen-cells. I 

 have seen bee-martins flying through 

 swarms of bees, and have seen them catch 

 bees on the way through and twitter 

 about it. Sometimes there would be 3 or 

 4 birds at a time in a swarm. Whether 

 they caught the queen, I am unable to 

 say, but she left the hive of the mother 

 colony, as I looked, after the bees 

 swarmed. Bee-martins are very thick 

 around both my apiaries. I have 165 

 colonies, and queenless colonies are lots 

 of trouble and expense. Thank goodness 

 I have only 8 more left to mate. They 

 are mating slowly, but I try to keep the 

 colony strong by giving brood, but that 

 robs the other colonies of their bees. 

 What I want to know is this : Can I take 

 some bees from one apiary to another (a 

 pint) and put soine yellow stuff on them 

 that would stay on, and turn them loose 

 a few at a time, and put some poison on 

 them to kill the birds when they eat 

 them ? Do you know of some kind of 

 poison to use, how to use it, and what to 

 paint the bees yellow with, so they can 

 fly? Is there any danger of such bees 

 entering the hives in a strange apiary, 

 and poisoning the honey? I have thought 

 of this plan, but I am not acquainted with 

 poison, so would not know what to use, 

 nor how to use. Do you think it would 

 work? I cannot take a shotgun and kill 



