September, lyii. 



American l^ee Journal 



all the bee-martins, as one apiary is in 

 a pasture where there is stock, and no 

 shooting is allowed. Besides, I am no 

 sportsman, and have no time to go hunt- 

 ing, as I believe there are more bee-mar- 

 tins than I could kill in a year's hunting, 

 right in this neighborhood. Anything you 

 suggest as to the bee-martins will be 

 tried, as I dislike driving along the road 

 and having them flying along, twittering 

 at me. 



2. Why is it that some sections of 

 honey in the same super, and stored at 

 the same time, are capped white, while 

 others are capped yellow? 



^. Will yellow sweet clover cause the 

 bees to cap the honey yellow? 



4. We have more yellow sweet clover 

 here this year than ever before, but I 

 seldom see a bee on it. Why is it? 



5. Last year white sweet clover was 

 everywhere ; this year there is scarcel>> 

 any. W'hy did it not grow again this 

 year, instead of the yellow? The bees 

 worked on the white all the time, and 

 seemed to be crazy over it, but they paid 

 no attention to the yellow. 



6. Does morning-glory make nice hon- 

 ^ey ? We have hundreds, yes, thousands. 



of acres here, and the bees seem to work 

 on it some ; also carpet-grass. The honey 

 I have extracted is light amber. 



7. The new brood-combs built this year 

 look yellow, as if the bees had been on 

 sulphur and tracked it over the un- 

 capped combs, giving them a kind of 

 golden color. What causes this? 



California. 

 Answers. — i. I don't know whether 

 your scheme of poisoning martins would 

 work or not. I don't think there would 

 be any danger of poisoning bees by it, un- 

 less you should sweeten the poison used. 

 At a guess I would say that you might 

 paint the back of a bee with a solution 

 of strychnine or arsenic colored with yel- 

 low aniline dye. with possibly a little 

 glue. Then if you could get a martin to 

 eat enough of these bees you might ac- 

 complish your murderous design. 



2. I don't know why there should be 

 any difference in the color of two sec- 

 tions sealed at the same time. It is barely 

 possible that you refer to travel-stain, 

 which will appear on the central or older 

 sections, while the remainder are white. 



3. I think not. 



4. I don't know. 



5. Sweet clover is a biennial, growing 

 the first year without blooming. Then 

 after blooming and producing seed the 

 second year it dies root and branch. So 

 if you sow seed one year and leave it to 

 itself thereafter, the tendency would be 

 to have bloom every other year. 



6. I am not acquainted with such honey. 

 but I think I have read that it is of fair 

 quality. 



7. It is probably colored by the blos- 

 soms on which the bees are working at 

 the time. Comb built when bees are work- 

 ing on dandelion is quite yellow, and it is 

 likely that other plants aft'ect the color of 

 the wax. 



Taking Off Comb Honey — A Swarm- 

 ing Experience 



I. A friend of mine, of whom I bought 

 mv bees, has a colony in a regular 10- 

 frame dove-tailed hive. Last fall they 

 were a little light in weight, so I ad- 

 vised him to put on an empty super and 

 feed them, which he did. He left that 

 super on all winter. W'hen spring opened 

 I told him to take it off and put a super 

 on filled with sections. He left the empty 

 super on and put the other super with 

 the sections on top. When I saw that 

 I told him he did wrong in not taking 

 off the empty super. He asked me to do 

 that. Some time after I went to do the 

 work and saw that the bees had started 



in the super and built combs below the 

 top super to the section-holders and into 

 the empty super, which was below the 

 sections. I told him it was too bad now 

 to tear off those combs, and as he wanted 

 the honey for his own use. I would leave 

 it just as it was, until filled, and then 

 take them off. About two weeks passed 

 when I took the supers off, and the bees 

 had built the combs to the brood-frames, 

 and filled up every little space in the 

 supers. Now, in taking them off the 

 combs tore, and the honey ran down and 

 out of the entrance of the hive. About 

 3 hours after everything was full of bees, 

 they flew in all directions, and it seemed 

 as if they had a regular war. I told him 

 I didn't know what else to do, for if the 

 honey was left on till fall we would surely 

 kill them, and we took the chances. If 

 they had brood, they would have bees 

 when the old ones were dead. After that 

 time the bees seemed to get less, and 

 he asked me to examine them, as he 

 thought they were getting less. This 

 morning I opened the hive, and by taking 

 out the frames I saw they were all empty 

 — no brood and no stored honey, and 

 about one pound of bees. I didn't see any 

 queen, either. Now. what was the right 

 thing to do in a case like that? Is there 

 anything to be done yet? 



2. I have II colonies of hybrid bees, I 

 have one that has never swarmed, and 

 every year has stored a good amount of 

 surplus honey ; they also seemed to be 

 much tamer than the others. They were 

 hived 2 years ago. I am thinking of 

 breeding queens, and to make a start 

 with these bees, and giving queens to 

 my other colonies that swarmed more 

 than I wish. W'ould it be advisable to 

 do that? Would it not to be too late to 

 do that this year? 



3. I have one colony from which is- 

 sued 3 swarms in one week — Sunday, 

 Tuesday and Friday: and having a good 

 honey-flow at the time, they seemed to 

 do well. The last swarm had 4 queens. 

 Have you ever seen anything like it? 



Illinois. 



Answers. — i. There is nothing worth 

 while to do now. as the few bees left are 

 probably so old they are of little value. 

 More than one thing might have been 

 done differently in the first place, so as to 

 avoid such a bad case of robbing. You 

 might have done the work just as it was 

 beginning to get dark — too late for the 

 robbers to get started that evening — and 

 then by morning the bees would have 

 cleaned up all the muss so that no rob- 

 bing would be attempted. You might 

 have done the work in a tent or in a 

 cellar where the robbers would be kept 

 out. When you pried up the supers and 

 found it started the honey to running, 

 if you had at once let them down again 

 and closed up everything, less honey 

 would have run, and in the course of 2 j. 

 hours the bees would have cleaned it up 

 dry. so that you could then have pried it 

 up without starting honey to running. It 

 is possible that you could have taken off 

 the supers with less leakage if you had 

 slipped a wire between the super and the 

 hive and sawed through with the wire. 



2. No, it is not too late, although if 

 there is no honey-flow you will not suc- 

 ceed very well at rearing queens. If you 

 do not succeed to your satisfaction this 

 year, there is a plan that you might like 

 to try next year. If your best colony is 

 not stronger than others, give it young 

 bees or sealed brood from other colonies, 

 so it shall swarm first. When it swarms 

 put the swarm on the stand of the old 

 colony, which we will call A. and put A 

 on the stand of another strong colony, 

 moving ths latter colony to a new place. 

 The returning field-bees will strengthen 

 A. and in proper time it will send out 

 another strong swarm. This swarm you 



will set in place o«f A, putting A on the 

 stand of another strong colony, and mov- 

 ing this latter to a new place. Proceed 

 in this way just as long as A continues 

 to swarm, and you may have several 

 strong swarms, all of them having queens 

 of A stock. 



3. I am not sure I ever had anything 

 quite so bad as that, although it is noth- 

 ing unusual where bees are allowed to 

 swarm naturally and the old hive is left 

 on the old stand, swarming continuing 

 until 5 or more swarms have issued, all 

 the young queens being allowed to issue 

 at last. 



Stingless Bees 



Are there any such bees as the stinirless ? 

 If so, how do prices compare with golden 

 Italians ? also, where can I buy some? Who 

 keeps them for sale ? Illinois. 



Answer. — For some reason there seems to 

 be an unusual inquiry for stingless bees. I 

 don't know of any such bees in this country. 

 In one or two cases I think they have been 

 brought here from South America, but did 

 not last long^. Even if you could keep them, 

 they are commercially of no value. I don't 

 suppose you could get as much honey from 

 a hundred colonies of them as from a single 

 colony of the common honey-bee. Don't 

 dream of gettingstingless bees. 



Stingless, White, Cyprian, Caucasian and Carniolan 

 Bees 



Would you kindly tell me where I would 

 be able to get the queens, or. in other words, 

 the stingless bees, here in the United States 

 or elsewhere? and also where I would be 

 able to get the queens of the latest white 

 bees which were introduced in the United 

 States last year, and proved to be a success, 

 and likewise the stingless race ? What color 

 are the Cyprian bees ? also the Caucasian? 

 and what is the difference as to color be- 

 tween the Caucasians and the Carniolans? 

 Californl^. 



Answer.— See answer lo " Illinois " about 

 stingless bees, in the question above. 



1 don't know of any bees that were intro- 

 duced into the United States last year. 



Cyprian bees look very much like Italians, 

 but the yellow bands are a trifle wider and 

 deeper in color. The difference in color be- 

 tween Caucasians and Carniolans is so little 

 that they can hardly be told apart, except 

 bv other characteristics. They look much 

 like black bees, but with an indistinct 

 whitish stripe. 



Old Queens— Laying Workers, Etc. 



1. I have one colony of bees whose cells 

 are uneven on top— some tall and some low. 

 What is this? Some of the brood looks 

 pink, but does not smell. 1 have a virgin 

 queen in the hive. Could she be a drone- 

 layer only, or not purely mated ? 



2. How am I to get rid of a laying worker ? 



3. I got a queen last spring and used her 

 as a breeder, and transferred her to several 

 hives. Recently I took her out of a full hive 

 and put her into a cage with plenty of candy 

 made of honey and sugar, and let her alone, 

 and found the bees had balled her. One 

 wing was clipped. What was the matter ? I 

 want to remedy the trouble. I can not un- 

 derstand why she disappeared, and the hive 

 was not meddled with. 



a. I lose a good many virgins in August, and 

 I don't understand what the trouble is. 



5. How can I get the bees to place the 

 honey in the super of a hive, over a caged 

 queen one year old ? I have been feeding 

 nights. Ohio. 



Answers.— I. That is not the work of a 

 virgin, or unfertilized queen, but rather of 

 an old queen. It is nothing very unusual 

 when a queen becomes quite old for the 

 store of spermatozoa to become to a certain 

 extent exhausted, and then some of the eggs 

 laid in worker-cells will not be fertilized 

 and will produce drones, and the cappings 

 of these will be raised. It is not the work 

 of laying workers, for in that case none of 

 the brood would be sealed level. 



2. Generally the best thing to do with a 

 colony that has laying workers is to break it 

 up. giving the bees to other colonies. It is 

 difficult to get the bees to accept a queen. 

 But if the colony is strong enough, and you 

 are anxious to have it continue, you can give 

 it a virgin just hatched, and this will pretty 



