November, 19 it. 



American Vae Journal 



negation of successful results. Wisely 

 bending their wills to the inevitable, 

 they combine, and the combination pro- 

 duces the ideal in government. 

 Banffs, Scotland. 



Pearce Methort of Bee-Keeping 



This is an illustrated pamphlet 6x8/3 

 inches, "explaining the keeping of bees 

 successfully in upper rooms, house at- 

 tics or lofts, whereby any one either in 

 city or country is enabled with only 

 a small e.xpenditure of labor to get a 

 good supply of honey without coming 

 in contact with the bees, and without 

 having the bees swarm out and leave, 

 or being troubled from stings, as you 

 work on one side of the wall and the 

 bees on the other. This method also 

 tells the commercial bee-keeper how 

 he can divide his bees when he wishes 

 to, instead of waiting and watching for 

 them to swarm. It can all be done on 

 the same day, or days if more than one 

 apiary, as the time required for this 

 operation is merely nominal, no swarms 

 issue and go away. These methods are 

 fully explained in this book, and how 

 to care for the bees on the Pearce 

 plan." 



We mail this pamphlet for 50 cents, 

 or club it with the American Bee Jour- 

 nal one year — both for $1.10. Send all 

 orders to the American Bee Journal, 

 117 N. Jefferson St., Chicago, 111. 



"Bee-Keepiug by 20th Century 

 Methods ; or J. E. Hand's Method of 

 Controlling Swarms," is the title of a 

 new booklet just issued from the press 

 of Gleanings in Bee Culture. While it 

 is written particularly to describe Mr. 

 Hand's methods of controlling swarms 

 by means of his new patented bottom- 

 board, the booklet contains a great 

 deal of other valuable matter, among 

 which is the following: The hive to 

 adopt; re-queening; American foul 

 brood; wintering bees; out-apiaries; 

 feeding and feeders; section huney; 

 pure comb honey; conveniences in the 

 apiary; producing a fancy article of 

 extracted honey; swarm prevention by 

 re-queening; increasing colonies, etc. 

 The price of this booklet is 50 cents 

 postpaid, but we club it with the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal for a year — both for 

 $1.30. Address all orders to the .Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal, 117 North Jefferson 

 St., Chicago, 111. 



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



Dr. C. C. Miller. Marengo, III. 



He does NOT answer bee-keeping questions by mail. 



Feeding Bees for Winter 



Afew days afeTO I pur aliased a Mi Her feeder, 

 placed it in an empty hive-body on top of a 

 colony of bees I wanted to feed, and put the 

 hive-cover on it all rit'ht. For a little while 

 I saw robber bees enterins; the hive. I 

 finally was compelled to remove the feeder. 

 This is my first attempt to feed bees. I see 

 by the bee-papers that September is the 

 time to feed. My bees have done very 

 poorly this year, and I fear they will not 

 live through the winter unless they are fed. 

 How can I feed them and keep the bees 

 from robbins ? New Jersey. 



Answer.— I don't know of any way of feed- 

 ing that is safer from robber-bees than by 

 tlie use of the Miller feeder. I have fed in 

 that way hundreds of times without any 

 robbingr. and I think I never heard of a case 

 of the kind before. I wish I had fuller par- 

 ticulars. It may be that the colony was 

 weak, and that in some way robbing was 

 started just as it would be without any 

 feeder in the case. The only thing I-think 

 to suggest is to feed in the evening, and 

 partly close the entrance. 



"Sovithern Bee-Culture" is the 



name of a booklet written by J. J. 

 Wilder, perhaps the most extensive 

 bee-keeper and honey-producer in the 

 whole State of Georgia. It is a real 

 hand-book of Southern bee-keeping, 

 with methods so simply described that 

 they are easy to carry out. Every bee- 

 keeper, especially in the South, should 

 have a copy of Mr. Wilder's booklet. 

 He conducts apiaries by the dozen, and 

 produces many tons of honey every 

 season. He tells in careful detail just 

 how he does it. The price of this book- 

 let is .50 cents, or we now club it with 

 the American Bee Journal for a year — 

 both for $1..30. Send all orders to 

 the American Bee Journal, 117 North 

 Jefferson St., Chicago, 111. 



from a sugar-warehouse, particularly moist 

 yellow and brown sugar. What, in your 

 opinion, is the best method of feeding this 

 sugar to stimulate bees ? How would it do 

 to spread in shallow pans in the spring be- 

 fore supers are on ? Missouri. 



Answers,— I. They may be yellow wasps, 

 which look like bees, but are moi e slender. 

 They are commonly called yellow jackets. 

 I don't know much about their habits, only 

 they are social wasps of the genus I'l-sta. and 

 I think they have their nests quite com- 

 monly in old. rotten slumps. They may be 

 often seen about sweets and decaying fruits, 



2, Yes, the top of the hive is the part that 

 should be kept warmer than the rest, 



3, They vary; some are vicious, and some 

 gentle, 



4, If there is a time when the weather is 

 good for the bees to fly, and there is no pas- 

 turage for them, you will imitate the natural 

 flow by giving them the feed very thin, even 

 as thin as parts water to i of sugar. Feed- 

 ing in pans is all right, and you will do well 

 to throw in cork chips as a float. Your gro- 

 cer throws away these chips that come as 

 packing in kegs of grapes in cold weather. 



Bee-Bread— Comb vs. Extracted Honey— Eyes of 

 Bees 



1, Can bees live without bee-bread in the 

 winter-time? 



2, Can they live on bee-bread a week or 

 two without honey ? 



3, Can the golden Italian bees gather 

 honey from the red clover, or just pollen ? 



i. Does the queen lay drone and worker 

 eggs in the old queen-cells ? 



5, Do bees gather nectar from corn-flowers? 



6, How many pounds of honey does it take 

 to make one pound of wax ? 



7, Comb honey sells at iiJS cents per one- 

 pound box here, and extracted honey at lo 

 cents. Which is the more protitable ? 



8, Mr. C. P. Dadant said that bees haves 

 eyes— 3 small ones to see within the hive in 

 the dark, and 2 eyes to see in the open air. 

 What do you think of it ? Missouri, 



Answers,— I, Yes, but they must have it 

 in the spring before they can rear any brood, 



2. I think not. 



3. If they work on red clover at all, they 

 probably get honey. Sometimes they work 

 on it, and so do blacks, but generally they 

 do not. 



4. No. 



c. Yes, it by corn-flower you mean the 

 flower Centaurea Cyanus, If you mean the 

 tassels of Indian corn. I think they get only 

 pollen. 



6. I don't know. For a long time it was 

 counted 20 pounds. Then some figured it 

 out 7 pounds or less. Possibly 10 or 12 pounds 

 may not be far out of the way. 



7. Extracted. 



8. That's what the authorities tell us. But 

 it must be remembered that the 2 eyes are 

 compound eyes, and instead of saying that 

 the worker has altogether s eyes, it might be 

 nearer the truth to say it has from 3500 to 

 5000 eyes. 



Perhaps Yellow Jackets — Wintering Bees Stimu- 

 lative Feeding 



1. I have noticed a number of bees having 

 bright yeilow and black stripes hovering 

 around my hives and evidently trying to rob. 

 Can you advise what kind they are, and 

 their habits ? 



2. In wintering outside, if the honey-board 

 is left on over the brood-frames, and burlap 

 laid on top of the honey-board, and then an 

 empty super filled with leaves placed above, 

 and then the cover, do you not think it 

 would be better than merely placing the 

 top cover directly on the hive, it being un- 

 derstood ttiat the entire hive is to be pro- 

 tected by outside packing and the case in 

 both arrangements? 



3. Do you not find the yellow Italians more 

 vicious than those of a darker color ? 



4. I can occasionally obtain sweepings 



Introducing and Rearing Queens — Keeping Italians 

 Pure, Etc. 



1, Is it necessary when you cage a queen 

 for a few days in a hive, or introduce her 

 from a baby nucleus to a colony, to put 

 candy in the cage ? Will the bees not feed 

 tfie queen through the screen ? 



2. When I have a super with shallow 

 frames, bees, brood, and queen reared in it, 

 and I want to supersede the old queen, 

 could I kill her two days before inserting a 

 new queen ? and instead of caging the 

 queen, could I take simply the super above 

 mentioned and set it on top of the queen- 

 less hive, and in a few days take the super 

 off and use it somewhere else? W^ill the 

 bees accept the queen that way. or will they 

 kill her? This morning I had a similar ex- 

 perience. I had too many bees, so I thought 

 I would unite them. I killed a young queen 

 in one of the newly-made colonies, and set 

 this queenless hive on top of another hive 

 liavinga young queen; but, alas, after half 

 an hour I looked in the hive and found the 

 queen balled on the bottom of the double- 

 deck hive. I caged her at once, but I had no 

 candy to feed her, so after a while I thought 

 I would try the flour-sprinkling that I had 

 read about, and today (after 4 days) I looked 

 and the queen was gone— I could not find 

 her. so the two hives are now queenless. I 

 tried the flour method on 2 other colonies, 

 where I shook the bees from the other hive 

 in front, and it worked all right. Here I 

 found the queen and one dead on the hive- 

 bottom, so I suppose the queen from the 

 first hive must have gotten in the wrong 

 hive. 



1. I would like to rear my own queens in 

 the future on your plan that I read recently 

 —in supers with shallow frames. I have a 

 bee-house where I keep separate 4 double- 

 deck hives on the Pearce plan. These are 

 my best stock for breeding. Next spring I 

 would put on top of this hive 3 supers with 

 shallow extracting frames, filled with me- 

 dium-brood comb foundation. About May 

 ist I would put the supers on and feed for 

 brood-rearing. In 3 weeks (May 22) I would 

 put a queen-excluder between the supers 

 and hive-bodies, and thus induce the bees 

 to build queen-cells in the shallow supers. 

 Will they build queen-cells in that way ? 



After 3 days I expect to have a nice lot of 

 queen-cells to select from, then I would 

 take the shallow supers away; have on hand 

 a certain number of shallow supers pre- 

 pared with bottoms and covers, close the 

 entrance of these supers bee tight with 

 green grass, put in each of the so prepared 

 supers 3 shallow frames with adhering bees 

 that I had taken from a hivea little while be- 

 fore, and see that there is at least one nice 

 capped queen-cell to each 3 shallow frames, 

 and add one frame with a full sheet of comb 



