August, 1918 



a I. !•; A N 1 N G S IN H E K U L T U K K 



491 



piovent one from going thru his colonies 

 seven or eight days .after queen-cells had 

 started, therefore at the advent of warm 

 weather possibly a swarm would issue and 

 escape from him. He would then have the 

 l)roblem of second swarms, which Mr. Hol- 

 termann suggests; and it would hardly be 

 Avise for him to put off manipulations for 

 eight days longer, thinking that the second 

 swarm would not issue until eight days had 

 elapsed, because, as he points out, under 

 some conditions the swarm might issue in 

 three days. Therefore if one wished to make 

 increase from the colonies that remained 

 after the first swarm issued, the manipula- 

 tion should be made soon after the first 

 swarm left. In regard to your last sentence, 

 you are quite right thiat, if the queen is 

 killed and all queen-cells but one removed, 

 there would usually be no swarming. 



Question. — Will you kindly publish in Gleanings 

 directions for combating the beie-mO'th or larva3? 



California. S. J. Paul. 



Answer. — In order to prevent all trouble 

 from the wax-moth in hives occupied by 

 bees, it is only necessary to "keep strong 

 colonies in modern hives, and supplied with 

 good Italian queens. All supers of combs 

 stored in the honey-house should be piled 

 and covered carefully so that no moth may 

 gain access. If moths should appear in 

 stored material, and yet the combs are not 

 badly affected, they may be given to strong 

 Italian colonies to clean up. If the condi- 

 tion is more serious, the combs will need to 

 be fumigated. In this case, place at the 

 top of the pile in an empty super a pan 

 containing carbon bisulphide and leave 

 tightly covered until the next day. The 

 fumes when mixed with air are highly in- 

 flammable, and the fumigation should there- 

 fore be done outdoors away from the build- 

 ings. At 70 degrees F., 10 cubic feet of 

 space requires about two ounces of carbon 

 bisulphide for complete saturation. This 

 kills everything except the eggs. In about 

 12 days when the eggs hatch another fumi- 

 gation will be necessary. In estimating the 

 amount of bisulphide needed, it should be 

 remembered that the empty combs occupy a 

 l)art of the super space, and, if filled with 

 lioney, they probably take up as much as 

 two-thirds of the space. 



A.NSWERS BY C. C. MILLER 



Questions. — (1) In queenless and in super.sedure 

 colonies I have not been able to get more than one 

 cell accepted, altho I have tried eggs, different ages 

 of larvae (with and vi'ithout .ielly), and also have 

 given the cups to the tees to polish previously. What 

 is the explanation? (2) Under what conditions will 

 ([ueenless colonies tear down a ripe cell on a frame 

 of brood? I can not succeed without putting the 

 cell in a West protector. (3) My best colony in 

 1916 proved worthless the following season. It had 

 the same queen, but dwindled to about three broods, 

 and we have had a couple of inches of d&ad bee« 

 around the entrance all summer. The larvre ap- 

 peared to be all right, but something seemed the 

 trouble with the old bees. P. O. 



Minnesota. 



Answers. — (1) Hard to say, but it is possi- 

 ble that you had too small a force of bees. 

 The whole force of a strong colony is none 

 too much to prepare cells of best quality. You 



may not have had a suflicient proportion of 

 young bees. The weather and pasturage may 

 have had something to do with it. Feeding- 

 will help, but it is better to have a good 

 (low of nectar. A good thing is to use the 

 bees of a colony that has of its own accord 

 begun to rear cells for swarming. Possibly 

 you might do better to try the plan of hav- 

 ing colls built on a comb lying flat. A good 

 deal was said about this a few years ago, but 

 it seems not to have come into general use. 

 I have tried it a few times with satisfaction. 

 Fill a hive with empty combs, or combs near- 

 ly empty. On these lay flat a comb of brood 

 from your best queen, the comb supported 

 by sticks so that there shall be about an inch 

 between the top bars and the lower surface 

 of the comb. Over this a shallow super that 

 shall come about half an inch higher than 

 the upper surface of the comb. Set this hive 

 in place of the hive of a strong colony, set- 

 ting the latter on a new stand. Now shako 

 or brush upon your flat comb the bees from 

 three frames of your removed colony, of 

 course making sure not to have the queen. 

 Cover up and the field force will join the 

 force you have brushed into the hive, and 

 in ten days you will have a fine lot of cells 

 that will be only on the under side, easily 

 cut out, and leaving a much smaller hole in 

 the comb than will be left when you cut out 

 cells from a hanging frame. The instruction 

 is to cut or scrape out certain rows of the 

 cells, leaving only part of the cells. I do 

 nothing of the kind; just leave the perfect 

 comb, and the bees do good work. (2) Bees 

 will tear down cells when queenless for so 

 short a time that they have not yet discover- 

 ed their queenlessness. Also, they may tear 

 them down if queenless so long that they are 

 thoroly reconciled to their condition of 

 queenlessness. They are more inclined to do 

 so in a discouraged condition, as in a time of 

 dearth. (3) I don't know what the trouble 

 was, but it looks a little like paralysis. 



Question. — In the arrangement of the supers to 

 prevent swarming, in the manner as shown in Fig. 

 68, page 195, in your book "Fifty Years Among the 

 Bees," do you have any trouble in keeping rain out 

 of the hives ? do the bees go in and out of such 

 openings? What time of the year do you arrange 

 the supers in this manner and what month do you 

 close them up again i E. F. M. 



Pennsylvania. 



Answer. — The extracting-supers should be 

 piled, each super shoved alternately back- 

 ward and forward so as to make a ventilat- 

 ing space of Yi to i/^ inch. There is nothing 

 to prevent the rain entering these openings, 

 but being at the ends of the hive and supers 

 it cannot touch the brood, and I never knew 

 harm to come from it. This extra ventila- 

 tion is begun as soon as the ventilation 

 seems needed, or about the beginning of 

 clover bloom, and continued until the supers 

 are removed in the fall. One might suppose 

 the bees would use these openings for exit or 

 entrance, but very rarely does that happen, 

 probably because early in the season the bees 

 had already formed the habit of using the 

 regular entrance. 



