February, 1916. 



American ^ae Journal 



square inches will not be far out of the way. 

 That would mean an entrance 2 inches wide 

 if an inch deep: 4 inches wide if JS-inch 

 deep: 5 inches wide if ''a deep; and so on. 

 A very strong colony might have the en- 

 trance a little larger, and a weak one 

 smaller. 



Basswoods — Is Sumac Honey Poisonous? 



1. Do you think that basswoods would 

 grow in a soil that is very gravelly ? 



z. Can they be grown in a forest ? 



3. Is the wood good for fuel ? 



4. How long does it take to mature ? 



5. Is there a variety of sumac that pro- 

 duces poison honey ? 



6. Do you think that it would pay to have 

 outapiaries of from 10 to 15 colonies ? 



7. What plant produces the most honey in 

 your locality ? Subscriber 



Answers.— I. Yes. it will grow in any soil 

 where almost any other tree will grow, all 

 though there is such a thing as having too 

 much gravel. 



2. Yes. 



3. Yes. but rather soft, so that it is not a 

 very lasting fuel. 



4. I don't know just when you would call a 

 basswood tree mature. It keeps on growing 

 and increasing in size for 50 years or more. 

 Perhaps you mean when is it large enough 

 to begin yielding nectar. I'm not sure about 

 that; perhaps when about 10 years old. 



5. I think not. That impression may have 

 arisen from the fact that one of the sumacs 

 poisons the skin of some people if it is han- 

 dled so that the juice of it gets upon the 

 skin. It is K/ius mctopium, coral sumac, poison 

 ivy. But the honey from its flowers is ex. 

 cellent, and has nothing poisonous about it. 



6. It might in some cases. 



7. White clover. 



the souring of the honey. Put dry salt in a 

 cellar, or in any other place, and if it gets 

 damp you may count that honey will not 

 keep well there. 



2. They may winter all right, but there is 

 some danger that if there should be con- 

 tinued cold for a long time, they might 

 starve without being able to reach the honey 

 in the supers. The probability, however, is 

 that you left the honey in the supers from 

 early fall, and that the bees did their part in 

 carrying it down before severe cold. 



3. Yes. you can introduce a aueen at that 

 time, but you will have to use the same pre- 

 caotions as at any other time. See instruc- 

 tion for introducing in your bee- book. 



Beehives Sweating in Winter 



I have three colonies of bees, and have 

 them in a good work box. They seem to 

 sweat. Water runs out of the gum and 1 

 don't see any cause for it. If you can tell 

 me anything that will stop the water from 

 gathering on the gum I would be pleased. 



Iowa. 



Answer.— It's what you might call the 

 breath of the bees. They exhale vapor, and 

 then it settles as water on the sides of the 

 hive and runs out at the entrance. No harm 

 is likely to come from it unless it be that it 

 settles at the top of the hive and drops 

 down on the bees. That is not likely to 

 happen if there's good packing on top. 



Sour Honey — Wintering Bees 



1 Isold honey to a neighbor in July. He 

 put it in a dry cellar. I visited him Dec. 26, 

 and there are several pounds of it sour, not 

 fit to use. Can it be used for vinegar or any- 

 thing ? What do you think caused it to 

 sour? I have sold to at least 50 different 

 ones, and have had nothing but praise from 

 all the rest. At the time I sold this honey, 

 we had lots of rain and the early apples 

 burstedonthe trees and the bees worked 

 on them. Could that be the cause ? 



2 I have packed my bees in sheds, three 

 in each shed, open in front from the super 

 down. and have put 8 inches of straw all 

 around and on top except in front. 1 have 

 some very strong colonies with scant sup- 

 plies I think on account of the late warm 

 fall and brood-rearing. They have left from 

 6 to 10 pounds of honey in the supers with a 

 cloth over the supers. Do you think they 

 will winter all right ? ,,.,.. , 



3 I have bees in several old box-hives I 

 want to transfer next spring into new hives. 

 Could I kill the old queen and introduce an 

 Italian without any danger of the bees kill- 

 ing her ? Iowa. 



Answers.— 1. Honey is deliquescent; that 

 is. it attracts moisture from the atmosphere 

 when kept in a damp place. In your State 

 cellars are likely to be damp, and you can 

 hardly do worse than to puc honey in them' 

 That was probably the whole reason for 



Oilclotlis and Straw Mats — Sugar Syrup, Etc. 



1. Mr. Langstrolh recommends using a 

 straw mat directly over the brood-frames, 

 and Dr. Miller recommends the use of the 

 enamel cloth. In either case what becomes 

 of the "bee-space over the brood-frames" 

 claimed to be so important by most beemen? 



2. In feeding sugar syrup in warm weather 

 I find that there is a sour odor to the syrup 

 after a day or two. Is this harmful? What 

 causes it ? 



3. Which is the better, guess at the quan- 

 t it J* of stores in the hive in springer remove 

 the winter packing to be certain, and there- 

 by chill the young brsod ? It would be a big 

 job to remove and replace the winter cov- 

 erings. 



4. How do you put comb foundation in sec- 

 tions and extracting frames without the use 

 of hot wax ? This does not refer to brood 

 foundation fastening in the grooves with 

 thin strips of wood. New York. 



Answers— I. Years ago I used enameled 

 cloth, but for a good many years I have not 

 used or recommended anything between 

 top-bars and hive-cover. When anything in 

 the way of cloth or quilt is used, then in 

 winter something must be laid on the top 

 bars to preserve a passage for the bees to 

 passfover the tops from one comb to another. 

 In warm weather there is no need of it. 



2. I don't know what the sour smell should 

 come from unless it be from actual souring 

 of the syrup. That should hardly occur in 

 a day or two unless the syrup be very thin. 

 A little sourness will do no harm in hot 

 weather, but lots of harm if it continues in 

 winter. 



3. Guess how much is needed, and then 

 feed twice that much. Better still, be sure 

 in the fall that they have enough to last until 

 time for unpacking. 



4. Can't. At least the foundation must be 

 so warm and soft that you can fasten it to 

 the wood by pressure, as with a Parker ma- 

 chine or putty-knife. Probably most use 

 the hot-plate fasteners, which melts the 

 edges of the foundation although some pour 

 hot wax along the joint. 



Bees Clustering in Second Story— Deserting tlie 

 Queen 



I winter my bees in two-story hives, and I 

 notice that about half a dozen of them have 

 clustered in the upper story. There is 

 plenty of honey below, but it seems to be 

 just a very little moldy. The honey above 

 does not show any mold. 



Four of those that went above had on 

 queen-excluders, and at least three of them 

 have lost their queens I have heard it said 

 that bees would not desert their queen, but 

 they did. Why did the bees go above ? Do 

 they often desert their queen? How early 

 next spring can I rear queens ? 



Westfield. 



Answer.— I don't know why the bees 

 should go through an excluder into the 

 upper story, leaving the queen with plenty 

 of honey in the lower story, unless there was 

 something seriously objectionable in the 

 honey in the lower story, and I have doubts 

 whether the honey was bad enough for that. 

 Possibly if I could examine the hives I might 



tell something about it. but I don't believe I 

 could. 



Under ordinary circumstances bees will 

 stay by their queen, but in some cases they 

 may desert her. Once I put a queen in a 

 lower story and put all the brood in an up- 

 per story, an excluder between. It was 

 early in the season and the weather turned 

 quite cold. There was no brood in the 

 lower story with the queen, and the cold 

 weather made the bees go up into the story 

 with the brood, leaving the queen to perish 

 below. 



Generally in your locality you will not be 

 able to rear good queens untilclover blooms, 

 although sometimes you may succeed in 

 dandelion or fruit bloom. 



Retaining Aroma of Honey 



1. In going over the colonies of an apiary 

 during the different seasons (spring, honey 

 flow and fall), methods of going through a 

 colony to determine its condition, to perfect 

 it. and to record same are used. What is 

 I'lV//- method, or any good method or system 

 of recording, during each season, whereby 

 my assistant or myself can know the exact 

 condition of each colony, record same and 

 refer to it. A summary of your system of 

 each season's management of both comb and 

 extracted honey 



How do you build up weak colonies in the 

 spring ? 



2. How may I retainthe aroma of extracted 

 honey? Minnesota. 



Answers.— I. To answer fully these ques- 

 tions would be going beyond the bounds of 

 this department, occupying many pages. 

 But you will find it all fully given in my 

 book "Fifty Years Among the Bees." 



2. The chief thing is to have the honey 

 well ripened and sealed by the bees before 

 extracting, and then to close it upas soon 

 as possible so that none ofthearomawillbe 

 dissipated^ You see it isn't doing anything 

 to retain the aroma so much as it is doing 

 nothing to lose it. One of the quickest 

 ways to lose the aroma is to heat it. 



The "Trick" in Comb-Honey Production 



In Gleanings In Bee Culture, last issue, 

 your praises were sung as a comb-honey 

 producer, and I wonder whether you could 

 do anything advisalory to put me also in 

 line for such praiseworthiness. I use axsxijs 

 sections and could not very well change. 

 I feel greatly annoyed at the great number 

 of light sections. Of 1150 for which I got full 

 pay, I doubt that 150 would have toed upKo 

 " fancy." and if I depended upon anything 

 but the home market I would have to " shut 

 up" shop. . , . , . , 



From my own point of view exclusively, 

 I do not see how comb honey ever could pay 

 under the established classification rules, 

 as only 10 percent would be welcome to New 

 Yorkers and commission men. I suspect 

 that the princes of comb-honey production 

 have a trick up their sleeves that they won't 

 giveaway Pennsylvania. 



Answer.— I've pondered no little upon 

 your letter, and the more I ponder the more 

 I don't seem to get anywhere. Is there by 

 any possibility some trick of the trade that 

 I haven't fully divulged? I've written a 

 whole book, " Fifty Years Among the Bees." 

 a book that I think you have, trying to tell 

 just what I do throughout the year, and es- 

 pecially with minuteness what I do to get 

 crops of first class section honey: in this 

 department of question and answer, I've 

 turned my hear* inside out for all and sun 

 dry. keeping back nothing; and now you 

 come asking, " What's the trick ?" I don't 

 know. I wish I did. 



You mention that you use sections 4X5X1H. 

 I really don't know whether that should 

 make any difference. But after trying a 

 number of different kinds of sections. I 

 don't think anything is better than the one 

 most beekeepers have settled down upon, 



