May, 1916. 



American Hee Journal 



inu up such a'dense smoke that all the bees 

 will be kept out The bees may fly about 

 the place for a time, but will Anally con- 

 clude to make the best of it and settle in thi' 

 hive, and may then be taken away. 



Entrances Too Small 



I had three swarms in factory-made hives, 

 and the rest are in old bo-tes. I lost two of 

 those in the good hives, and the third one 

 lost half of its bees. What would cause it ? 

 Could the hives have been too tight ? I found 

 dead bees piled inside the entrances. The 

 opening was '4x1 inch on the one that was 

 partly dead, and I opened it to >'3!ti2 inch, 

 and they have cleaned the dead bees out 

 and seem to be all right now. The rest of 

 my bees in the old boxes are doing tine. 

 What was the trouble ? Iowa. 



Answer.— A bee can barely crawl through 

 a space one-sixteenth of an inch deep. You 

 left them a space of '4 inch through which 

 they could readily pass, yet so shallow that 

 it was easily clogged with dead bees, and 

 then the bees could not get out at all. It was 

 pretty warm, the excitement of the bees 

 made it warmer, and the bees smothered. 



Temperature for Opening Hives in Spring 



1. What should the temperature be to 

 open a hive safely in spring? 



2 How much spaceshould be left betiveen 

 the tops of the brood-frames and the cover 

 of a hive? Subscriber. 



Answers.— I. If you go by the thermome- 

 ter, perhaps it may be said that it should 

 not be less than 70 degrees. But something 

 depends upon what you are doing, and also 

 the weather. If you merely glance into a 

 hive to see whether stores are lacking, or 

 even take out a frame to see whether there 

 is any brood in the hive, there will be no 

 great risk at 50. provided it is still and the 

 sun is shining. But if there is a fierce raw 

 wind, there may be danger at anything less 

 than 70. A pretty safe way is to let the bees 

 decide the Question for you; do not open 

 the hive at a time when bees are not flying 

 freely. 



2. About a quarter of an inch. 



Wintering— Best Hive for Comb Honey 



1, Which do you consider the best, cellar 

 or outdoor wintering ? 



2. Which is the best hive for comb honey 

 the dovetailed or Danzenbaker ? 



Michigan. 



Answers.— I. South of somewhere about 

 40 degrees north latitude it is better to win- 

 ter outdoors. North of that cellaring is 

 generally considered better, although some 

 winter successfully outdoors as far north 

 as in Canada 



2. I think the great majority prefer the 

 dovetailed. 



Starting a Colony— Rearing Queens 



1. Is it better to start a new colony with 

 nuclei or bees by the pound, and when 

 should they be placed in the hive ? 



2. Can you start a colony by putting a lone 

 queen in the hive ? 



3. When a small colony is placed in a hive 

 with a queen is it likely to swarm out and 

 go away ? 



4. When a colony sends off a swarm, will 

 they rear and provide a queen for this same 

 colony that swarms off ? 



5. Will a full colony rear more than one 

 queen for a new colony, if so, can you save 

 these ? 



6: Can yoii rear queen-cells, or what are 

 some of the best methods for queen-rearing? 



Missouri 



Answers.— 1. That depends. If you have 

 plenty of strong colonies and are not anxious 

 for very rapid increase, then it will probably 

 be better not to send away, but if you have 

 very few bees and are anxious to increase 

 rapidly, it will be advantageous to get bees 



by the pound. In either case it is hardly 

 well to begin before honey is yielding pretty 

 freely. 



2. No. 



3. No; but it may sometimes happen. 



4. No normal swarm ever issues unless 

 there is already present a queen to go with 

 the swarm. 



5. When a colony swarms there are always 

 a number of queen cells in the hive, and 

 you can save the surplus ones 



6. Yes, you can make queen-cells, at least 

 the queen-cell cups, and can get the bees to 

 use them. To go into a discussion of meth- 

 ods of queen rearing would be going beyond 

 the scope of this department. You will tind 

 that in the books, and there is a whole book 

 devoted to queen-rearing by that master in 

 queen-rearing, G. M. Doolittle. 



Laying-Workers 



In queenless colonies that have fertile 

 workers, how would it be to brush the bees 

 all off the combs into the hive, then carry 

 the hive and bees off, say 100 feet, dump the 

 bees out. then put the hive on the old stand. 

 In that way I think the layers could not fly 

 back to the hive. If this would not be satis- 

 factory would it be wise to unite them to a 

 weaker colony ? Pennsylvania. 



Answer. —Taking laying workers a dis- 

 tance from the hive, hoping they would 

 never return, has been advised sometimes, 

 but I am afraid you wouldn't find it satis- 

 factory. Yo'j will probably find that a large 

 proportion of the bees are at the foolish 

 business of laying eggs, and that they will 

 find their way back as well as other work- 

 ers. Uniting with a weaker colony is good. 

 One way is to lay a newspaper over the col- 

 ony of laying workers, and then set the weak 

 colony on top. 



Non-Swarming Plan 



1. I have no drawn comb, and run for sec- 

 tion honey only. Could I work this plan by 

 placing a hive-body on top of the swarm and 

 raise a well filled frame of brood up to the 

 hive-body, then fill that with frames of full 

 sheets of foundation, and as the brood 

 hatches drop that and raise another so as to 

 keep brood always above ? 



2. When the honey flow begins and I place 

 the sections on will the bees work in the 

 sections as well as otherwise? 



Pennsylvania. 



Answers— I. I don't see any reason why 

 frames filled with foundation should not 

 work as well as drawn combs, and the plan 

 you propose seems to fulfill the conditions, 

 which are to have unhatched brood con- 

 stantly in the top super and space below in 

 the hive proper. 



2. No. so long as there are drawn combs 

 above, the bees will show at least a little 

 preference for them. 



If you try the plan please be sure to re- 

 port how it works for you. 



Weak Swarms 



1. Last spring! bought four colonies of bees, 

 three of them swarmed. The one that didn't 

 swarm made 125 pounds of comb honey. Can 

 you tell why it didn't swarm ? 



2. I hived a little third swarm of bees. The 

 swarm did fine for about a week, and then 

 I found there wasn't more than 200 bees left 

 in the hive. Can you tell where the bees 

 went? The swarm had brood, but it was 

 unsealed. A few weeks after I took two 

 frames of brood and honey from another 

 colony and gave them this swarm. The 

 brood hatched out, but the bees died off. 

 Was the colony queenless ? 



1. Can I use this hive for another swarm 

 next year? Quite a few cells have dead 

 bees, and a few have sealed brood that did 

 not hatch. 



4. I am planning on cutting out drone-cells 

 this spring. How does a person fasten the 

 foundation in, especially if there is a little 

 piece of drone-comb in the middle of the 

 frame surrounded by worker-comb ? 



5. If I cut out drone-cells will the bees rear 

 drones in the supers unless I use excluders? 

 Do excluders hinder the bees ? 



d. I had a small swarm that came out late, 

 and I gave it three frames of sealed honey. 

 Will that swarm amount to anything in the 

 spring and will it likely swarm out ? 



7 I read tliA bees that are in hives in the 

 fall live until spring What causes lots of 

 them to die off during the winter ? 



8. I noticed quite a few dead bees over 

 back of the hives and near the door, how do 

 they get over there ? My cellar is perfectly 

 dark. , 



0. Before I put a super on a colony that 

 didn't swarm, the hive was full of honey. 

 but when I took off the honey in the fall 

 there wasn't five pounds of honey left in the 

 hive. Can you tell where the honey went ? 

 Minnesota. 



Answers —1. When a colony good enough 

 to store 125 pounds of honey does not swarm 

 while other colonies do. the likelihood is 

 that it is simply because the strain is so 

 good that the bees bend all their energies to 

 storing without wasting time swarming; in 

 other words, the bees don't swarm because 

 they are too good to swarm. That may not 

 be very much of an answer, but it fits the 

 case as well as any other answer I happen 

 to have on hand at present. 



2. I don't know. The queen may have been 

 at fault, but the fact that brood was in the 

 hive looks a little as if the bees may have 

 been starved into swarming out, and so 

 there would be a hunger swarm. The bees 

 were not queenless in tl.e first place, for 

 they had brood within a week after being 

 hived,' 



3. It will be all right to use the hive for a 

 swarm again, in spite of the dead bees and 

 brood, provided there was no disease in the 

 hive. 



4. After cutting out the drone-comb, cut 

 away the cells on one side down to the sep- 

 tum or middle wall, to the extent of quarter 

 of an inch or more all around the hole. In a 

 warm place, with the foundation so warm 

 that it is pretty soft, press down the edge of 

 the foundation upon the bared septum and 

 the bees will do the rest. 



5. Yes, unless the super is filled with 

 worker foundation so the bees have no 

 chance to build dronecomb in it. Excluders 

 do not hinder the bees much. 



6 It is likely that it will be dead in the 

 spring or before that, yet possible that it 

 may live through, make a good colony and 

 send out a swarm. 



7. The bees in the hive in the fall don't by 

 any means all live until spring. The older 

 ones die of old age all through the winter. 



8. Bees about to die come out of the hive 

 and crawl away, so you may find dead bees 

 on any part of the cellar bottom. 



Q. During the summer the honey was taken 

 out of the cells (eaten or moved into the 

 super) to make room for the brood, the 

 combs being well filled with brood. Then 

 when brood-rearing ceased there wasn't 

 enough honey gathered to fill up the combs 

 again. 



Two Swarms No Queen — Where Return 



When two swarms issue and unite, and 

 both queens are taken away, why will not 

 these bees separate and return to their re- 

 spective original hives? Cuba. 



Answer.—! don't know, but I can make 

 something of a guess. When a lot of bees 

 issue as a swarm, they have made up their 

 minds they don't want to stay in the old 

 home any longer. !f their queen was 

 taken away, or, being clipped, fails to go 

 with the swarm, the bees may return to the 

 old home, but in a more or lesssulky humor. 

 If there is extra excitement at some other 

 hive, they are very likely to go to that hive, 

 thinking it a good place for a lot of bees to 



