246 



July. 1916. 



American ^ee Journal 



to put the old hive over the new. In that 

 case you should use an excluder if you unite 

 in less than ten days. After ten days, if you 

 cutout Queencells you can unite without 

 excluder. 



2. If trees, buildings, or other objects are 

 present to help the bees to mark the loca- 

 tion, they may be set as close, together as 

 will allow you to work comfortably between 

 them. If there are no such objects, then it 

 is belter to have a space of perhaps five feel 

 to separate the hives, or pairs of hives 



3. Perhaps the greatest advantage is that 

 there is room for more stores, making very 

 much less danger of starving in winter or 

 spring. 



i. Never; the sooner it is moved where it 

 is to stay the better. If left over night, and 

 then moved, there is danger of loss of bees. 



5. Generally 2 or 3 years old ; in rare cases 

 even 5 or 6 years. 



D. Possibly a case of paralysis. Some think 

 the queen to blame; some not. 



7. Likely old age. Some queens are older 

 at a year than others at two. 



8. Yes. 



0. Yes. indeed, you can hurt by too much 

 smoke. It's never any benefit to the bees: 

 and you should never smoke any more than 

 just enough to keep them under subjection. 



want to get it in quarts, count about 5"00 

 bees to the quart. 



3 Yes. any hive makes a good decoy hive; 

 all the better if some old honeycomb is in 

 it; only you must look out that the comb 

 doesn't get to be wormy. The decoy hive 

 may be set anywhere, in or out of the apiary; 

 some put them in crotches of trees in the 

 woods. 



4 It would be going outside the scope of 

 this department to give full instruction for 

 finding wild bees; but the chief thing is to 

 use honey as a bait, watch what direction 

 the bees take when they leave the bait, 

 moving the bait and gradually following up 

 the line of flight until the home of the bees 

 is reached, using also cross-lining. 



the bees be really at the bottom of all sue. 

 cess or failure in queen introduction ?— Ed. 1 



Transferring— Decoy Hives^Wild Bees 



1. What can I do with bees in old-fash- 

 ioned hives? The bees are working and 

 seem fairly strong. 



2. How many gallons of bees should there 

 be to constitute a colony strong enough to 



3. is there a satisfactory decoy hive; if so. 

 how is it made and used? 



4. How can I proceed to find wild bees ? 



Indiana. 



Answers.— I. Leave them as they are until 

 they swarm; hive the swarm in a movable- 

 frame hive, setting it on the old stand with 

 the old hive close beside it: three weeks 

 later all the worker-brood will be hatched 

 out, when you can break up the old hive, 

 adding the bees to the swarm. 



2. Early enough in the season a colony of 

 10.000 bees might be satisfactory enough, 

 while in the harvest 40.000 would not be con- 

 sidered so very strong. So you see it varies 

 according to the time in the season. If you 



When to Add a Super 



My bees are working early and late now. 

 I have some honey in the brood-chamber. 

 Would it be advisable to put on a super 

 before much honey is stored. If one was 

 added at such a time would the bees con- 

 tinue storing in the hive until full before 

 starting to store in the super, or would they 

 start in the super as soon as added ? 



Missouri. 



Answer.— The bees are likely to continue 

 filling up all the space available before 

 beginning in the super, but it is well to put 

 on supers a little before they are really 

 needed. The old rule was to put them on 

 when bits of white wax are seen along the 

 top-bars, but that is rather late. As you are 

 probably in a clover region, a good rule is to 

 give supers just as soon as you see the first 

 blossom on white clover, although there 

 may be no storing in supers until ten days 

 later. 



Bees Tearing Combs 



I have a strong colony of Italian bees 

 which has some honey and a good laying 

 queen. For the last two weeks they have 

 been tearing very large holes in empty 

 combs and carrying it out of the hive. The 

 movable combs have plenty of space be- 

 tween them. Why do they do this ? Ohio. 



Answer. — Without seeing it one can only 

 guess. A fair guess is that the comb is so 

 offensive by being badly molded or in some 

 other way, that they are discouraged about 

 cleaning it out. 



Reports And ^ Experiences 



Fires Injure Crop 



The bees wintered well last winter, but 

 the spring was hard on them. January and 

 February were mild; March very rough; 

 April dry. cold and windy. 



We had a forest fire; it burnt for three 

 weeks; the wind blew the smoke one day 

 from one direction, the next day from an- 

 other, ^o hard sometimes that a man could 

 not see a thing five steps away That was 

 hard on the bees, too; they had to stay in 

 during that time. The fire destroyed all the 

 early low honey-producing plants and many 

 million feet of timber. 



May was dry until the 15th; since that 

 time we have had showers nearly every day. 

 and now everything is just booming. 



The way I introduce my queens: When I 

 notice a queenless colony I catch my extra 

 queen, open the queenless colony and hold 

 the queen by the wings on top of the best 

 occupied frame- Directly comes a bee and 

 salutes her majesty, gives her a drop of food, 

 fans her wings; the whole colony changes 

 to a different tone: the nearest bees coming 

 swarming, fanning their wings for happiness, 

 and sometimes even the new-born babies do 

 the same; then I let (he queen loose, cover 



up the hive, and she is introduced, and the 

 queen attends to her job at once. 



I tried the cage method, thesmoke method 

 and the daubing method, and still I had to 

 lose some, but my last method works suc- 

 cessfully. I have never lost any queens 

 since then. I hope to use this method hence- 

 forth. Peter Schaffhauser. 



Havelock, N. C. May 18 



(To our mind the foregoing letter from our 

 good friend Mr. Schaffhauser illustrates the 

 correctness of the statement made by our 

 learned Swiss correspondent. Mr. Spuhler. 

 in his article on introduction of queens, 

 page 160: " In every case the temper of the 

 bees plays a very important role. If they are 



in good humor, everything goes well " 



Evidently the queens introduced by Mr 

 Schaffhauser in so simple a way had to 

 deal with bees in good humor. We have 

 seen many cases where the queen so intro- 

 duced would have been treated as a robber. 

 Poes it not look to you as if the temper of 



Brush for Painting Foundation 



I have found that if a brush is prepared 

 for painting foundation as I have described, 

 that it will be further improved by cutting 

 out about one-third or more of the fiair 

 lengthwise of the brush: that is. only the 

 center of the brush, more properly speak- 

 ing, thinning out the hair so that it will be 

 of a uniform thickness from end to end 

 lengthwise If the hair of the brush is 

 longer through the center of the bottom than 

 at the ends, it should be trimmed with a 

 shears square across all the length of the 

 brush. Edward Hassinger. Jr. 



Greenville. Wis. 



To Stop Robbing 



The following method has never failed to 

 stop robbing for me. Lay two boards across 

 the top of the hive with the ends projecting 

 about two feet in front. Over this spread a 

 blanket or old carpet. The carpet is fast- 

 ened tight against the sides and back of the 

 hive, leaving a dark space in front. Since 

 all possible light is shut out from in front 

 the robbers are unable to find their way to 

 the entrance of the hive readily, while the 

 bees which belong there will go in witnout 

 trouble. J. H. Morris. 



Kansas City. Mo.. Ian. 28. 



The California Crop 



The honey crop in southern California is a 

 disappointment to most beekeepers. No 

 rain since March, and cool, cloudy weather 

 has cut the crop very short. Orange honey 

 not over one-third of a crop. Sage is not 

 yielding at all well, and is sure to fall away 

 below a crop. Buckwheat (wild) is bloom- 

 ing, but bees are getting very little honey 

 from it. I think the crop will not exceed 

 one-half at present. L L. Andrews. 



Corona. Calif.. June 3. 



North Carolina Report 



This has been a trying year for local bee- 

 men. Our spring losses ran about 25 per- 

 cent for the county. Then up to May the 

 first bees were starving. During May pop- 

 lar, berries and clovers yielded lightly. My 

 yard of 11 colonies vno winter loss; 8 were 

 packed in quadruple cases) have gathered 

 some excellent clover honey (white and 

 crimson). Very little swarminghas occurred 

 until lately, and it is light yet. Some yards 

 visited have gotten hardly any surplus. We 

 are on the eve of our sourwood flow, and of 

 course are anxious. It has yielded hardly 

 any for the past two seasons. Frequent 

 rains have fallen for two weeks. 



Bruce Anderson. 



Salem. N. C, June 10. 



Abundance of White Clover, Yet Pros- 

 pects Not the Best 



At present there is more white clover in 

 bloom than I have ever seen during any of 

 the best seasons in this locality. Under 

 normal weather conditions there would 

 consequently be a heavy honey-flow. But 

 this is not exactly the case, and I suppose 

 that cool nights cause a drawback. White 

 clover seems to yield the most honey only 

 when days and nighis are warm, with enough 

 rain to supply the ground with sufficient 

 moisture. ' in account of prevailing cool 

 weather during all the spring, bees did not 

 build up quickly, especially being short of 

 stores as a consequence of the poor season 



of lOI'. 



For some time bees have been storing 

 honey in the extracting supers (8 frame 

 Langstroth). and while they should be ready 

 for extracting by this time, the best are 

 only a little more than half filled. So far. 

 we are free from foulbrood. 



St. Meinrad. Ind.. June 4. 



A Glimpse from South Dakota 



I do not believe in putting flowers on a 

 man's grave, but rather in giving him a bou- 

 quet while he is living. 



I see that Mr. Francis Jager. of Minnesota, 

 has been elected president of the National 

 Beekeepers' Association, and for the benefit 

 of some of the readers of this paper. I want 

 to say that I had the privilege of meeting Mr. 



