August, 1916. 



American Hee Journal 



healthful, but have never read anythine 

 about honey comb. Is it easily digested if 

 at all P 



6. When bees start queen-cells prepara- 

 tory to swarminK, if these and all subse- 

 quent cells are destroyed will this not pre- 

 vent swarming at least to a great extent ? 



Georgia. 



Answers.— I. Yes. the bees probably ball 

 and kill her. or else the first virtin emerg- 

 ing is allowed to kill her. 



2. lam not entirely sure; the difference, 

 if any, is hardly worth considering. 



3. I suppose they sleep in summer as well 

 as in winter, but don't know much about it. 



4. Bur combs are the bits of wax that bees 

 put between top-bars and elsewhere aside 

 from the regular combs. 



5. I think the wax Is utterly indigestible. 

 That does not say there is anything un- 

 wholesome about it. A large part of the 

 food of animals, man included, is needed 

 merely for its bulk, and is not digested at 

 all. A bill of fare containing nothing but 

 that which is entirely digestible would not 

 be conducive to the best health. 



6. The first time you kill the cells of a col- 

 ony preparing to swarm, it will certainly 

 delay swarming, at least a few days. In 

 some cases you may continue killing cells 

 every week or lo days throughout the sea- 

 son, and there will be no swarming. Gen- 

 erally, however, the bees will swarm sooner 

 or later, in spite of you 



Poor Winterings Damp Cellar 



1. Some of my bees are short in winter 

 stores. How would it do instead of giving it 

 to them to go into the cellar about January, 

 take off the cover and set on a super with 

 about 10 pounds of good capped honey. 



2 Would it be best to put on an excluder 

 or would the queen go up into the super ? 

 How would it do to put an inner cover on 

 top of the excluder and let the bees feed up 

 through the hole left for the bees to escape ? 



3. My celler is very damp, and the water 

 always runs out of the hives in winter. Is 

 there any way to prevent this ? 



Wisconsin. 



Answers.— I. It might work, but I'm afraid 

 it would not do so well as to have the honey 

 sealed in the combs in the brood-chamber 

 in the first place. If you try it. I would ad- 

 vise that it be not on a large scale. 



2. There is danger that the bees would not 

 go up unless it should be too warm in the 

 cellar for good wintering, and if they should 

 all go up it would mean death to the queen 

 to be left below the excluder. 



3. I don't know of any easy way to dry out 

 a damp cellar except bv having a fire or hot 

 stones or bottles in it. Lime might do some 

 good. But moisture in a cellar is not likely 

 to do great harm if the cellar is warm 

 enough. Indeed, there are reports of fine 

 wintering with water running through the 

 cellar. 



Reports And ^ Experiences 



Influence of Nurse Bees 



I note with interest the speculations as to 

 nurse bees from cross colonies being able to 

 transmit their cross traits to progeny which 

 they may he nursing. 



In my opinion there is nothing in it, for as 

 long as I can remember I have caught stray 

 swarms, or bought them when it would keep 

 bees out of the hands of those who knew 

 nothing of them and would not take care of 

 them. To bring them home would be to ex- 

 pose young bees mating to undesirable 

 drones whose history I knew nothing of. So 

 I have found it expedient to destroy their 

 queens and use the colonies either as start- 

 ers or builders of cells in my queen opera- 

 tions. The fact that I have never noticed 

 transmission of those cross traits from such 

 blacks would indicate that there is noth- 

 ing in the theory. K.Hawkins. 



Plainfield, III. 



Handling Comb and Extracted Honey 



For five years I have been handling my 

 honey consumers' combs that were not 

 quite all capped over, "put up in ex- 

 tracted honey," something like sardines 

 are put up in olive oil. The combs stand on 

 edge with little bayous of liquid honey be- 

 tween. It makes a very appetizing looking 

 dish. The cans are scalded, corners paraf- 

 fined, and a can 4X5X7/4 inches, weighing? 

 pounds brings |i oo. Twenty-two of these 

 slipped out of a store in four days. 



It is very embarrassing to me, at my age, 

 not to be able to handle an apiary large 

 enough to supply my home demand. 



Fraser, Idaho. F. F. George. 



thing of a sucker if I did. What on earth 

 would be the good of this anyway if you are 

 uncapping say 200 combs an hour? Why. 

 one would be choked every few minutes. 

 Not only that, but the opening at the top is 

 too mall to allow the cappings to fall in 

 freely enough. 



I do not use the Dadant can, but I use tubs 

 on the same principle, and 1 took the idea 

 from the Dadant can. The tub I use holds 

 all the cappings from 200 to 400 combs, de- 

 pending on the amount of cappings on the 

 combs. When full, it is pushed along the 

 bench and another put in its place. 



The tub underneath has a tap in, and the 

 honey is drawn off and the cappings allowed 

 to drain indefinitely. Those tubs full of 

 cappings can be piled one on top of another 

 up to the roof and take up very little room 

 in the building, and when not in use they are 

 piled away outside, as one fits right inside 

 the other. For this reason they are handy 

 to cart about from one farm to another. 



The kerosene tin arrangement is of no use 

 to me. Mator Shallard. 



Glenbrook. Australia. 



myself, what's that queen-cage there for? 

 Then it flashed over me that I had caged the 

 queen back in the summer time 



"Well, I)r Miller, the queen was alive 

 though all her attendants were dead. There 

 were still about 8000 bees in the hive, so I let 

 out the queen, took up the hive and set it in 

 my home-yard. Today there are two patches 

 of healthy brood and enough bees to pull 

 through. The colony really needs some help 

 to make it build up rapidly, but for the test 

 I shall refrain from any assistance so long 

 as I think the colony will be able to get into 

 shape in lime. I shall soon requeen for the 

 queen is not a good one. 



No, I do not recommend such a long period 

 of caging, but will bear tes'imony that it 

 serves to get the combs well cleaned of 

 disease. 



"I tried a doubtful experiment last sum- 

 mer. I have some colonies at my brother's 

 place in Lancaster, Mass., and last summer, 

 early in July. I went there to treat them for 

 foulbrood It was before I realized that 

 colonies should be very strong to warrant 

 success in the caged-queen treatment. 

 These were very strong, and I drove fair- 

 sized swarms from four of them to bring 

 back here with me I gave caged queens so 

 shut in that the bees could not liberate 

 them, leaving them to my brother to liber- 

 ate after the lapse of a week or so Even_ 

 with this poor treatment, so far as I know' 

 only one of the colonies is now diseased 



"The four swarms were brought to Nor- 

 wich, some 80 miles, in my auto As my auto 

 is an old one-cylinder Cadillac, they got 

 well shaKen on the trip. At any rate. I did 

 not wait the regulation four days before 

 hiving them on chambers of brood. It was 

 just at the opening of the sumac flow and I 

 wanted those bees to store a super of honey 

 per swarm. I hived them on shallow frames 

 of brood (for I have a few colonies with 

 divisible brood-chambers, and I like to cut 

 down to one body when the flow begins). 

 I fully expected that they would all be dis- 

 eased, but intended to treat them after the 

 flow iV('/ t'//f ('/ //tost' four swarms eave the 

 disease to the brood with tvhieh they ivere Jur- 

 nishcJ. Honestly, Ur Miller, would not g5 

 percent of all experts assert that a swarm 

 shaken from diseased combs and hived in 

 less than three days upon combs of brood 

 of all ages transmit the disease to the new 

 brood ? 



" Yet I do not advise this as a practice." 



Norwichtown. Conn Allan Latham. 



Kerosene Tin Uncapping Cans 



The word " uncapping ' as applied :o the 

 fixture may be incorrect, as you. Mr. Editor, 

 say on page 47. P'ebruary number, but I guess 

 It will stick to it all the same. 



With regard to the kerosene tin uncapping 

 can. I had one of ihese when I first started 

 in the game, but I threw it away because its 

 capacity was too small, after I became the 

 proud possessor of a dozen hives, and as to 

 having many of these fixtures kicking 

 around: well. I should consider I was some- 



European Foulbrood Again 



The following private letter from an ex- 

 perienced apiarist will prove valuable to 

 our readers: 



"I have great faith now in Dr. Miller's treat- 

 ment for European foulbrood. I do not in- 

 tend to destroy any more good worker- 

 combs when it is at all convenient to save 

 them. 



"Last July, early in the month. I caged a 

 queen inoneof my outapiaries. It so happen- 

 ed that I did not visit that apiary again until 

 late in the fall, and I had forgotten all 

 about the caged queen. It was late in Sep- 

 tember or early in October. 11 weeks later, 

 that I went there thinking to take home 

 that diseased colony, wishing to have it 

 where I could keep an eye on it. I opened 

 up the hive totsee how things were. To my 

 surprise I found no brood at all. though 

 brood-rearing seldom ends here until well 

 into October. But there was a good lot of 

 honey and the combs showedlno sign of dis- 

 ease. I pulled one full frame out for a look 

 and noticed a cage in the bottom. Said I to 



Same Disease Again 



I see Mr. J. E. Pleasants, inspector of 

 Orange Co.. Calif., has apparently the same 

 bee disease to contend with that I had ten 

 or more years ago. If he will requeen and at 

 the same time move every diseased colony 

 out of bee-range to a new yard I think he 

 will cuTe it. I moved colonies out only two 

 or three times, and it has never come back, 

 it not onlv stopped it at the home-yard but 

 it cured those I moved 



Requeening in the home-yard will do no 

 good, at least it did not for me. It may be a 

 kind of bee paralysis, but it is not the kind 

 we are all used to We lost several colo- 

 nies entirely, and many lost nearly their en- 

 tire field force: some lost nearly all their 

 brood. 



At the time. I had a talk with O. O. Popple- 

 ton. He seemed to think it was not the kind 

 of paralysis he was used to. I think there is 

 something in rousing them up and moving 

 that helps them. Colonies that do not have 

 it bad need not be requeened. 



Marceline. Mo. Irving E. Long. 



Encourage the Use of Honey 



Dear Editor:— I am enclosing a clipping 

 from our local paper. One of the ladies' 

 clubs here known as "The Housekeepers." 

 decided that they would have a Bee and 

 Honey Day. and insisted on my helping 

 them with their program. I had just re- 

 ceived your pamphlet " Facts About Honey." 

 and considering it very good material, gave 

 it to a member who read it at the meeting. 



Each member responded with a short 

 article on bees and honey, and some gave 

 demonstrations in baking cakes, cookies, 

 etc. with honey. 



This was my first experience as " Bureau 

 of Information on Bees and Honey " at a 

 ladies' club, but I enjoyed it very much and 

 thought the ladies did well, and the demon- 

 strations were interesting and instructive. 

 You never tasted anything better than these 

 honey cakes and cookies. 



When it was too late I concluded that the 

 ice cream should have been made with 



