352 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Octoben 



Keep your colonies strong, and the bees will 

 take care of the moth. Italians are much bet- 

 ter at it than blacks. 



2. When the swarm starts out of a hive, 

 keep a sharp lookout at the entrance and you 

 may see the queen as she emerges, although 

 you will often miss her. 



3. M. E. Darby, Springfield, Mo. 



4. Comb honey may be taken as soon as it 

 is sealed over. Extracted honey may be taken 

 when three-fourths sealed, although it is bet- 

 ter to be left longer. Some good beekeepers do 

 not extract till the close of the harvest. 



5. There are lots of things you ought to 

 learn, if you are to be a successful beekeeper, 

 but if I should attempt to get them all in this 

 department I'd have a row with the boss. But 

 you can get more than I could give in many 

 numbers by sending a dollar to the office of 

 this journal for Dadan's First Lessons, or by 

 getting some other good bee-book. It will be 

 money in your pocket. 



Doolittle Plan for Extracting 



Would G. M. Doolitle's plan of "Manage- 

 ment of Outapiaries" work all right in running 

 for extracted honey? If not, what changes 

 should be made? ILLINOIS. 



Answer — I think the plan should work all 

 right for extracted honey. 



Uniting 



What is the best method of uniting colonies 

 this time of the year? VERMONT. 



Answer— I don't think there's anything bet- 

 ter- than the newspaper plan. Put a single 

 thickness of newspaper over one hive and over 

 this set the other hive. The upper hive must 

 be bee-tight, so that no bee can get out until 

 the bees have gnawed a hole in the paper. Then 

 the bees can get to one another so slowly that 

 they will unite peaceably. I never knew any 

 fighting of the bees, but in two cases I put a 

 nucleus with a queen over a very strong queen- 

 less colony and the queen was killed. In such 

 a case two thicknesses of newspaper is better. 

 After a few days, perhaps 4 or 5, you can 

 move any frames of brood in the upper story 

 to the lower story. 



Clipping a Queen's Wing — A Swarm 

 With a Clipped Queen 



1. When is the best time to clip the queens 

 wings? r J 



2. When a swarm issues with a clipped 

 queen, the swarm finding the queen with them, 

 will they cluster, and how long? 



3. what becomes of the queen if you cannot 

 find her on the ground? 



4. If you don't find her will the bees rear a 

 new queen and swarm again? 



5. How long would it be before they swarm 

 again if you found the queen, put her and the 

 swarm back in hive from where they came, and 

 then cut out all queen cells? 



6. How soon will you find a new queen in a 

 hive that has just swarmed, so you can clip 

 her? ILLINOIS. 



Answers. — 1. Any time when it suits your 

 own convenience after she begins to lay. There 

 is little need of clipping her during her first 

 season, as she is very unlikely to swarm; yet 

 I generally clip a queen not long after she be- 

 gins to lay. Early in the season, before any 

 colonies think of swarming, each queen is 

 found in the apiary, and those with whole 

 wings are clipped; for a certain number of 

 (jueens are superseded every fall, and their suc- 

 cessors should be clipped before swarming time 

 the next season. 



2. They may return without clustering; they 

 may cluster for a very short time, and they 

 may remain clustered as long as if they had a 

 queen. 



3. She generally returns to the hive, but may 



be lost or get into another hive and be killed. 



4. A swarm with a clipped queen is a prime 

 sw^rm, and at the time the swarm issues a 

 number of queen-cells are present, and the first 

 virgin from one of these cells is practically 

 sure to issue with a swarm if the old queen is 

 lost. 



5. Maybe the same day, maybe not for a 

 week or more; in rare cases not at all. 



6. She will be ready to clip in 10 days or 

 more. 



I want to start in the bee business with about 

 two colonies. Is it a good way to get the hives 

 first, then buy the bees by the pound, and how 

 many pounds of bees would be required to a 

 hive? How early in spring should I get them? 

 What do you consider the best way? 



WISCONSIN. 



Answer — If you get 2 or 3 pounds of bees 

 with a queen in May, they ought to do well. 

 It might be more profitable to get 5 pounds, 

 and get a good crop of honey. If you can get 

 bees in full colonies in your own neighborhood 

 that might be better still. 



Weight of a Swarm — Ants — Honey- 

 dew 



1. How much should a good swarm of bees 

 weigh ? 



a. Do ants crawling in and out of a hive 

 of bees do any harm? if so, what harm do they 

 do? How can I keep them out? 



3. Is it all right to take a part or all of the 

 honey out of a super in the summer and put it 

 back for the bees to fill again, if there is plenty 

 of nectar coming in all the time? 



4. Where do bees get honeydew? Will they 

 gather it when they can get nectar? 



WISCONSIN. 



Answers. — 1. Perhaps 4 or 5 pounds. 



2. Ants in your region generally do little 

 harm except to annoy the bees by their pres- 

 ence, making their nests for the sake of the 

 warmth in parts of the hive where the bees can- 

 not reach them, if there be any such place, as 

 over quilts. There is, however, a large black 

 ant that honeycombs the bottoms of hives, so 

 that they crumble at a touch. 



3. Yes, if you mean extracting frames; no, 

 if you mean sections. 



4. They generally get honeydew from the 

 leaves of trees. 1 think they are not likely 

 to gather it when better material is plenty. 



1. Early this spring I got a pound of bees 

 from the South, which I put into an ouserva- 

 tion hive. These bees have grown into a nice 

 swarm by now and 1 have transferred them 

 into a 10-frame hive. Now the honey crop has 

 been very poor and unless we should get a 

 good fall flow I am afraid these bees will not 

 have enough to winter on. How can I get them 

 in good shape for winter? Can I feed them 

 sugar-water to winter on, or must I use honey? 

 When and how should 1 feed? 



2. I intend to winter them in the second 

 story of my creamery and have them fly out 

 through a south window; have them in my of- 

 fice now, flying out through a south window. 

 The upstairs of creamery will never be far be- 

 low freezing at any time in the coldest weather. 

 Will this be a good plan? I would not like to 

 lose these bees, for they are pure Italians with 

 a tested queen. ILLINOIS. 



Answers — 1. Honey is the natural food for 

 bees, and nothing else can quite equal it. yet 

 thousands of colonies have wintered well on 

 granulated sugar made into syrup. So, if you 

 cannot get honey that you are sure is free from 

 disease, feed sugar syrup. It hardly comes in 

 the scope of this department to give instruc- 

 tions for feeding, which you should find in 

 your bee-book; but I may say that if you feed 

 any time before the middle of September you 

 may feed equal parts of sugar and water, and 

 it doesn't matter whether you mix it cold or 

 hot, only the sugar dissolves sooner in hot 

 water. As it grows later the syrup should be 

 stronger, until just before freezing it should 



be 5 pounds or pints of sugar to 2 jiints of wa- 

 ter. 



2. As a rule, bees wintered in a building as 

 you propose, are not very successful. They 

 may do well for you, but in your locality it 

 may be safer to winter in a good cellar. 



Ants 



When last I examined my hives I noticed, in 

 one of them on top of the inner cover, several 

 large red ants. Are ants likely to do any 

 harm, and how can I get rid of them? 



ILLINOIS. 



yond annoying the bees, and are in the hive 

 Answer — They probably do little harm be- 

 because of the warm shelter. When I had quilts 

 or inside covers ants were troublesome, but 

 for years I have had no inside covering, and 

 ants do not trouble at all. There will be no 

 trouble if there is no shelter where the bees 

 cannot reach the ants. You may trace them to 

 their nests, if their nests are not in the hive 

 itself, and destroy them with gasoline. 



Saving Extra Queens 



I have a colony of bees that became queen- 

 less and workers were raising only drones. As 

 there was no worker brood, sealed or unsealed, 

 four or five frames were put in containing 

 sealed and unsealed worker brood. Ten days 

 or a week ago I found three queen cells on one 

 frame and two on another.; three were sealed. 

 How would you save these extra queens, with 

 the intention of replacing the old queens in 

 other hives with these young queens? 



FLORIDA. 



Answer. — You can save the extra queens by 

 putting each in its own nucleus to be fertilized. 

 But it's doubtful if they're worth saving; for 

 to rear good queens you should have in the 

 hive abundance of young bees, and in the pres- 

 ent case there are few or none of that kind, 

 for no worker eggs have been laid for some 

 time. 



Queen Introduction 



1. What causes the bees in a strong colony 

 to drag out live brood in tlie nymph stage? The 

 colony is free from moths, and has a good 

 Italian queen. It has also abundance of honey 

 and pollen and there is a good flow of hone> 

 going on. 



2. I removed a hybrid queen lately and put 

 a caged Italian queen in her place. Five days 

 later I opened the hive and found several 

 queen-cells started, also the new queen which 

 they balled. I immediately drove the bees off 

 of her with a thick cloud of smoke and closed 

 the hive. Three days later I found all the 

 queen-cells torn open and my new queen lay- 

 ing nicely. What was the reason they would 

 not accept her at first? 



KENTUCKY. 



Answers. — 1. It is possible that the colony 

 has superseded its queen, and having now no 

 young laying queen has no use for drones, and 

 so is dragging out the contents of the drone- 

 cells. 



2. Nothing very unusual in the case.. It is 

 common for bees to start cells upon loss of 

 queen, whether they accept another or not, 

 later killing the cells if the queen gets dowi. 

 to business. Quite often, too, it happens that 

 bees ball their queen when disturbed by the 

 opening of the hive, freeing her all right il 

 the hive is closed, even if no smoke be given, 

 as you did. 



Bees in a Commotion — Dividing — 

 Swarm Prevention 



1. White amongst my bees, I noticed quite 

 a commotion about one of my colonies; it 

 looked as thougli a swarm would soon issue, 

 but the bees did not fly away, but clustered at 

 the entrance and at the front of the hive, ana 

 after a half hour, at least, all was quiet 

 enough for me to look inside. My memoran- 

 dum shows that on August 21 I discovered that 

 that colony had swarmed and that I had de- 

 stroyed as well as I could see, all queen-cells 

 except one of the best. The commotion afore- 

 said occurred on the 28th following. On ex- 

 amination on that latter day I found one 



