1917 



AMERICAN BF.F, JOURNAL 



353 



iHifcn-ccII open at the end, showing normal ex- 

 it, and also one tttieen-cell sealed. What expla- 

 nation can you Rive f>f this? 



3. In the spritiK. when a colony shows a 

 prosperous condition, viz., is full of hccs, 1 

 like to put on another full d(;i)th super, then 

 order a queen from the South, which takes a 

 week or ten days to arrive; then I divide, put- 

 ting most all of the hrood with the new queen 

 on a new stand. In following out the alxfvc 

 stated manner of procedure, 1 have an undei 

 current of l)elief that, instead of at once or- 

 dering a queen, it would he better to wait un- 

 til the bees start well at drawing out the foun- 

 dation. Would this not be a true indication 

 that the colony, however strong otherwise in 

 aiJpearance. is really ready for division ? 

 What do you think nf this? 



3. Until recently I gave preference to the 

 putting queen up, instead of the excluder plan; 

 but lately I have inclined more to the latter, 

 as it only requires a hive-body and an ex- 

 cluder. IIow about doing either one as late as 

 September 1, or say two weeks previous? 

 Might it not be like secluding a colony to a 

 queen that the bees want to supersede, and pui 

 them in a way. probably, to go into the winter 

 with an old queen that might die before spring? 

 PENNSYLVANIA. 



Answers. — 1. It is quite possible that tht 

 commotion was caused hy the queen taking her 

 wedding flight. Of course, there is a commo- 

 tion when the bees have their play spell, but 

 you have too much experience not to under- 

 stand that. 



2. I think your idea is entirely right, that it 

 is not wise to divide until the bees are in such 

 condition that they will not only work upon 

 foundation, but work vigorously upon it. 



3. It hardly seems that there should be need 

 of vising either plan to prevent swarming so 

 late as the middle of August; still it might be 

 advisable in some cases. I hardly think there 

 would be danger by so doing of forcing into 

 winter a too old queen. Probably many 

 queens are superseded as late as the middle of 

 September. 



Color of Races 



1. What color are the working bees of the 

 Caucasian race and what color is the queen? 

 Would the bees do well in Iowa? 



2. What color ' are the working bees of the 

 Carniolan race? 



3. What color are hybrids, and would these 

 bees do well in Iowa? MONTANA. 



Answers. — 1. About the same color as the 

 workers and queens of common black bees. 

 They ought to do well in Iowa, yet most bee- 

 keepers prefer Italians, if for no other reason 

 than that Caucasians, like Carniolans, are great 

 swarmers. 



2. Very much like blacks, but the rings are 

 more distinct, so that one is inclined lo say 

 they have whitish rings. 



3. By hybrid bees is generally meant bees 

 that are a cross between Italians and blacks. 

 They may be without bands, and they may 

 have one, two or three yellow bands. They 

 are common in Iowa and do well there. 



Nuclei— Old Combs 



1. Would it be all right to ship a tested 

 queen with a one-frame nucleus from Indiana 

 or Iowa to the southern part of Minnesota at 

 the beginning of the honey flow in the spring.' 



2. I have several hives of bees, but the comus 

 are mostly drone-comb, so i intend to put them 

 in new hives with full sheets of comb founda- 

 tion in the spring as soon as the honey flow 

 begins. Will the old combs be fit to sell? 

 About how many pounds are there in a 10- 

 trame hive (.Hoftman frames)? 



3. How do you prepare for the market old 

 combs taken from a hive, and about how much 

 are they worth a pound? 



4. If I get a one-frame nucleus, with a tested 

 queen, will it be a'l right to take it out in the 

 apiary at noonday and put it on the stand of 

 one of my very old hives, which I will remove, 

 so that the hive with nucleus will get the field 

 bees from one uf my old hives? 



MINNESOTA. 

 Answer. — 1. Yes; but a larger nucleus 

 would be better. 



2. If your idea is to sell them filled with 

 honey, they would not do for table use, but 

 might be good for feeding bees. I'm not sure 

 what ten Ilofi'man frames filled with honey 

 would weigh. Perhaps as much as 75 pounds. 



3. Only new combs are put on the market 

 as comb honey If you mean dry old combs, 

 they must be rendered into beeswax before 

 they can be sold. — Editor.) 



4. Too much danger; the queen might be 

 killed. 



Queens — Feeding for Winter 



( )n July 1^ I received an untested Italian 

 (juccn, which I introduced to a colony after 

 killing the old queen. Five days later 1 exam- 

 ined it and found they had accepted her, but 

 110 eggs were present. August 1 I again looked 

 through it, but still the queen had not started 

 laying. I removed her, putting her in a nu- 

 cleus and introduced another queen, which 

 they accepted. She is. laying line. 



1. What was wrong with the first queen? 



2. Will she ever be any good? 



3. I received two queens from a dealer, both 

 cages being tied together. They were piping 

 continually. Were they virgins, or is it natural 

 for them to pipe? 



4. Could I winter three queens in one hive 

 with screen wire division-boards, each depart- 

 ment having three frames? 



5. Do bees die when they sting; if not, can 

 they sting again? 



6. Do you think I should feed some sugar 

 syrup for wintering, or leave the natural 

 stores, which is from buckwheat, aster and 

 goldenrod ? 



NOVA SCOTIA. 



■Answers. — 1. I don't know. 



2. I don't believe there's one chance in a 

 hundred that she'll ever lay. 



3. Laying queens pipe as well as virgins, and 

 some are great pipers. I suspect the nearness 

 of the two queens increased the piping. 



4. Yes; but instead of wire screen you had 

 better have wooden partitions one-quarter to 

 three-eighths thick. With wire screen there is 

 danger of queens being killed. 



6. Better leave the natural stores. 



Jumbo Versus Langstroth Hive Body 



— Swarm Control — Honey 



House — Wintering 



1. In the production of extracted honey would 

 it not be a good plan to use the jumDo hive- 

 body as a brood-chamber and the full depth su 

 per .■' i he jumOo frame is about two inches 

 aeeper thai; the standard Langstroth frame, 

 tnerefore one could use nine frames in a ten- 

 frame brood-chamber, giving it about the samt 

 number of square inches of comb as eleven 

 standard Langstroth frames. One could space 

 the frames according to the needs of the 

 colony and instead of the tenth frame use a 

 dummy, which would make it easier to re- 

 move the combs. Do you not think that in us- 

 ing the full depth super one would not have 

 as many supers nor as many frames to handle? 

 in my estimation that and other advantages 

 of the full depth super would more than coun- 

 terbalance the disadvantages. 



2. Which of the many hive covers do you 

 prefer? 



3. Do you prefer the unspaced frame to the 

 others? 



4. Is there as much danger of combs break- 

 ing down in jumbo frames as in the standard 

 frame? 



5. Do bees gather honey from the rock elm? 



6. What are the main things to be observed 

 in Dadant's method of swarm control? 



7. What is the greatest number of pounds of 

 extracted honey produced by one colony that 

 is known? 



8. Where can one get hold of some good 

 honey -house plans? 



9. I should think that honey could be put up 

 in pint, quart and two-quart mason fruit jars 

 for retailing in the neighborhood, because 

 these jars may be used again for preserving 

 vegetables, etc. 



10. Will bees fly across a stream about 60 

 rods wide to gather honey? 



1^ What are the things that must be ob- 

 served in indoor wintering, also outdoor win- 

 tering. WISCONSIN. 



Answers.— 1. I doubt if you would like the 

 deep frames for extracting. A strong reason 

 for thinking so is that the Dadants. who are 

 strong advocates of large frames in the brood- 

 chamber, use shallow extracting frames. And 

 the Dadants arc no slouches at producing ex- 

 tracted honey. 



2. I have never seen any more to my liking 

 than the ones I use, two thin board surfaces 

 with three-eighth inch airspace between, cov- 

 ered with zinc or tin. 



3. I prefer self-spacing frames- 



4. Properly made and managed, there ought 

 hardly to be danger with either. If there is 

 danger, that danger would be greater with the 

 deeper frame. 



5. I think they do. 



6. Big hives, big spacing, and big super- 

 room. 



7. I think a thousand pounds was reported 

 some years ago. 



8. In back numbers of some of the bee 

 journals. 



9. Mason fruit jars have been used with sat- 

 isfaction as conntainers for honey. 



10. Yes. 



11. More than I could tell if I should fill 

 many pages. This department is intended as 

 a supplement, not as a substitute, for a text- 

 book on beekeeping, and if, on looking up the 

 matter in your bee-books there is some particu- 

 lar point not clear, I'll answer about it tht 

 best I can. 



Swarming — Supersedure 



I have a swarm of bees (half Carniolan and 

 half three-banded Italians) that I caught June 

 1' They filled their hive with brood rapidly 

 and soon they had nine out of the ten frames 

 full of brood in all conditions. I put on one 

 super of sections and when they had that al- 

 most filled I placed another under it. They 

 drew that out in good shape. A few days ago 

 I thought they acted weak, so I overhauled the 

 hive and found a rather small force of work- 

 ers, many drones, much empty brood, a little 

 unsealed brood, one queen-cell which had 

 hatched and two which were about to hatch. 

 V\ ork was almost entirely stopped in the su- 

 pers. 



This is a first swarm thrown from a colony 

 which I bought this spring, so I don't know 

 the age of the queen. 



1. Are those supersedure cells or swarming 

 cells? 



2. If swarming cells, how do you account 

 for the unsealed brood ? 



3. If supersedure cells, how do you account 

 for the lack of workers and so many drones? 



4. When I looked into this hive about six 

 weeks ago everything was going nicely. Would 

 an old queen play out so abruptly and allow 

 the working force to dwindle? 



5. Would you advise taking away the supers 

 entirely ? 



6. If they swarmed, what would be the rea- 

 son, as they had two supers of combs drawn 

 out and only partially filled? 



7. The parent colony threw out two others. 

 The last one I returned two or three times and 

 at last it left entirely, taking all the queens 

 with it. So I had to buy a new queen for tht 

 old colony. MAINE. 



Answers. — 1. Perhaps the easier guess is 

 that they were swarming cells. In reality there 

 is no difference in the cells themselves, whether 

 they be intended for swarming or supersedure, 

 and the same set of cells may turn out one or 

 the other, according to circumstances. A col- 

 ony may contemplate swarming, start cells, and 

 then a dearth comes, the bees give up swarming 

 and supersede their queen. On the other hand, 

 a colony may start cells to supersede theii 

 queen, when an improvement in the honey-flow 

 may decide them to swarm. So in this case 

 the question is rather whether the bees swarmed 

 or not. 



2. A queen generally lays up to the time she 

 issues with a swarm, and the swarm issues 

 about the time the first cell is sealed. In 7 or 

 S days the first virgin will emerge, and about 



