1917 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



389 



swarm issues , and the only harm that could 

 come to the young queen would he hy heitiR 

 cliilled in her cell. In that case I should ex- 

 pect some of the workcr-hrood would he 

 chilled to death, and I never knew that to hap- 

 pen. 



Cyprian Bees 



1. In the August numher one of the ques- 

 tioners said that he had a colony of pure Cy- 

 prian bees. I would like to get his name. 



2. Is it too late to transfer bees in Septem- 

 ber? WKST VIRGINIA. 



Answers. — 1. John S. Kaspar, Solon, Iowa. 



2. You might transfer in September oi 

 later, but it would be better to wait till spring, 

 and perhaps still better, till swarming. 



Increasing 



1. In making increase could I put a hive 

 with combs on a strong colony, leave it long 

 enough to get full of bees, then move the old 

 colony. leaving the new hive with combs on 

 the old stand, then put in a queen in a mating 

 cage? 



2. Would this same plan work, only depend- 

 ing entirely on iield ees coming back to the 

 old stand? MARYLAND. 



Answers. — 1. It might work well if brood 

 were in the combs left on the old stand. 



2. Ye.' ; but it would be more sure of suc- 

 cess if the queen were left on the old stand. 



Foulbrood — Queen Taking Wing 



1. Havitig found American foulLirood in my 

 colonies and wanting to clean them up, I asked 

 a prominent beekeeper and supply dealer what 

 was the way to do it. He advised to give full 

 sheets and put the diseased colony over a 

 new hive with bee-escape between and save the 

 young bees. I did this about the middle of 

 rvugust. I saved the young bees, but I tind I 

 still have the foulbrood in the new brood- 

 frames. I burned up everything in the old 

 hive as soon as young brood hatched and went 

 below. The other two hives were shaken on 

 foundation. Everything burnt. The last two 

 show no sign of disease. What is the matter 

 with the first case? 



2. I bought three Italian queens, wishing to 

 have good young queens in the above colonies. 

 After killing the old queens I introduced 

 young queens and on the third day I opened up 

 hives to see how they were doing. Upon open- 

 ing one of the hives I found the young queen 

 on the third frame taken out and as soon as the 

 frame was raised out of the hive the queen 

 took wing and flew away. Everything seemed 

 normal in the hive. What caused her to tiy 

 away? OHIO. 



Answers. — 1. The matter was that there was 

 no treatment to make a cure. The bees could 

 carry the disease through the excluder just 

 as well as if no excluder had been there. 



2. She was probably frightened. Such a 

 th^ng happens rarely. If you remain quiet the 

 queen usually returns. 



Thwarting Swarming 



Please make such comment as will occur to 

 you upon the experiences I had with the 

 excluder plan of thwarting swarming, as set 

 forth in your "Fifty Years." Last year I tried 

 it, exactly as you advise. "Empty" frames I 

 interpreted literally, in that the frames I used 

 were entirely empty. The result was in every 

 one of the five cases, that there w^as an im- 

 mense lot of work by the bees in the part of 

 the hive-body left vacant, leaving a great mesb 

 of honey and brood in irregularly built combs, 

 making it quite a task to save what bees 1 

 could. It later on appeared that in four cases, 

 the queen remained intact, the fifth seemed 

 soon to have re-queened itself, and to the besi 

 of my knowledge there was not any swarming, 

 only every one of the frames was filled with 

 brood and as the frames were not wired, they 

 had to be carefully handled. 



This year I tried the plan again and used 

 wired frames, placing in each hive as many as 

 seven, so as to make sure that whatever work 

 was done would de in those wired frames. 

 This year this was done rather late in the sea- 

 son, as not before did the Uees seem to feel 

 like swarming. The season, as a whole, hav- 

 ing been decidedly poor, work in the frames, 

 was done in but half of the colonies, and in 

 such the queens -nder the excluder produced 



quite a lot of brood and eggs. There was also 

 a lot of drone-comi). so now I think tnat one 

 ought, not only to use wired frames, hut also 

 frames with foundation, so as to have the 

 building done most satisfactorily. My ques- 

 tion now is, supposing that one leaves the ex- 

 cluder arrangement as made, twelve days at 

 least and, if then there is in the lower hive- 

 body quite a lot of eggs and brood, would it he 

 right when reducing the colony to one hive- 

 body, to give to that one all the brood of both 

 bodies? Would doing this leave ineffective the 

 work for preventing swarming? The question 

 has arisen with me whether it will really 

 thwart swarming if there is as little hindrance 

 to the queen going on with egg-laying, as is 

 the case when one gives frames with full 

 foundation below; all of which, when included 

 with the re consolidation after twelve days at 

 lenst, would seem to leave with the colony as 

 much brood and eggs as it would have had. 

 even if there had been no contra-swarming 

 manipulation whatever? On the other hand, in 

 my experience at least, both Miller and Da- 

 dant are not warranted in giving below cither 

 no frames at all, or but two or three "empty" 

 frames. PENNSYLVANIA. 



Answer. — When I read your letter I was 

 very much puzzled to understand why your 

 bees should act so differently from mine. I 

 have had experience with very many more than 

 five cases, and never had any comb built out- 

 side the few frames given, and never enough 

 brood to be counted a serious loss if all were 

 taken for wax. A possible explanation comes 

 at the last, when you speak of leaving the 

 queen in the lower story with the few frames 

 and the rest of the hive vacant until "after 

 twelve days, at least." I never tried it longer 

 than a week to ten days. In my book I speak 

 of no longer time — but I can easily believe that 

 after the ten days the bees would do a whole 

 lot of work in the next two or more days. 



Answering your question, if you should 

 leave the queen below for twelve days .or more, 

 and then put in the lower story the brood of 

 both stones, I think it would work all right, 

 and be just as effective in preventing swarm- 

 ing, only you would have to look out for 

 queen-cells reared in the story not having the 

 queen. 



As regards not being warranted in giving be- 

 low two or three empty frames, I can only say 

 that I have done it many times, and it worked 

 all right. But I should not feel warranted n 

 leaving them thus for "twelve days at least." 



anything about. There is no sort of definite 

 knowledge as to how much potential honey 

 there is in an acre of alsikc Hut if there is 

 less than the bees can gather from other 

 sources, then every drop that can be gathered 

 from alsike will be so much added surplus. 



Feeding Honey — Strengthening Colo- 

 nies. 



1. When giving solid combs of honey at this 

 time of the year, in what part of the brood- 

 chamber would you place them' 



2. Would you advise breaking the cappings 

 of the lower part of the comb? 



.3. Would you advise buying queenless bees 

 from the south in the early spring to assist 

 weak colonies? 



4. How would you introduce those bees? 



.'). Would you cage the queen? 



6. How many acres of alsike grown for seed 

 would you consider necessary to give a good 

 surplus under average conditions^ 



OHIO. 



Answers. — 1. I don't suppose it makes very 

 much difference, and they might as well be put 

 somewhere near the center. 



2. No. 



3. Yes; but not too early. Time enough af- 

 ter bees are flying freely. 



4. I've had practically no experience in in- 

 troducing such queenless bees; but should ex- 

 pect no trouble in introducing them without 

 any preliminaries, provided their honey-sacs 

 are well filled, as they are likely to be if their 

 stores have not run short. 



5. The bees being consciously queenless and 

 in a panicky condition, there seems no need to 

 cage the queen, but in case the bees to be in- 

 troduced are two or three times as many as 

 the bees already with the queen, it might be no 

 harm to cage her for two or three days. 



6. I don't know. It's a hard thing to tell 



Newspaper Plan of Uniting 



I wished to unite two colonics, so I placed 

 one above the other with a thickness of ncws- 

 I)aper between them, killing the (juccn in the 

 upper one. Three days later they had 

 gnawed through the paper and apparently had 

 the colony spirit. Wishing to remove the top 

 hive without bees, I put a bcc-cscape between 

 the hives. I neglected to look after the colo- 

 nies for about two weeks, thinking they would 

 all go to the lower hive and needed no at- 

 tention. Upon opening the top hive I found 

 all of the bees dead, having died apparently of 

 starvation, for there was no honey in the cells. 

 What do you think was the reason for them 

 not uniting? OHIO. 



Answer. — It is possible that cool weather 

 was to blame. The paper was gnawed through, 

 and the bees of the two hives were apparently 

 on good terms. Then you put a bee-escape be- 

 tween the two hives, which separated them to 

 a large extent, and a spell of cool weather oc- 

 curring, the bees in the upper hive starved 

 rather than to leave the cluster. Of course, 

 that's only a guess, but it's the best guess I 

 have on hand. 



Questions From China 



1. Are there any queen-breeders in the Phil- 

 ipitine Islands? 



2. Can the queen and the nuclei be sent 

 from America to Shanghai by mail? 



3. Are there any differences between three- 

 banded and golden Italian queens and their 

 workers? CHINA. 



Answers.—]. I don't know of any, and yet 

 there may be. 



2. I don't know, but under present war con- 

 ditions it is not very likely they could be sent 

 successfully. 



3. The workers of three-banded Italians have 

 three bands, and the queens are more or less 

 dark. Indeed, some queens may be as dark as 

 black queens, while their workers are as light 

 as the workers of the lighter queens. The 

 workers of goldens are supposed to have five 

 yellow bands, and the queens are likely to be 

 very yellow. 



FOR SALE— 2S. 000 lbs fine quality raspberry- 

 milkweed honey in new GO-lb cans (2 in 

 case). Write for prices. Sample free. Would 

 like to hear from carload buyers with best of- 

 fers. P. W. Sowinski, Bellaire, Mich. 



FOR SALE— Extracted buckwheat honey in 

 170-lb. kegs. 



N. L. Stevens, Venice Center, N. Y. 



WANTED— Small lots of grade honey for 

 baking purposes, C. W. Finch. 



1451 Ogden Ave., Chicago, 111. 



$30,000 WORTH OF BEE SUPPLIES, a-i 

 boxed, ready to ship at once; 275,000 brood- 

 frames, also shallow of all kinds 100 and 200 

 in a box; some bargains. Send me a list of 

 what vou want. I can save you money. Cata- 

 log free. Chas. Mondeng. 

 14G Newton Ave.. N.. Minneapolis, Minn. 



I Am Ready to Book Orders Now 



for spring delivery for Italian bees in pound 

 packages at $1.40 'i-er pound. Tested queens, 

 $1.25. Untested, 90c, 6 for $5.00. Safe ar- 

 rival guaranteed. Free from disease. 



C. H. COBB, Belleville, Ark. 



Write for Price List and 

 Booklet descrip- 

 tive of 



HIGH GRADE 



Italian Queens 



And Bees by the Pound 



JAY SMITH 



1159 DeWolfe St. 



Vincennes, Ind. 



