May, 1 910. 



American l^ee Journal 



that means in my locality abinit tlic first of 

 June. By May 20th I ireiierally put on a suner 

 of extracting frames, no queen-excludi-r be- 

 tween, so that the ciucen has free access to 

 tlie super; and by June 5th. if this colony is 

 very strong, the queen will have at least 3 or 

 6 frames of brood in this super. The honey- 

 daw here begins about from June isthto25tli. 

 Then when I see that the white clover is in 

 bloom. I raise this super off the hive and put 

 2 empty supers on there, a tjueen-excluder 

 between the hive and the supers, and then 

 take the queen, if she should be in the upper 

 story that I have lifted off. and let her run in 

 at the entrance of the hive, and put oil top 

 of the hive, and put on top of this the super 

 with the frames of brood. 



" And if there should be any drones pres- 

 ent in the upper story I lay a strip of wood 

 across under the cover of this top super 

 with the brood, so the drones can pass out. 

 Then I raise the hive one inch off of the 

 bottom-board, put on a strip of wood be- 

 tween each corner of the hive and bottom- 

 board. This gives ventilation all around. 

 Now some will think, why not make the en- 

 trance larger? But I will tell you why this 

 cannot be done, as the bees would build un- 

 der the frames down to the bottom-board. 



" Now then the work for the season is 

 done, except adding more supers to the 

 hive as the honey harvest continues. In this 

 way I have not had any bees to swarm for a 

 good many years, and have had as high as 

 .100 pounds of honey per colony right here in 

 the city of Stillwater. .A.nd last year I aver- 

 aged over 100 pounds per colony, and my 

 bees did not store one pound of honey after 

 July loth, as the honey harvest was very 

 short here last season."— Loris Markert. 

 of Minnesota. 



Transferring from a Box-Hive 



I have a colony of bees in a box-hive. 

 What is the best way to transfer them to a 

 frame hive with the frames in)? And when 

 is the best time to do it— after the swarming 

 season, or now? Canada. 



Answer.— You can transfer them in fruit- 

 bloom according to instructions in your bee- 

 book: but nowadays the preference is to 

 wait till they swarm, hive the swarm in an 

 approved hive and set it on the old stand 

 with the old hive close beside it, move the 

 old hive to the other side a week later, and 

 then 21 days after the time the swarm issued 

 break up the old hive, add the bees to the 

 swarm, and melt up the old combs. 



Putting On Supers Transferring, Etc. 



1. Since I can get no satisfaction on this 

 subject, I write you now before it is too late. 

 I run for comb honey, and my bee-book, one 

 of old origin, advises having comb honey 

 stored in frames instead of sections. It also 

 advises removing the honey as fast as 

 capped. Now these views are, I think, or 

 rather have been, abandoned, if they ever, 

 were held. The new method is. I believe, to 

 put on one super, and after this is half filled 

 raise it and put on another empty one un- 

 derneath, and continue so until near the end 

 of the flow, then cease the operations, and 

 allow the bees to cap the honey over. R. C. 

 Aikin. in a contributed article in last Au- 

 gust American Bee Journal, says practically 

 this; "Don't stretch the colony too far. 

 otherwise you will have a lot of unfinished 

 sections, with few complete ones." He says 

 put on one super, and when another is to be 

 added put it on top, and if the bees enter it 

 in large numbers, and if the flow is good the 

 position of the super may be reversed. Now. 

 how can you tell if there is a flow, if it is a 

 good one; that is. enough to continue to add 

 supers, when to cease adding supers, and 

 when to remove all sections, for I think you 

 advise taking them off at the end of the 

 flow? 



2. Kor one who has asters, goldenrod, and 

 some buckwheat, when is the proper time to 

 remove all supers to allow the bees to get 

 ready for winter? 



3. I have a weak colony that is small. I 

 hived them late last year on 2-inch 

 strips of foundation in the brood-chamber. 

 They did not half fill the chamber below 

 with comb, but I fed them and they win- 

 tered all right. They are rearing brood like 

 the others, and I would like to know how I 

 could build them up for the honey-flow. 



4. I think Aikin. in his article, whicli was 

 mentioned before, tells you to take note of 

 the honey-flow by watching the brood de- 

 partment. Now I would like to know if he 

 pries off two or three supers in order to 

 look down below. I would have to smoke 

 the bees to such an extent that after I did I 

 would not be able to find out anything. 



5. In trnnsferriUL.' you advise us to do it 

 during the swaruiiut: season. You say "Wait 

 until the colony has swarmed, hive the 

 swarm, set it in the place of the old hive with 

 the old hive near by. and 21 days afterward 

 break up the old hive." You do this in or- 

 der to have all the worker-brood hatched 

 out. but why doesn't the queen continue to 

 lay. or is it perhaps because all the bees go 

 to the swarm? Wouldn't the queen with the 

 hatching brood make a swarm?. What is 

 done with this brood, or rather, the young 

 bees, after the old hive is broken up? 



6. When bees swarm you say hive the 

 swarm. i:)lace it in the place of the old hive 

 close by. and a week later luove the old hive 

 away to its future place. If you follow this 

 plan, will the old colony store any surplus? 

 If not. will the swarm make up for it? 



New Jersey. 



Answers.— I. Unfortunately it's a matter 

 of more or less guessing. When the flow be- 

 gins to let up. you will see a lot-up in the 

 activity of tlie bees. The plainest sign of 

 the let-up of the flow, however, is generally 

 the crossness of the bees, and their trying 

 to rob. You can tell something by the ap- 

 pearance of the plant upon which the bees 

 are working, as to whether the bloom is dis- 

 appearing. But sometimes the let-up is only 

 temporary. In a clover harvest the bees 

 may for some reason stop storing for 3 or 4 

 days, and then begin again as fiercely as 

 ever. 



2. The bees are likely to take care of that 

 matter themselves. Brood-rearing will grad- 

 ually become less, and the cells left empty 

 in the brood-chamber will be filled with 

 honey, so that although you may leave the 

 supers on until the flow ceases you will find 

 the brood-chamber heavy with honey. 



3. You can give them help from a very 

 strong colony, say one that has b or more 

 frames of brood. It will not pay to help 

 them from a colony that is not itself very 

 strong. You may shake the bees from a 

 frame of brood in front of the hive, when 

 the younger bees will run in and strengthen 

 the colony; you may exchange one or more 

 frames of younger brood for one or more of 

 riper brood; or you may give to the weak 

 colony from the strong colony a frame of 

 sealed brood with adhering bees, perhaps 

 repeating this after two or more days. 



4. I don't understand how smoking the 

 bees will prevent you seeing the condition 

 of matters in the brood-chamber, even if 

 you use so much smoke that the bees get to 

 running like a flock of sheep. But there is 

 no need to use so much smoke. Just enough 

 smoke to keep the bees from flying out at 

 you will allow you to lift off the supers and 

 leave the bees as quiet below as if they had 

 not been disturbed, or at least almost as 

 quiet. 



5. The queen does continue to lay in the 

 swarm; but there is no queen in the old 

 hive, only a aueen-cell. and the young queen 

 that hatches out of the queen-cell will not 

 have much brood before the end of the 21 

 davs. when all the bees from the old hive 

 may be added to the swarm. Or. combs and 

 bees may be transferred, and continued as a 

 separate colony. 



6. Unless the season is very good there 

 will be little or nothing stored by the mother 

 colony, but the swarm will store more than 

 both would have stored if the swarm had 

 been put on a new stand and the mother col- 

 ony left on the old stand. 



A Buncli of Ten Questions 



1. Will queenless bees store honey? 



2. Does the black bee enter the supers 

 more readily than the Italian? 



3. Will a 4-frame nucleus formed May 8 

 make any surplus honey if the season is 

 good, and if the rest of the hive is filled with 

 full sheets of foundation? 



4. Is May ist too early to have queens sent 

 from Arkansas to Illinois? 



5. Some of my neighbor bee-keepers claim 

 the Carniolan bee is superior to the Italian. 

 Do you think it would be wise for me to buy 

 Carniolan queens, for mine are all black? 



6. 'VVhat is the difference between 3-banded 

 Italian bees and the red clover bees? 



7. How would it do if bees are run for ex- 

 tracted honey, to make a specialty of it and 

 nothing else? 



8 A strange thing happened to me last 

 year. I had 5 colonies of black bees: 2 of 

 them came out in the spring strong, and the 

 other 3 weak. I thought I would run the 2 

 strong ones for honey, and the weak ones I 

 would divide after they had built up; but. to 

 my great surprise, the strong ones began 

 swarming May 20; each colony swarmed 3 

 times, and I caught one stray swarm of yel- 

 low bees with some black ones as cross as 



hornets. The 3 weak colonies I spoke of 

 stored 175 pounds of salable comb honey, 

 and none of them swarmed. How would you 

 account for this? The 2 strong colonies did 

 not store any honey. 



0. What kind of bees are the yellow ones, 

 with black ones in with them, that are 

 crosscr than my blacks? When I hived 

 them I wore a black hat. and when I got 

 through the crown of the hat was almost 

 white witli stings. 



10. How do so many keep bees without the 

 American Hee Journal? I can't understand 

 how they do it. Illinois. 



Answers.— I. Yes, indeed, 



2. I think so; but I have no trouble with 

 Italians. 



3. Yes, if strong enough to have 3 of its 

 frames well filled with brood. 



4. I wouldn't care to have queens of this 

 year so early, but last year's queens would 

 be all right. 



5. The Carniolans would probably be 

 quite an improvement on the blacks, but I 

 would rather risk Italians. 



(1. There may be no difference, and there 

 may be a good deal of difference. The 3- 

 banded Italian is the kind that comes from 

 Italy, and a red-clover queen is any one 

 whose bees work more than the average on 

 red clover. 



7. It's all right to make a specialty of 

 either; although some think it better to pro- 

 duce both kinds in the same apiary. 



8. That's not a very hard question, after 

 all. The strong colonies split up their 

 strength byso much swarming, and the weak 

 colonies kept all their strength together. If 

 you had limited the strong ones to a single 

 swarm each, you probably would have had a 

 nice surplus from them. Next time try it 

 this way: Put the swarm on the old stand 

 and set the old hive close to it; then about 

 a week later move the old hive to a new 

 stand. Then you'll be likely to gel a fair 

 yield from the swarm. 



g. They are hybrids, or a cross between 

 blacks and Italians. 

 10. Neither can I. 



Reducing Hive to One Story — Looking for 

 Queen-Cells — Queens Disappearing 



1. How do you select the frames of brood 

 when reducingto one story— page 130. ' Forty 

 Years Among the Bees;" that is. if a 2-story 

 colony had. say 5 frames of capped brood. 5 

 of hatching brood, and 2 frames of eggs, 

 which would vou select 8 frames from to 

 leave on the old stand? Also, reason why? 



2. Do vou shake the bees off the combs 

 when looking for queen-cells? If so. do you 

 shake the bees on the ground or upon the 

 tops of the frames in the hives? My bees 

 seem to try to hide cells by clustering in 

 bunches. , . . 



3. On returning the queen after giving your 

 foundation treatment (page 186!. do you 

 shake her off with the rest of the bees that 

 were in the lower story, and let her run in 

 that way. or do you catch her and let her 

 run down between the frames? 



5. I had some trouble with queens disap- 

 pearing last season in using the foundation 

 plan. The first few colonies that I worked 

 made me scratch my head for a few days 

 following, for. upon examination I found 

 that they were plugging up the old brood- 

 nest with honey. "That won't do. 1 said: 

 " I want the honey in the sections. j3ut 

 when I returned the queen, gee! didn t they 

 turn out comb honey though! I quit scratcti- 

 ing my head, and commenced to rustle up 

 more supers, saying in the meanwhile. 

 "Guess Dr. Miller knows his business. 



The prospect for a good season this year 

 is very bright; it was fearfully dry for a 

 month or more, and things looked decidedly 

 bad for the bee-men, but rain came at last, 

 and lots of it. California. 



Answers.— I. Most years there will be 

 some colonies at the time of reducing to one 

 story which can take one or more frames of 

 brood. In that case the ripest brood will 

 be taken for those colonies that need 

 strengthening. In a year such as the pres- 

 ent promises to be. in which there will be 

 more brood in the apiary than can be con- 

 tained in one story for each colony, then the 

 brood least advanced is taken away. The 

 general idea is that the most advanced brood 

 is to be left under honey-supers, and where 

 brood is taken from a stronger to be given 

 to a weaker, the weaker needs the better 

 brood. , , , . 



2. Sometimes the combs are looked over 

 without any shaking, for if cells are in the 

 hive at all. one is not likely to miss them all. 

 But if a single cell is found, then it is hardly 

 safe to omit shaking all the combs. Just 



