262 



Ipio. 



Amarican Hae Journal 



Answers.— I. So long as the flow con- 

 tinues it is better to leave the super on till 

 it is filled, as a rule. I'm a little afrai 1 that 

 the Quecn went up into the super, and that 

 it is filled with brood. In that case all you 

 can do is to leave the super on till all the 

 brood hatches out. When it gets full enoufc:h 

 the queen will be forced below for want of 

 room, and when you find the queen below you 

 can put an excluder on the hive to keep her 

 below. Perhaps it may be better to find her 

 in the super and to put her down in the hive 

 below the excluder. If the super is one 

 filled with extracting frames, then you 

 should put the frames in the lower story, 

 provided they are of the same size as the 

 ones in the lower story. 



2. Honey should never be fed to bees at 

 any time when they are storing in supers. 

 By so doing you are running against the 

 pure-food law. 



3. You will have no trouble in telling a 

 queen-cell when you see one. Queen-cells 

 are utterly unlike other cells, being so much 

 larger. In its first stages a queen-cell looks 

 something like an acorn-cup. and when it is 

 full size it looks a good deal like a peanut- 

 When you get your booKs you will probably 

 find a picture of one. 



4. I think you may have an idea th^t there 

 is just one queen-cell in a hive. You may 

 look through the hive and find none. Or 

 you may find a number of the little cups 

 almost any time of year. But when the 

 bees take a notion to swarm a number of 

 cells will be started. Cutting these out will 

 usually delay swarming for a little, and some- 

 times it will stop it altogether, and some- 

 times it seems to make little difference. 



5. That depends. If you merely put in a 

 strange queen without any ceremony, the 

 bees will at once proceed to ball her. and 

 she will soon be a dead queen. They will 

 not be induced to swarm by having a new 

 queen put in. If you remove the old queen 

 and follow the instructions for introducing 

 that always goes with a queen sent by mail, 

 she will merely take the place of the queen 

 tliat was removed, 



6. In perhaps 10 weeks the bees in the hive 

 will all be the progeny of the new queen, 

 and will be the same as if she had always 

 been in the hive. 



7. Yes. 



8. You will probably find it advertised in 

 the bee-papers. It may be sown in spring 

 or fall. 



0. You are wiser than the average. There 

 are so many that think they can get along 

 without a bee-book, and they lose big money 

 by it. But you are likely to be mistaken in 

 thinking you will have no question to ask. 

 None of us ever reach that stage, and the 

 questions of those who have carefully 

 studied their books, as you will, are always 

 welcomed in this department, even if they 

 can only be answered by saying. " I don't 

 know." 



Manipulations to Prevent Swarming 



I am a bee-keeper in a small way— 12 to 15 

 colonies— in Louisa Co.. Va., working for 

 comb honey, and for several years past have 

 tried each year a different method of pre- 

 venting swarming, mostly of my own inven- 

 tion, with failure each year. 



My case is somewhat complicated by the 

 fact that I can not visit the place where my 

 bees are kept except at irregular intervals 

 more than a month apart, and the man I em- 

 pli^y. while faithful, is even less expert than 

 myself. The locality has an excellent fall 

 flow, of which I take none, and I have not so 

 far lost a colony in the winter or spring. I 

 think this has the disadvantage of sure 

 swarming. Moreover, from fruit-bloom on 

 there is usually a small flow until the middle 

 of July, not very strong at any time, a condi- 

 tion which I believe conduces to swarming. 

 I am using now z stories of Dan/.enbaker 

 hives per colony, and thinking of trying the 

 fullowing method next siiring: 



As soon as it is warm, before preparations 

 for swarming, interchange the stories, put- 

 ting the upper story below. Put a aueen- 

 exrluder between, and make sure the queen 

 is ill the upper story. Put on a super also, 

 as my bees often begin storing in supers 

 long before while clover blooms. 



In 12 to 14 days examine the upper story, 

 cut out any queen-cells, and shift the stories, 

 keeping the queen in the upi^er story. Re- 

 peat the shift at intervals of 12 to 14 days. 



The question puzzling me is this: After 

 a shift, is there danger that the contrary 

 things will start queen cells in the lower 

 story ? If there is much likellhoud of queen- 

 cells starte<i in the lower stories they would 

 have to be cut out. say a week after a shift, 

 which would (louble the work. I am not ex- 

 pecting a sure thing, but would be perfectly 



contented with reducing my swarms to 20 or 

 even 25 percent. If I could be reasonably 

 certain that all queen cells would be started 

 in the upper story. I would take the chance 

 of missing one now and then. 



I hope that you will solve my perplexity as 

 to the locations of queen-cells started under 

 the circumstances explained. Virginia. 



Answer.— Yes. there is always danger that 

 queen-cells will be started anywhere where 

 there is brood from which the queen is ex- 

 cluded, provided, there ispresent the proper 

 material to start cells on. Possibly there is 

 more likelihood of it with the queen above 

 the excluder than with her below. At any 

 rate. I don't believe you will like keeping 

 the queen above. It is going square against 

 the instincts and habits of the bees. Pos- 

 sibly your idea is that by fastening the queen 

 above the excluder she can not issue with 

 the swarm. But the bees will swarm all the 

 same, even if the queen can not get out. and 

 after a little while there will be a dead 

 queen and a virgin queen. Yet with your 

 shifting the stories every 12 or 14 days there 

 may be no swarming. 



I wonder if you have fully tried putting 

 the brood above the excluder and leaving 

 the Queen below. That is the Demaree plan, 

 and with some it succeeds in having no 

 swarming with merely the one shift. If you 

 haven't tried it, it is certainly vyorth the 

 trial. I am not sure that G. W. Demaree 

 paid any attention to cells above the ex- 

 cluder. He merely put all brood above the 

 excluder, leaving the queen below, when the 

 upper story became an extracting story, 

 and there was no swarming. 



Bees Hanging Out — Bee-House for Cold Weather 



r. Why do bees hang out? I have 3^> colo* 

 nies of bees, and some of them hang out so 

 badly— don't swarm, and don't seem to work. 

 I introduced new Italian queens but it did 

 not seem to help. I have put 2 supers on 

 each hive. 



2. Does it pay to put bees in a bee-house in 

 cold weather ? Indl\na. 



Answers.— I. The likelihood is that your 

 bees are hanging out for the same reason 

 that mine are— nothing for them to do. 

 About July loth the drouth cut the clover 

 harvest square off. and up to the present 

 writing (Aug. ^) bees are hardly getting any- 

 thing. The weather being hot it is more 

 comfortable outside than in the hive, so one 

 can not blame them for hanging out. 



2. It pays to give them some kind of pro- 

 tection, either by packing or putting into 

 the cellar; but very few think it well to 

 have them in a house above ground in win- 

 ter. 



Requeening Every Year — Superseding Queens 



1. I am impressed with the utility of 

 young queens that are a year old. and I have 

 an idea it will pay to requeen every year. 

 Would there be anj" objection to this way ? 

 Mr. DooUttle, in "Scientific <^ueen-Rear-- 

 ing." Chapter XXIII. " Rearing a Few 

 Queens," says, "Tier up a hive as for ex- 

 tracting, using a queen-excluder, having a 

 frame of unsealed brood in the upper hive 

 with other combs; in 4 or 5 days you will 

 have one or more cells started: yon can use 

 these for royal jelly for your wax-cups." But 

 now is where my question comes in: Why 

 not let this cell mature, say there is only 

 one ? 



Why not proceed as he directs on the 

 opposite page? He says if you desire to 

 supersede a queen, all you have to do is to 

 put on an upper story, with a queen-exclud- 

 ing honey-board between it and the hive, 

 place a frame of brood with a queen-cell 

 upon it in this upper story, and after the 

 young queen has hatched withdraw the 

 Queen-excluder. and your old queen is super- 

 seded without your having to find her. or 

 having the least bit of time wasted to the 

 colony. ■ 



2. Would it be just as good to look up the 

 old queen, say some time in August, after 

 the flow is over, and pull her head, and let 

 the bees make a new one? Are there ob- 

 jections to cither of these plans? If so. 

 what are they ? Of course one would not get 

 any new blood in this way unless he got the 

 frame of brood as described in the first 

 plan, from the hive containing the best 

 queen, to put in this upper story to get thi- 

 ct'll from. One could get only a few frames 

 of brood from his favorite, or he would 

 weaken them too nutch, unless just a small 

 portion of brood could be taken and fastened 

 in a section, and this secured in a frame and 

 placed in the upper story. I saw that done 

 once. An old and experienced bee keeper 



showed it to me. He had a colony workin s 

 nicely in the super; the queen got crippled 

 in some way. and he discovered that the 

 colony was hopelessly queenless. He took 

 a piece of brood from another hive no brood 

 in their hivei and secured it in a section, 

 took out one of the center sections in the 

 super and placed this section containing 

 the small piece of brood in its place, and in 

 due time they had 7 nice cells on this small 

 piece of brood. Of course, he did not use a 

 queen-excluder, as the bees had no queen 

 below. 



Now I will ask right here, would not this 

 be a good way to supersede all queens that 

 you wish to supersede, even while they are 

 at work in the supers? Of course, it would 

 stop brood-rearing for a while, for 20 to 30 

 days right in the flow, which would probably 

 be too serious a matter. I prefer the first 

 plan, as one doesn't have to look up the 

 queen and murder her. That is left to the 

 virgin. Mr. Doolittle says she will not 

 always attend to it. It seems to me that this 

 first way would be the cheapest and easiest 

 way of all. and any one could do it to perfec- 

 tion, even a beginner like myself. 



Virginia. 

 Answers.— I. Your scheme may work all 

 right, and it may not. I think you will find 

 that when Mr. Doolittle is talking about 

 superseding by putting a sealed cell in an 

 upper story, he is talking about superseding 

 a queen that is not young and vigorous. 

 With a vigorous 2-year old queen present, 

 you might find the would-be usurper ousted. 

 Also, you may find that in some cases no 

 cells will be started over an excluder. The 

 chances will be better with an old or failing 

 queen in the lower story. Also, you will be 

 more sure of having cells started above the 

 excluder if the brood is a considerable dis- 

 tance above the lower story, say in a third 

 or fourth story. 



2. Killing the old queen and letting the 

 bees rear a successor will probably work all 

 right, only if there should be a fall flow 

 about that time there would be some dan- 

 ger of a swarm issuing with the first young 

 queen that emerges. 



You speak of weakening your best colony 

 by drawing brood from it too often. You 

 can draw from it every frame of brood once 

 a week, and have it grow stronger instead of 

 weaker. Each time you draw a frame of 

 brood, put in its place a frame of brood 

 from some other colony, and if the brood 

 you give your best colony be more mature 

 than that which you take away, the process 

 will be strengthening and not weakening. 



Bee-Moth — Producing Comb and Extracted Honey 



1. In looking in one of my colonies one day 

 I saw some worms about Va inch long, and 

 some of the cappings were eaten off the 

 brood. What are the worms ? Do they eat 

 off the cappings ? 



2. What is a good way to get rid of them ? 

 One night when looking at a hive we saw a 



toad sitting on a box. and when the bees 

 came out he would grab them and gobble 

 them up. 



3. We produce comb honey. Do you think 

 it would be better to produce comb(7«i/ ex- 

 tracted? New York. 



Answers.— I. It was the larvcc of thebe> 

 moth .often called wax-worms) that you saw. 

 and they no doubt have eaten off the cap- 

 pings. 



2. The best remedy, or rather preventive, 

 is to have strong colonies. Italians are bet- 

 ter than blacks about cleaning out the 

 worms, and it is possible that your bees 

 would be much improved as to fighting the 

 moth, as well as in other respects, if you 

 would get one or more queens of Italian 

 stock to breed from. 



3. Hard to say without knowing all the 

 circumstances. It depends a good deal on 

 your market. In some places extracted 

 honey is little wanted, and in others it will 

 sell for nearly as much as comb honey. 



Bee-Keeping in Cuba 



I am up in the mountains about ^0 miles 

 northeast of Trinadad. in one of the finest 



