172 



May, 1915. 



American IBae Journal 



son. Give it time enough and flow enough, 

 and even a very weak nucleus may be all 

 right for winter. 



7. If you have five frames well filled with 

 brood at the beginning of white clover. I 

 should call it a good colony, and anything 

 beyond that might be called strong. Don't 

 be afraid I will be bothered. That's what I 

 am here for. 



What to Do With Last Season's Unfinished 

 Sections 



Ihave just finished reading " Kitty Years 

 Among the Bees." and feel so well ac- 

 Quainted that I am going to ask a question 

 which you may answer in the American Bee 

 Journal if you will kindly do so. 



1 have a lot of sections that were on the 

 hives last season, but owing to the drouth, 

 which caused a sudden stop in the honey 

 flow, they were not completed. Some of 

 them contained some honey, which! allowed 

 the bees to remove last fall, and merely 

 started to be drawn. (They had had full 

 sheets of foundation in the first place.) 



Now shall I use these .ix thev are this sea- 

 son or will there be too much mid rib to 

 make the best honey? I have often used 

 the "go backs " for baits, using from one to 

 four in a super, but I have 20 to 30 supers full 

 now. South Dakota. 



Answer.— If you have unfinished sections 

 that are fall-emptied and in good condition. 

 use them and be exceedingly thankful for 

 every one you have. Bees do not add to the 

 mid-rib, no matter how long sections are 

 left on the hive; but there is danger if they 

 are left on too long in the fall that the bees 

 will plaster them over with propolis, in 

 which case there is nothing to do but to cut 

 out and melt them up. 



Queens and Nuclei— Introducing 



1, How may I rear choice queens on a 

 small scale ? , ,_ j r 



2. Can you give me a good method for 

 making nuclei for a rapid increase of colo- 

 nies i' .,,.,. 



3 What's a safe method of introducing 

 virgin and laying queens to replace old or 

 queenless colonies ? Minnesota. 



Answers. -I. To go fully into the minutiie 

 of queen-rearing would be beyond the scope 

 of this department, but I will give one plan 

 that should give you the best of queens. Of 

 course, if you rear choice queens you must 

 have a choice queen from which to rear 

 them. The colony containing this queen 

 should be built up strong, if necessary, by 

 the addition of brood and bees from other 

 colonies, so that it shall be the first to 

 swarm. About eight days after it swarms 

 there should be a fine lot of queen-cells 

 that you can utilize to the best advantage. 

 The more nearly maturethey are the better, 

 but if left too late there is danger that some 

 of them may be torn down by the bees. If 

 you are willing to take the trouble, there is 

 a plan by which you may have them fully 

 mature. When the colony swarms, hive the 

 swarm on a new stand, leaving the mother 

 colony comparatively strong. You might 

 even return some of the bees of the swarm 

 to the old hive. Beginning about a week 

 after the issuing of the swarm, go to the hive 

 each evening after the bees have quieted 

 down, put your ear to the side of the hive 

 and listen for the pipingof the young queen, 

 which you will hear as soon as she issues 

 from her cell. You will have no dilticulty in 

 distinguishing her sharp, clear tones, even 

 if you have never heard a queen pipe before. 

 The other virgins in their cells will auahk 



in reply. 



Now go to the hive next morning and cut 

 out all cells, but look sharp that none of the 

 virgins escape which have gnawed open the 



capping of the cell, but are kept prisoners 



by the workers. In " Fifty Years Among the 



Bees," I have very fully detailed the way in 

 which I rear queens for my own use. a plan 

 I would use if I had only a half dozen colo- 

 nies. I think It might pay you well to get 

 the book just for that part alone. 



2. Just what is the best way depends upon 

 circumstances, but here is oneway. First 

 let me say that one difficulty in making 

 nuclei is that if you put into a hive a good 

 nucleus without any precaution, the bees 

 are likely to desert it. So put an excluder 

 over a colony, the stronger the colony the 

 better, and over the excluder put an empty 

 hive-body. Into this empty hive-body put 

 frames of brood with their adhering bees, 

 taking these from any colonies that can 

 spare them, taking from each one. two. or 

 more frames, according as they can be 

 spared. If you have enough bees you can 

 pile up another story or more. 



A week or eight days later take these 

 frames of brood and bees, using three 

 of them for each nucleus. They will be 

 likely to stay where they are put. but to 

 make sure you can plug the entrance with 

 grass or green leaves, so that the bees can 

 dig their way out if you forget to open the 

 entrance in a day or two. If rapid increase 

 is what you are after, you c4n take from 

 each of these nuclei, three days after you 

 have formed them, one frame of brood and 

 bees each, and use them for other nuclei. 



3. There are different ways that are safe 

 enough for practical purposes, but I'm not 

 sure that I know more than one way that is 

 absolutely safe. Put frames of brood over 

 an excluder over a strong colony. Eight 

 days later all the brood will be sealed. Put 

 over a strong colony common wire-cloth, 

 and over this a hive-body, into which vou 

 will put your framesof brood after carefully 

 brushing off every bee from them. Into this 

 put your queen. Of course she is safe, for 

 there isn't a bee in the hive with her. but 

 young bees will be hatching out every min- 

 ute which have known no other queen, and 

 of course they will be friendly. Understand 

 that this upper story must be perfectly 

 tight, so that not a bee can get in or out. 

 Five days later set this upper hive on a new 

 stand, allowing at first an entrance large 

 enough for only one or two bees at a time. 

 If you look an hour or so later, you may have 

 the pleasure of seeing bees only five days 

 old carrying in pollen. 



4. Cutting out the first queen-cells wil 

 generally delay swarming. Continuously 

 cutting them out will in some cases prevent 

 swarming altogether, but generally not. 



Soil Influences Honey Yield 



1 Does honey dew come any time of the 

 year ' My bees seemed to be storing some- 

 thing In the warm days of February, before 

 there were any blossoms of any kind. 



2 Why is it that some plants produce 

 honey in some places and don't in others? 

 Cotton, for instance, yields heavily in bo h 

 north and south Georgia, but does not yie d 

 honev or the bees do not get it. just a little 

 north of the center of the State, among the 

 red hills. , , . , 



iCan you make 20 percent increase by 

 going through the apiary and making a col- 

 ony at different times without hurting the 

 honey How ? .■ , 1 



4. Can you control swarming entirely by 

 keeping all queen-cells torn out ? 



tjEORGlA. 



Answers.— I. Honey-dew may come almost 

 anytime plants are growing; but I suspect 

 your bees are working on something else 

 than honey-dew in February. 



2, I don't know; only 1 know it is so. The 

 soil or the elevation may have something to 

 do with it. 



3 I think it is quite possible that it migh) 

 be done without diminishing the crop, at 

 least in some cases. Just enough strength 

 taken from each colony to prevent swarm- 

 ing might increase rather than diminish the 

 total harvest. 



Using Old Combs 



1. I lost a few colonies last fall. They 

 seemed to be all right when I took their 

 supers off. They had a little honey in them. 

 Shortly afterwards there were neither bees, 

 honey, nor brood. What was the cause? 



2, I have the brood combs, they are black. 

 I also have some that the moths have been 

 in. that I lost earlier. Are those combs any 

 good, or had I better throw them away? I 

 thought I could use them for natural or arti- 



£_;„! .-.^.. Ua>JCAS 



ficial swarms. 



Kansas. 



Answers.— I. They may have starved or 

 absconded for want of food, or they may 

 have been robbed out. 



2. If not too badly torn by worms they are 

 all right to use again. 



Supersedure Queen-Breeders 



1. How is it that bees neglect to supersede 

 their old queen when there are drones to 

 mate with the young queen, as this has hap- 

 pened to me several times late 111 the fall i 



2. How is it that most of the queen-breed- 

 ers advertise queens for sale and none can 

 supply the beekeeper with queens ear y. 

 but only want their orders booked early, 

 and maybe have the queens forwarded the 

 latter part of Mayor middle of June; the 

 time when every beekeeper has plenty of 

 queen material to supply himself ? 



3. I make a nucleus to save the queen. Is 

 this right or not? Kansas. 



Answers.— I. If I understand correctly, 

 you have had queens superseded, or at least 

 have had them die in late fall or early 

 spring when there were no drones, and your 

 question is why they didn't supersede them 

 earlier, when plenty of drones were on 

 hand. I don't know. It is possible that 

 some accident may befall a queen, and of 

 course the bees could not foresee this. It 

 would seem that bees recognize the trouble 

 when a queen begins to fail, and supersede 

 her; and it is possible to conceive a case in 

 which there was no sign of failure while 

 drones were still present, but an unusually 

 rapid failure after they were gone. The 

 fortunate thing is that such cases are rare; 

 nearly always a queen is superseded with 

 abundance of drones present. 



2. Don't be too hard on the queen-breed- 

 ers; you may sometime be one yourself. It 

 is all right to book orders to be filled as fast 

 as possible, provided it is an understood 

 thing that they are to be so filled. If. how- 

 ever, he advertises tosendqueens byreturn 

 mail! and then delays, he's not giving you a 

 square deal. It looks a little as if your idea 

 was that when you order a queen you should 

 always get it by return mail. It would be dif- 

 ficult for a man to treat all his customers in 

 that way. He would be obliged to have a 

 stock of queens on hand before he made 

 such an agreement; he would have no way 

 of knowing how many to have in advance; 

 and might be overstocked at a loss. Vou 

 can. however, say when ordering, "If you 

 cannot send a queen at such time, return 

 money. " and then there could be no com- 

 plaint on either side. 



You say they send queens when every bee- 

 keeper has plenty of material to supply 

 himself. Pray tell me how a queen-breeder 

 can have material earlier than the bee- 

 keeper. You and I can have material as 

 early as any. andean rear queens as early; 

 but we may want to buy queens for other 

 reasons. Moreover. I wouldn't give 30 cents 

 a dozen for queens reared too early, no 

 matter who rears them. 



3. Yes. making a nucleus to keep a queen 

 in is good practice. 



