June, 1915. 



American liee Joarnal 



and the excluder ? Provided I five ample 

 super room, would that be l.kely to prevent 



^Tcould'l strengthen two colonies with 

 safety to both queens by putting the weak 

 one over the strong one ,; A/ Alexander 

 w t h two Queen-exckKlers between, so as to 

 keep the queens from hEliimg through, hen 

 put a newsparer between at time of "n|l'"i-'. 

 ,, /, Miller, and then separate about June i 

 and have two colonies ready for clover 



^Tn^ere is usually a fairly good fall flow 

 here of aster, goldenrod and buckwheat. 

 and I would like to know if caging the queen 

 in June or ]uly to prevent swarming woul 

 be practiced at a loss in regard to a 

 boney? Would not the removal of the 

 ueen for ten days during June result in the 

 OSS of about 20,000 bees, hguring 2000 eggs a 

 day, that would be ready for a fall flow Aug. 



'^^ In I. K. Hand's article in Gleanings in 

 Bee Culture Oct. 15. lou. he says: Fhe 

 reigning Queen will be executed without 

 par'ley or delay." and on page ''8.of Glean^ 

 ings for Dec 1=;. ioi4. he says- For bees 

 have a decided antipathy against virgins 

 when eggsand larva; are present." Unless 

 one dequeens how could one be sure there 

 were no eggs or larva- present? What is 

 ^our experience with " requeening without 

 deciueening?" Pennsylvania. 



Answkks.-i. Unless your bees are un- 

 usually " forward looking." they may be be- 

 hind time on the program you are laying out 

 for them. You say add a hive below "as 

 soon as the queen needs the room." and 

 evidently expect her to need it so early that 

 she will have the brood-nest extended into 

 the lower story by May 20. Maybe she will. 

 Mostly, I should expect, she won't. At any 

 rate it will do no particular harm to have 

 the empty story below. Suppose there is 

 nothing doing below, and May 20 you put the 

 queen on the foundation under the excluder. 

 In too many cases the queen will swarm out, 

 unless you put something in the way of bait 

 below. At any rate I've had them swarm 

 out. Suppose, however, that the brood nest 

 is started below, or if not that you give a 

 frame of brood. The bees will go to work 

 all right (you must look out for cells in the 

 old brood above): they will till up the lower 

 story, and then— swarm. Not always, but I 

 should expect it to happen a good many 

 times. They will not be so certain to swarm 

 as if you had let them alone, nor will they 

 swarm so soon. But you have operated so 

 early that you may expect more swarming 

 than you want. The later in the season you 

 give the queen that empty story below, the 

 more certain you will be to have no swarm 

 ing. Put it off just as long as you can with- 

 out having the bees actually swarm. If you 

 wait until cells are started, and then oper 

 ate. destroying the cells, you may feel pretty 

 easy about swarming. Some report it a per- 

 fect preventive. 



You propose to put a comb-honey super 

 under an extracting super. That will be all 

 right if .the extracting combs are nice and 

 white. If black from brood rearing your 

 sections may be blackened 



2. Yes. but you mustn't expect that each 

 of your two colonies will be as strong as the 

 stronger would have been if you had lei it 

 alone. Moreover, you will have to furnisli 

 a queen to one of them, for when you unite 

 with newspaper one of the queens will be 

 killed. I don't see what you want with that 

 newspaper uniting anyway. If you leave the 

 excluder until the time of separating the 

 two colonies, you will have the two queens 

 left — maybe. For if you leave one over the 

 other too long, one of the queens will be 

 killed. I don't know how long that is. prob- 

 ably longer at one time than another, but I 

 am afraid in any case you cannot leave Hum 

 together as long as vou propose. 



3. You are probably overestimating the 

 number of eggs laid daily. If we allow three- 



fourths of the frame to be occupied with 

 brood, a queen laying 2000 eggs daily would 

 keep eight frames occupied. I don't think 

 many queens do that when the season is so 

 far along. Whatever is the right figure, it 

 will be just so much loss in your honey crop. 

 The question is whether the loss might not 

 be still greater if the bees should swarm, 



4. To your question how one can be sure, 

 without dequeening, there were no eggs or 

 larvie present. I would say that with a lay- 

 ing queen present one may be practically 

 sure eggs and larva; •7ri- present. As to my 

 experience at requeening without dequeen- 

 ing. I'm a failure. The trouble is tliat, as 

 Josh Billings says, "So many things we 

 know ain't so." You quote J. E. Hand as 

 saying, "The reigning queen will be exe- 

 cuted without parley or delay," when the 

 combs with the young virgin are put in the 

 hive. 1 fondly trusted that might be so, 

 and before the appearance of Mr, Hand's 

 article had tried it a number of times, but 

 instead I found the virgin missing. Others 

 had the same experience, as Mr. Hand re- 

 portsDec. 15. Like enough it will succeed 

 where the old queen is one that the bees 

 want to supersede anyway, and it is likely 

 Mr. Doolittle had that in mind. But is it 

 certain that bees have antipathy to a 

 virgin when they have eggs and larva- ? 



Hives With Portico— Winter Flight— Giving Room 



1. What kind of a bee hive do you prefer 

 without porch or with porch, and why ? 



2. In wintering bees outside do you think 

 it is the sickly bees that go out to die when 

 warm days come in winter ? 



.?. when there is a good honey flow, and 

 two supers full of honey, would it be best 

 to take the two supers off and put on the 

 third, or put the third one on top of the 

 two, so as to give the honey a better chance 

 to ripen? Wisconsin. 



Answers.— I. The Langstroth hive was at 

 first made with a portico. Latterly very 

 few have the portico, perhaps chiefly be- 

 cause it furnishes such a nice refuge for 

 spiders, causing the death of too many bees. 



2. No; sometimes a large part of the col- 

 ony comes out to take a sail in the air. 



3. With a good flow on. it will probably 

 never happen that it will be good practice 

 to take off the two supers that are on, and 

 leave the colony with one empty super. For 

 the bees should always have at least plenty 

 if not abundance of room, and so a third 

 super should always be given before the 



first two are ready to be taken off. In my 

 own apiary, a good flow being on, a super is 

 not often taken off before three or four su- 

 pers are on. and in a few cases there may be 

 as many as seven or eight on. When the 

 first two are pretty well filled, a third super 

 is given below them, and like enough an- 

 other on top. All this referring to a bee- 

 keeper running for section honey. With 

 extracted honey all may be left on until the 

 close of each particular flow, if not to the 

 close of the entire season, or the honey may 

 be extracted whenever it is ripe. The third 

 super is geneially given below, a queen-ex- 

 cluder being used. But E. D. Townsend, a 

 very successful beekeeper, gives the empty 

 super above, dispensing with the excluder. 

 He says the combs filled with honey act as 

 an excluder to keep thequeen from going up 

 into the empty super. 



A Quarrelsome Neighbor 



My only available place for beekeeping is 

 in a country village. I have a somewhat 

 quarrelsome neighbor. My bees sometimes 

 swarm into his trees, and although I can get 

 them out without damaging the trees, he 

 usually objects and tries to assault me. 



I am informed that there is a law permit- 

 ting the beekeeper to get his bees in this 

 sort of case. Do you know of this law ? Also 

 what shall I do to prevent him from assault- 

 ing me ? Minnesota. 



Answer.— Your question is one of law 

 rather than of beekeeping. I have no copy 

 of the Minnesota law. but no d(.)ubt you can 

 get it from a lawyer or justice of the peace. 

 But I think in any State of the Union a man 

 can go upon the premises of another to 

 secure a swarm, although he must pay for 

 any damage, if any damage occurs in so 

 doing. If he assaults you it is the same as 

 assaulting you at any other time and place 

 and you can bring suit against him. 



Colonies Not Equally Strong -Wintering — Feed- 

 ing — Early Drones 



1. I have two colonies of bees which I 

 hived last May. One of them produced 

 about 50 pounds of surplus honey, while the 

 other produced only s pounds. What was 

 the matter with the second one ? Was it an 

 unprolitic queen or not ? 



2. How is this for wintering bees: In the 

 late fall after the honey-flow is over place a 

 piece of burlap over the brood-frames and 

 place a super filled with dry leaves on top 

 of that ? 



3. What time in the fall should I begin 

 feeding to keep the bees strong all winter 

 and spring, and how much should I feed a 



COMBS HUILT OUT-OK-UOORS BY A SWAKM IN MICHIGAN 



