354 



October, 1915. 



American Hee Journal 



where the sections came from. 



4. Unless excluders are used (and I would 

 not use excluders with sections) a super 

 should not be given for about two days, or 

 until the queen has made a start at laying in 

 the brood-chamber. A swarm hived June 2 

 may store anywhere from 50 to isn sections 

 or more, depending upon circumstances, 

 especia ly the season. 



Diseased Bees 



1. My bees have some disease resembling 

 European foulbrood. but lacking any offen- 

 sive odor. The new swarms are affected 

 as well as the old colonies, although they are 

 hived on full sheets of foundation— de- 

 Queening seems to have no beneficial effect. 

 Would uniting and Italianizing be of any 

 benefit or is it too late in the season? (We 

 generally have a good fall run) The larvae 

 dies at all stages, from the freshly-hatched 

 egg to the full sized grub before it is capped 

 over. 



2. I also have trouble in rearing queens. If 

 I give them a ripe queen-cell they allow her 

 to hatch, but in two or three days she disap- 

 pears, or if I give them a breeding comb 

 from my best queen they will start cells but 

 destroy them before she hatches. 



Michigan. 



Answers.— I, Your first step is to send a 

 sample of the diseased brood to Dr. E. F. 

 Phillips. Department of Agriculture. Wash- 

 ington. D. C. It will cost you nothing to have 

 him decide what the trouble is. and if you 

 write in advance he will send you a box in 

 which to send the sample, with a frank, so 

 that you will not even have to pay postage. 

 You can also ask him for literature telling 

 what to do. If the disease is European foul- 

 brood, and if the colonies are of dark stock 

 and rather weak, then uniting and giving 

 Italian queens would likely be of much ser- 

 vice. As already said, the important thing 

 is to send sample to Dr. Phillips. 



2. It is only too common a thing for young 



queens to disappear after they are several 

 days old. perhaps being lost on the weddine 

 trip, and this year, with so much cool and 

 wet weather there has been more than the 

 usual trouble. Without more particulars 

 It is not possible to suggest what you should 

 do to remedy the trouble; indeed, it is not 

 certain that I could tell you what to do if I 

 had fullest particulars, for I have troubles 

 of my own in that way. 



If Queenless bees kill cells that they have 

 started, they are doing something abnormal, 

 and something quite exceptional. Some- 

 times it happens that they have something 

 in the way of ajqueen, which, although it 

 may be of no value, and may not lay. is held 

 in such esteem by the workers that they 

 will suffer nothing else to take its place. 



You see I'm not helping you out very much, 

 and it is a good deal like saying to you' 

 " Better luck next time." 



Pollen In Sections 



Will you kindly advise what to do with 

 extracting combs that are filled with pol 

 len ? Many of mine are so clogged with 

 pollen that I will be compelled to melt them 

 unless there is some way of getting it out. 

 Wisconsin. 



Answek.— I'm just a bit suspicious that 

 the trouble is not so bad as you suppose, 

 and that if you leave the pollen where it is 

 it will be used up by the bees next year, 

 always supposing it is kept in good condi- 

 tion over winter. It often happens that 

 such pollen is worth more than its weight 

 of honey early in the season. If, however, 

 you want to get the pollen out of the comb 

 some other way than to have the bees eat it 

 out. I'm not sure that I know of any good 

 way. I have known pollen to dry up in the 

 combs so it would shake out. 



Poor Season 



We have here a very bad honey season in 

 this province. I have reared and exported 

 some queen-bees; but as you can conceive 

 my work is very much under one-fifth of 

 that of last year. E. Penna. 



Bologna. Italy 



Short Crop 



Katlier a short honey crop here. I have 

 about two tons from 115 colonies, spring 

 count. O. B. Griffin. 



Caribou. Maine. Aug. I5- 



Too Much Rain 



Too much rain since July 1 for honey; about 

 one-third of a crop, but bees are strong and 

 hives well filled with honey. If the weather 

 is favorable we ought to get goldenrod 

 honey. Edcak Kk aru. 



Canaan. N. H . .Aug. r . 



Poor Season 



The present season is a total failure, ow- 

 ing to constant rains during our main honey 

 flow, which is in May and June in this local- 

 ity. The seasons of igi3 and 1Q14 have 

 checked the growth of white clover, so that 

 there is little in bloom this season. 



Success in beekeeping here is dependent 

 from wild flowers chielly. ami if they fail 

 there is no surplus honey to be expected. 

 We find that sweet clover is an excellent 

 bee plant, but if i§ hard to establish in tliis 



locality because our soils are mostly what 

 may be called time hiinery. Some farmers 

 here are starting to grow this plant by the 

 way of experiment. To make it grow on 

 some poor and worn out soils, lime or ashes 

 from burned wood must be mixed into the 

 soil. 'Phis insures a growth. Should this 

 plant ever be well established here, it would 

 surelv be a Lilessing to the farmer as well as 

 to the beekeeper. Subscriber. 



Honey by Parcel Post 



I noticed on page 316 of the September 

 American Bee Journal, that Dr. Miller says 

 candied honey can go by parcel post. Whv 

 didn't he go a little further and say that 

 liquid honey can go. too? 



I am sending liquid honey by parcel post 

 nearly every day. I put it in 5 and i" pound 

 friction-top pails and then crate (not box) 

 the pails with wood and it goes all right. 



I boxed a few pails at first, but soon found 

 that the packages had to be so the postmas- 

 ter could examine them, and the crates 

 work jusl as well as the boxes. 



Parksville. N. Y . Sept. 15. A. W, Smith. 



Large Increase 



I have kept bees for several years, and 

 have made a success of the business so far. 

 My worst trouble has been their tendency 

 to rob during a time of scarcity, but I have 

 less robbing lately because I keep my 

 colonies strong. Tliat is the best preven- 

 tive any one can use. 



The first of August, early in the morning. I 

 noticed the bees were very cross. They 



were robbing several colonies, and I soon 

 found the colony which was doing the rob- 

 bing. I painted the entrance of this colony 

 with carbolic acid, and in about two hours 

 used the carbolic acid again. By midday 

 everything was quiet as usual and has been 

 ever since. 



We had a very cold, backward spring this 

 year, and bees were very slow building up. 

 Our honey flow began the last of April with 

 the colonies still weak. I was taken sick 

 about that time and was confined to my 

 room about two months. My father took 

 care of the bees, but he didn't know any- 

 thing about them, so I had to guess at what 

 was going on and tell him what to do. I had 

 him piling on supers, hoping that would 

 keep them from swarming until I could at- 

 tend to them myself, but they began swarm- 

 ing the last of May. and every colony in my 

 apiary swarmed before I got well. The su- 

 pers were piled three and four high. and not 

 a pound of finished honey, but the sourwood 

 flow has been good and I have all of my su- 

 pers finished and capped. 



In the wind up I have a hundred colonies 

 of increase and an average of <jb sections of 

 nice marketable honey, which is not so very 

 bad after all. Francis W. Gravely. 



Stockton. Va. 



Early Frost 



The honey harvest has been very unsatis- 

 factory this year. It was rainy and cold 

 through May. June. July and August. We 

 had a hard freeze Aug. 30. but Sept. i. the 

 bees seemed to find something on the late 

 willow herb, and are doing quite well now. 

 P. A. Spellman. 



Armstrong Creek. Wis. 



Good Crop 



This has been a good year for bees. My 14 

 colonies stored over i2tw pounds of extracted 

 clover honey. I did not run for increase. It 

 has been a cold and wet season with plenty 

 of rain. Louis A. Schafer. 



Fowler. Mich.. Aug. 16. 



Good Prospects in New Zealand 



We had a very mild winter throughout 

 New Zealand. Some of my hives had three 

 frames of brood in July, our mid-winter. At 

 present they are getting all kinds of pollen 

 from dandelions and pine trees. 



Eltham. New Zealand. T. J. Mannex. 



The Season in Eastern Canada 



The conditions of bee culture in Quebec 

 and the maritime provincesare unfavorable 

 and we will end the season of tqis with less 

 numerous apiaries than in iQu. and a very 

 light crop of honey. 



in my apiary of Millaflora, which may be 

 taken as an average, we cannot count lois 

 among the good seasons. It is the first sea- 

 son in 15 or iu in which the number of colo- 

 nies has decreased. 



Of the 2115 colonies which I put in the cel- 

 lar Nov, g last and brought out April 20 (two 

 weeks earlier than common), we had lost 50 

 by June 20. two months after their removal 

 from confinement. On July 7. we united 

 four weak colonies. Never before did we 

 find it necessary to unite weak colonies 

 after June 15. But the season was so bad 

 that we did not wish to keep colonies cover- 

 ing only three or four combs at that date. 



We have had 4" swarms, and our present 

 total is 181 colonies, which will be probably 

 reduced to 16" to 17.1 by the time of placing 

 them in winter quarters. The total crou 

 has been 85ii pounds, or less than 5 pounds 

 per colony. 



The clover suffered considerably from 

 drouth in nji4. Then the reduced amount 

 of winter snow and its disappearance in the 

 first week of April left the fields exposed to 

 siiring frosts. 



However, we so often have good crops of 

 honey that we are not discouraged. The 

 crop in the West is better than in the East. 

 But when the clover crop fails here, the sea- 

 son is a failure for we have neither buck- 

 wheat nor fall flowers on which to rely. 



jACi.iUES Verret. 



Charlesbourg. Quebec. July .v'. 



Excessive Swarming 



Wc have had a fair season, but were trou- 

 bled with excessive swarming. Our first 

 swarm came April 3". and the last one to 

 date, on Sept. 7. Cool, cloudy wet weather 

 made the harvest slow, but prolonged the 



