December, 1915. 



American Hee Journal | 



pled bees in front of the hive. Still.it did 

 not look like bees robbinj;. I was wondering 

 what I could do when the bees swarmed out. 

 I opened the hive they were in and they had 

 not done a thint;. the foundation was the 

 same as it was when I hived them ei^ht days 

 before. They had lots of ventilation and 

 shade. What was the cause of them acting 

 this way ? 



2. In the spring! had one weak and one 

 Queenless colony, side by side I gave a 

 Caucasian queen to the ciueenless one On 

 the last day of June. I noticed toward eve- 

 ning that the weak one tlid not lly much and 

 clustered outside. I thought they were going 

 to swarm. At this time there was just 

 enough honey and pollen coming in to keep 

 brood-rearing in good shape, but no surplus 

 honey. The ne.tt day they did not tiy as 

 much as before and clustered out more, and 

 the next day they Hew less and clustered 

 out still more, and the ne.Kt day not a bee 

 fiew. and all clustered on the outside. All 

 of my other hives were carrying in pollen 

 and 1 could not understand it. so I opened the 

 hive and lifted off the super, and found there 

 was not a bee in it. and very few bees on the 

 combs. They were almost starved to death. 

 I gave them some frames of sealed honey, 

 and by the next day they were carrying in 

 pollen the same as the rest. I thought if the 

 bees were that near starved I need not look 

 for a swarm from my Caucasian swarm, but 

 the next day it swarmed out. and went to 

 parts unknown. I opend this hive and found 

 there was not very much honey in it. but I 

 never saw as much brood in a liiveasthat 

 one had I cannot understand what would 

 make the difference in two hives set within 

 five feet of one another. 



3 I made some bees queenless, and in 

 seven days cut out all queen-cells. Four- 

 teen days later the bees swarmed out and 

 I hived them back in the same hive. I 

 expected the queen to be small and poor. 

 but she proved to be large and prolific. Does 

 it often happen that way ? 



4. If you handle bees in a locality where 

 the main honey flow is from heartsease 

 blossoms, in what way would you put up that 

 honey for the market, comb, extracted or 

 bulk honey ? In this locality heartsease 

 honey, or smartweed as some call it. is dark 

 and has rather a strong taste. Oklahoma. 



Answers.— I. I can only make a guess in 

 the case. It may be that a swarm from an- 

 other hive tried to enter, and was repulsed. 

 With plenty of ventilation and shade I don't 

 know why the bees should swarm out unless 

 as a sort of hunger-swarm. 



2. There may have been more honey in the 

 Caucasian colony in the first place, enough 

 so that there was no fear of starvation, 

 although but little left when they swarmed. 



3. No. I don't think it often happens that 

 way. Still, there is nothing so very much out 

 of the usual, rhe bees swarmed out 21 days 

 after they had been made queenless. That 

 was not at the time the queen emerged from 

 her cell, but at the time she took her wed- 

 ding-flight, which is usually 2u days or more 

 from the laying of the egg. The only trou- 

 blesome factor in the case is the supposi' 

 tion that the bees started a cell seven days 

 after the removal of the queen, making the 

 larva at least four days old. from which no 

 queen could be reared. But it would be an 

 easy thing for you to miss a cell that had 

 been started two or three days earlier, since 

 it would be a very small affair, especially if 

 on the center of a comb. In that case the 

 queen could be all right. 



4. That depends on your market. In some 

 places it would be all right in sections, and 

 in others extracted. 



./ 



Wintering— Ants 



1, I have so colonies of bees all in 8-frame 

 hives. 20 of them the old original colonies) 

 have one-piece fiat tops, and so of them (this 

 spring's swarms) have flat metal tops with 

 inside covers. Last winter the ones ivith 

 the flat tops appeared to have moisture con 

 dense on the under side of the lid and drip 

 down on the combs and cause them to mold. 

 I had one thickness of muslin between the 

 hive and cover. How can I prevent this ? 

 I winter out-of-doors, 



2. In putting the metal tops together, I put 

 eight or ten thicknesses of newspaper be- 



tween the metal and board. Is this style of 

 top likely to give trouble in the same way ? 



i. I have a few bee-escape boards which I 

 use 111 removing the honey, but I haven't 

 bee-escape holes cut in the inside covers. 

 Is it best to cut those holes and then cover 

 them Willi burlap in the winter ? 

 -i-u ^°^^ caul rid my apiary of red ants? 

 1 hey build their hills near, and sometimes 

 directly under the hives and crawl into the 

 lines and kill the bees. 



5 In hiving a swarm do you put them in 

 at the top or bottom of the hive ? 



Oregon. 



Answers.— I. Put a nail under the cover 

 so as to make a slight escape for the mois- 

 ture; also pile some sort of packing 6 inches 

 thick on top of cover. 



2. Not so much. 



3. Yes. 



4. Have 4 feet to the hive, each foot stand- 

 ing in a little vessel of oil or water. Find 

 the nest of the ants, with crowbar make a 

 hole in the nest and pour in carbon disulfide. 



5. It doesn't matter so you get them into 

 the hive, but generally you will find it 

 easier to get them into the hive at the bot- 

 tom, as bees of a swarm naturally incline to 

 crawl upward. 



Shallow or Full-Deptli Super— Packing 



1. I have been running for comb honey but 

 intend to run for extracted, but do not know 

 which kind of super to adopt, the shallow or 

 the full depth. 1 have had a little experi- 

 ence with the shallow this summer, but 

 thought I would like to try the full depth 

 but for one reason, and that is on account 

 of the inconvenience of handling when full 

 of honey. If 1 use the full depth, will it be 

 possible for me to takeoff the honey alone 

 or does it require two persons, one to raise 

 the super and the other one to slip the bee- 

 escape under? As I have to work with the 

 bees alone, I would like to have your knowl- 

 edge and experience on the mitter. 



2 Do you think that if given a full depth 

 it would lessen the chance of swarming 

 more then if given a shallow super, and 

 when half full give another ? 



3. Is two inches of packing material be- 

 tween hive and winter-case sufficient in this 

 climate, the thermometer registering some- 

 times as low as 15 or 20 degrees below ? 



Minnesota. 



Answers.— I. You can manage with either 

 alone, although of course it is easier with 

 the shallow frames. 



2. No. on the contrary those who use shal- 

 low extracting-frames say they are a help 

 toward prevention of swarming. 



3. Two or three inches will do at the sides, 

 with four to six on top. 



Probably Queenless 



I have 7 colonies of bees, and they are all 

 doing fine but one colony. They don't seem 

 to work any, have only filled one super this 

 season, and seem to be eating up the honey 

 they have made. I do not know a queen, so 

 I cannot tell if they have a queen, rhe hive 

 is full of bees. What is the trouble, and 

 what can I do for them ? Pennsylvania. 



Answer,— You can easily tell whether a 

 queen is present without being able to see 

 her. Look and see whether eggs or young 

 unsealed brood can be found. If not, you 

 may feel prettysure there isnoqueen in the 

 hive. 



[It would not be surprising if no eggs or 

 brood were present in a normal colony as 

 late as October.— Editor.] 



Miscellaneous 



1. At about what date do you contract 

 from two hive bodies to one. and how do 

 you do it. by shaking? I assume that most 

 of the workers must be left in the single 

 chamber, so that the gathering force there 

 may be as strong as possible. 



2. If you do shake, doesn't it make the 

 system very similar to the Doolittle plan ? 



3. I see by Mr. Roofs account of his visit 

 to you. in last Gleanings in Bee Culture, 

 that you still had supers on Sept. 6. Do 



you leave them on until the fall flow is ex- 

 hausted ? 



4. If so. don't you find that the stores in 

 the brood chamber are very scant as cold 

 weather comes on. and that considerable 

 feeding IS necessary? That was my expe- 

 rience this vear. and it occurred to me that 

 I might have done better to take off all the 

 supers by Sept land force the late flow into 

 the brood-chamber for winter stores. 



5. I imagine our climatic conditions are 

 very much alike. At what date did you re- 

 move the last of the supers this ye.-'r ? 



6. Do you endorse the suggestion of Alex- 

 ander as to running part of one's colonies 

 tor extracted honey and feeding back into 

 the comb-honey hives to provide continu- 

 ous supplies there for night work, and at 

 times when weather prevents field work? 



7. I fed back this fall some partly filled 

 combs which 1 had had on wea'K colonies to 

 get foundation drawn out. I made a box 

 that would just hold two frames and fit over 

 the wooden block of a Boardman feeder, the 

 box being arranged so that bees couldn't 

 enter it except from inside the hive that 

 was being fed. Do you know of any obiec- 

 tion to that plan, either in the summer or 

 late fall? Is it just as good to feed the 

 honey back that way as to extract and 

 dilute somewhat ? Illinois. 



Answers.— I. You will find in " Fifty 

 Years Among the Bees." that about as soon 

 as clover-bloom begins, or at least within 

 ten days after seeing the very first blossom, 

 I give section-supers, and at that time I re- 

 duce to one story, leaving in that one story 

 all the brood I can and all the bees, shaking 

 or brushing all the bees from the combs I 

 remove. 



2. Mr. Doolittle gives an upper story with 

 a considerable stock of honey; I give a 

 lower story with generally no honey. 



3. Sometimes, and sometimes I take off 

 sections and give combs to be filled for use 

 the following spring to feed the bees. 



4. No. by the time the fall flow is over, if 

 not sometime before, the hives are heavy 

 for winter. Years ago, however, it was not 

 so. Either the pasturage has changed or 

 else the bees. 



5. The last super was taken off Sept. 30. It 

 might perhaps have been as well a little 

 earlier. 



6. I never made a success of feeding back 

 to have the honey filled in sections. 



7. I have not had experience enough to say. 



Bee Paralysis 



In July my neighbor robbed his bees of 

 what honey they had in the super, and a few 

 days later the bees began to die. They 

 would come out of the hive and start to fly 

 away as though going to work, but would 

 fall to the ground as if they were loaded 

 with honey. Some would get a foot or 18 

 inches from the hive, others would tumble 

 off the edge of the alighting-board and they 

 would all crawl around on the ground and 

 die. None of them ever flew again after 

 their first attempt. Indiana. 



Answer.— It sounds like a case of bee 

 paralysis, in which you will probably find a 

 trembling of the wings and the bodies of the 

 bees swollen. In the South it is sometimes 

 formidable, but as far North as you are it 

 generally disappears without doing a great 

 deal of damage. Many cures have been 

 offered, only to fail the next time they are 

 tried. Perhaps the most hopeful remedy is 

 to sprinkle sulphur on the combs and at the 

 entrance. 



The Strain of Italians— Basswood Trees 



1. I am a beginner, and have about 30 colo- 

 nies of bees, the first of which was a stray 

 swarm. The bees are grey striped with 

 four yellow bands, the width of which vary. 

 I wish to keep pure Italians What kind of 

 bees would you say I now have ? I under- 

 stand most people prefer leather-colored 

 Italians. Are they the same as 3banded 

 Italians ? Are goldens the same as s-banded 

 Italians ? 



2. If I purchase three Italian queens next 



