arcli. 1912 



American ^ee Joiirnajj 



J I want to make a few nuclei next May 



.hine. I want to take one frame of 



iiad containiiis; worker-eKtrs. some ciueen- 



lis. and bees just crawling out of their 



Us. witliout a queen, and put it into an 



. inpty liive, and put a board in the middle 



M make the smallest room for the baby 



t .'louy Is it a grood plan ? I intend to take 



-I'liie frames of brood from other colonies 



1 !h1 shake or brush down young bees 10 aive 



ire bees to the nuclei, at noon. Can 



K.-en-cells be reared safely .'' 



i. Can I put fresh snow over the entrances 



of the bee-hives when the coldest, windy 



days come ? 



4. If queen-cells appear in any bee hive, 

 can I cut them off at all. as I do not want 

 swarms ? 



5. Will the colony be stronir in numbers if 

 queen-cells are cut off ? Should 1 >:ive more 

 room ? Will they build up combs quickly 

 and gather honey fast ? Indian.^. 



.Answers.— I. They may start cells and 

 they may not. You will be more sure of 



cells, and will have more cells if you take 

 away the queen for a week. 



2. If 1 understand you rinlitly you will have 

 only one frame for the nucleus. At least 

 you should jiut a frame of honey, or partly 

 HUed witii honey, on each sideof your frame 

 of brood. Then if you add enough young 

 bees, as you suggest, you can rear good 

 queens provided the queen-cells are ad- 

 vanced enough so the young queens are 

 about ready to emerge. If the cells have 

 not been sealed very Ions when given to the 

 nuclei, you can not count on good queens. 



3. It will be all right if the snow is dry. If 

 the snow is wet and packs together it may 

 smother the bees. 



4. If you cut out all queen-cells it will de- 

 lay swarming. Generally, however, the 

 bees will start cells again, and if you keep 

 cutting them out the bees will sometimes 

 swarm without a queen-cell in the hive. 

 Simetimes. however, cutting out the cells 

 will prevent swarming entirely. 



5. Cutting out cells will not interfere with 

 the strength of the colony, nor with build- 

 ing nor storing. 



Last Season Good for Bees 



Last season was a good one for bees. I 

 sold $14 worth of honey from 2 colonies, be- 

 sides what we used ourselves, and also in- 

 creased to 3 colonies. So far this winter I 

 have lost but one colony out of 5. Last win- 

 ter I lost 3 out of 5. Bees were flying for the 

 first time today since December, igii. 



Riverside. Iowa. Feb. lu. Wm. Zahs, Jr. 



all bred from my best queen. Some other 

 colonies which were just as strong were far 

 behind in storing honey, f don't know why 

 this is. but 1 think it pays well for every bee- 

 keeper to work a little in this direction. A 

 Iirolilic queen in a strong colony during a 

 honey-flow will produce eggs for good queens 

 if such a colony is made queenless. I have 

 tried this with good results, but will not 

 work well during a honey-dearth. 



Bro. Alphonse Veith. 



Heavy Loss of Bees in Wintering 



I don't want to be pessimistic, but. in my 

 opinion, we will have at least a 50 percent loss 

 in bees in this locality this winter. 1 lost one 

 colony, but I got to the others in time to 

 save them. Farmer bee-keepers with 5 or 

 10 colonies each have lost practically all; 

 some had plenty of honey, but arranged so 

 that the bees could not get over the top of 

 the frames. J. W. Swails. 



Lebanon. Ind.. Feb. 26. 



■Valued at Twice Its Cost 



I would not discontinue the .-Vmerican Bee 

 .Journal for twice its cost. If at any time 

 you do not receive remittance in good time 

 notify me; but continue the lournal until 

 notified to discontinue. R. H. Lindsav. 



Aylmer. Ont., Feb. i3. 



No Snow — Short of Stores 



Bees are doing fine, having cleaned out 

 their hives in good style. We have not had 

 any snow this winter. Bees have been out 

 everyday the last 4 weeks. Last season the 

 honey-tlow stopped Aug. i8th — no more 

 honey after that, so the bees filled up their 

 brood-nests with bee-bread, and some colo- 

 nies are losing quite a lot of their bees. I 

 am feeding those of mine that need it. 



Jensen. Utah. G. W. Vangundy. 



Rather Severe Winter on Bees 



It has been a rather severe winter on bees 

 here. There will undoubtedly be heavy 

 losses among those wintered outdoors. So 

 far I have lost none, but some of the nuclei 

 will hardly stand it till the blossoms open. 



Bellevue. Ohio. H. G. OuiRiN. 



A Terrible Winter in Minnesota 



This has been a terrible winter thus far. 

 and the lowest known thermometer in the 

 41 years that i have been in Grand Meadow. 

 For 13 days the mercury did n6t get up to 

 zero, and for 54 days it did not get up to the 

 freezing point. 



1 think that H of all the bees have died 

 out here during the last 2 years. There has 

 been no white clover honey for 2 years, and 

 I have not taken 10 pounds of surplus honey 

 during the last 2 seasons. It Is very discour- 

 aging; but " never say die." 



C. F. Greening. 



Grand Meadow. Minn.. Feb. 20. 



Prospects Better for 1912 



We have had bad bee-keeping here for 3 

 years on account of drouth. There was but 

 very little surplus honey last year, as most 

 of our bees died. I think the prospects are 

 better for this year. Honey is 25 cents per 

 pound here. Catharine Wainwkight. 



Tilton. Iowa. Feb. 22. 



Grafting Wax 



Take 4 pounds of rosin, one pound of bees- 

 wax, one pint of linseed oil. Put in an iron 

 pot and heat slowly. When all is inixed 

 pour in cold water and then work it by pour- 

 ing in until it is light color, but put oil on 

 the hands before working it. Lay it away in 

 a cool place until you need it. It will never 

 run. If the day is warm when you are graft- 

 ing, better moisten your hands with water 

 occasionally, and work the wax around the 

 graft. Loiis Werner. 



Edwardsville. HI. 



Improving the Honey-Bee 



Among the many articles which I read on 

 this subject, that of .Arthur C. Miller, on 

 page .!;o. seems the best for me. For some 

 years I practised on a small scale the plan 

 which he describes, and I have found that it 

 works fine. My experience is. that by breed- 

 ing from the best will soon improve an api- 

 ary at least 50 percent. For example, one 

 colony stored 75 pounds of surplus honey in 

 loil. and went into winter quarters with an 

 abundance of stores, and several others 

 were of the same quality in storing honey. 



Rearing Brood — Sawdust for Pollen 



We had an average flow of honey in the 

 late summer and fall of ion. and our bees 

 had abundant stores when they went into 

 winter quarters. We have had a very cold 

 and disagreeable winter, but in spite of all 

 the snow and bad weather my bees have 

 already commenced rearing young bees. 

 The weather has been pretty warm for the 

 last few weeks, during the day. but snow 

 still shows up at present. Yesterday I 

 opened one of my hives to see if the bees 



were short of stores, and found young brood 

 already sealed. 



Say. did any one ever see bees use saw- 

 dust for pollen ? Last spring I saw them 

 flying around the sawdust pile at a sawmill 

 near by. 1 began to watch, and found they 

 were working the finest part of the dust on 

 their legs just as though it were pollen. 

 This spring I have seen them do the same 

 thing. It was oak sawdust, so they must 

 have wanted it for a substitute for pollen. 



^ , Georue Gunther. 



Cushman. .\rk.. Feb. 24. 



Coldest Weather in Years 



My bees did very well last year, but the 

 most they gathered was fall honey and yel- 

 low in appearance. 1 am wintering my bees 

 on the summer stands — the first time in 20 

 years— and it has been the coldest winter 

 since Jan. ist for I don't know how many 

 vears. Jos. Hentrich. 



Granton. W is. 



Good Results in 1911 



I have only 2 colonies of bees I bought in 

 the spring of iQio. I had not a single swarm. 

 but more honey from a single colony than 

 any other man around here. Last year was 

 considered a poor one. but I got over 200 

 pounds of comb honey from 2 colonies I 

 commenced feeding as soon as the bees 

 came out of the cellar, and when the blos- 

 soms came I had a good, strong colony of 

 bees. I put on the first super when the 

 trees were in bloom, and kept putting on 

 supers when they were about half full so 

 the bees had always plenty of room. For 

 feeding I give one-half sugar and one-half 

 water, and then had a box with ground corn 

 standing in the garden. I used flour, too. 

 but the bees would not take the flour, but 

 were working in the ground corn— more 

 bees there than at the hive on a warm day 



Ogden. Iowa. M. H. Rosacker. 



The King Bee-Keeper— Dry Spell 



Mr. S. M. W. Easley. of this (Ventura 

 county, is 70 years old. and one of the pio- 

 neer bee-keepers of this State. He has kept 

 bees for 53 years, and has harvested many 

 carloads of honey in his time. In 1884 he 

 had the largest crop of honey that ever had 

 been taken up to that time. He started 

 that season with 560 colonies of bees, in- 

 creased them to 1250 colonies, and extracted 

 81 tons of honey; and had it not been for the 

 death of a son during the honey-flow he 

 would have added many more tons to this 

 amount. The location he had at that time 

 has but a small amount of the sages growing 

 now. as the plow. fire, and cultivation have 

 wiped out the greater part of the forage. 



We are having the worst spell of dry 

 weather we have had for many years, and 

 unless we have rain soon many apiaries will 

 starve out. The loss of bees will be great. 

 M. H. Mendleson. 



Ventura, Calif., Feb. 12. 



Connecticut Convention. — The annual 

 meeting of the Connecticut Bee-Keep- 

 ers' Association for the election of 

 officers, etc., will be held Saturday, 

 April 13, 1912, at the Y. M. C. A. Build- 

 ing, Hartford, beginning at 10:30 a.m. 

 The matter of forming a branch of the 

 National Association will be discussed. 

 Good speaking assured. 



James A. Smith, Sec. 



Hartford, Conn. 



" Scientific Queen-Rearing " 



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 one written by Mr. G. M. Doolittle. He 

 is an expert in the business. It tells 

 just how the very best queens can be 

 reared. Bound in cloth. By mail, $1.00; 

 or with the American Bee Journal, one 

 year — both for $1.00. In leatherette 

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 .American Bee Journal one year — both 

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 JournaL 



