May, 1919 



G T. K A N T N r. S IN BEE CULTURE 



323 



tliat tlio outside beos from othor colonies 

 lould get a taste, trouble would immediately 

 start. For this reason the practice is not to 

 bo recommended. (7) The allusion in the 

 Townsend bee book is simply given as a 

 necessary caution. If the bees are fed a 

 large amount of stores in the fall, and are 

 left in good condition for wintering, it will 

 not be necessary to open them very early in 

 the spring. If the beekeeper knows that his 

 colonies have sufficient stores, he need not 

 open the hives except on very warm pleas- 

 ant days during the first spring flow of hon- 

 ey. He may then find whether or not any 

 of the colonies are queenless, and if he cares 

 to clip the queens. But if the bees seem in- 

 clined to rob, this work may be omitted un- 

 til a more favorable time. Of course, if the 

 bees have not been properly supplied with 

 stores, then it might be necessary to open 

 at a time when robbing might be started. 

 But for those cases in which the beekeeper 

 feeds properly in the fall there is no difficul- 

 ty in reconciling the two statements. 



Questions. — (1) Wishing to strengthen some colo- 

 nies, would it be feasible to take a frame of brood 

 with adhciring bees from each of several colonies, 

 placing them above the colony to be strengthened 

 with a queen-excluder between? (2) Would this 

 work satisfactorily with newspaper division, or is 

 the paper unnecessary 1 A. T. Copeland. 



Washington. 



Answers. — (1) Yes. (2) If the plan is 

 applied on a rather cool day the hive may 

 be left uncovered until the bees have gone 

 down from the top, and then the super of 

 brood, with adhering bees, may be gently 

 placed on top. If this is done very careful- 

 ly, so as not to disturb the bees, there will 

 be no need of using a newspaper. If the 

 plan is applied on a warm day when the bees 

 would come to the top of the frames more 

 readily, tho we realize that the paper would 

 not always be necessary, still we should then 

 prefer newspaper between. 



Question. — Please give in Gleanings the inside 

 width of a 13-frarae Hoffman hive. I think of 

 changing from a nine- to a thirteenframe hive. 



Kansas. J. N. Chapman. 



Answer. — Our 1.3 -frame hives are 19% 

 inches square, outside measurements, and 

 17% inches square inside. However, this 

 leaves too little play between the frames. 

 If the 13-frame hive had as much play per^ 

 frame as the 10-franie hive there would need 

 to be about one inch. After the frames have 

 been used a while we believe this would be 

 none too much. 



Question. — What is the least number of chambers 

 that must be placed between the upper and the 

 lower stories to keep the old queen laying in the 

 upper and have a young queen hatched and mated 

 in the lower? H. A. Merkel. 



Pennsylvania. 



Answer. — In the first place we should 

 hardly care to mate the young queen from 

 the lower story, for, altho some seem satis- 

 fied with the plan, we should fear the colo- 

 ny might swarm out. It would seem safer 

 to hatch and mate the young queen from the 

 upper story, and leave the old clipped queen 



below. We believe that W. J. Sheppard ad- 

 vocates raising the young queen below with 

 nothing but a queen-excluder between the 

 two stories; but two queens in one hive has 

 never worked very well in our experience 

 unless the two parts of the hive were entire- 

 ly separated. We think there should be at 

 least one super between the upper and the 

 lower brood-chambers; and the more supers 

 there are between, the more likely are the 

 bees of the two brood-chambers to behave as 

 separate colonies and remain contented with 

 their respective queens. 



Question. — Is it necessary or desirable to paint 

 my double-walled hives on the inside? I have 

 heard it claimed that, if not painted, the inside wood 

 would become water-soaked in the winter from the 

 breath of the bees. Frank R. Huff. 



Illinois. 



Answer. — There are very few beekeepers 

 who paint the inside of their hives. If the 

 hive is given a slightly forward tilt, so 

 that moisture can not collect in the hive, 

 there will be no trouble from the walls be- 

 coming moisture-soaked; and, as for the 

 cracks, the bees may be depended upon to 

 fill them with propolis. 



Question. — In the booklet, "How to Produce Ex- 

 tracted Honey," it says, "Cage the queen in the 

 hivei." Do you use an ordinary mailing-cage? and 

 do the bees feed her thru the wire mesh ? 



New Jersey. Samuel A. Smith. 



Answer. — When caging a queen in a hive, 

 either the mailing-cage or an ordinary spiral 

 cage may be used. No candy need be placed 

 in the cage, since the bees will attend to 

 feeding the queen thru the openings of the 

 cage. 



Questions. — (1) When a colony casts a swarm I 

 understand the old queen goes with the swarm. If 

 so, is the young queen hatched then or is sbei still 

 in the cell? (2) Could there not bei a young queen 

 already hatched? Thos. R. Peel. 



Maryland. 



Answers. — (1) When a colony swarms, the 

 old queen goes with the swarm, leaving in 

 the hive capped queen-cells which will hatch 

 in a few days. (2) This may sometimes oc- 

 cur, but not usually. If rainy weather had 

 kept the colony from swarming at the time 

 they naturally would have swarmed, it is 

 possible that one of the virgins might have 

 hatched. Ordinarily the swarm issues sev- 

 eral days before the first virgin emerges. 



Question. — If a hive supplied with empty comb 

 is placed where bees can find it, is it probable that 

 a swarm will take possession some time during the 

 summer? A man who had a few colonies claims 

 that a neighbor of his got three of his absconding 

 swarms in that way last year. W. H. Craig. 



Washington. 



Answer. — One may easily catch stray 

 swarms by placing decoy hives in trees in 

 the orchard or woods near some place where 

 bees are likely to be working. Before a 

 colony swarms it often sends out scouts to 

 pick out a new location. Those scouts are 

 doubtless more apt to go in the direction in 

 which they are accustomed to forage for 

 honey. A tree at such a place would, there- 

 fore, be a good place in which to place the 

 hive. Any hive will do for a decoy hive, 

 and all the preparation you would need to 



