•Tl-NE, 1919 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



left to the upper hive. When leaving such 

 an entrance we advise giving it at the back 

 of the hive rather than the front; for if the 

 upper entrance faces in the same direction 

 as the lower one, the queen, on her return, 

 mar see the bees entering at the lower en- 

 trance, and join them. This would result 

 ill one of the queens being killed. With a 

 back entrance the queen is not as easily lost. 



Question.^ — I have placed full sheets of founda- 

 tion in my brood-chambers, but they seem to fall 

 down. Why is this? I am disappointed in thi.s, as 

 it is my first trial in order to get worker brood. 



Iowa. E. H. Secligei'. 



Answer. — If you use properly wired me- 

 dium brood foundation in the brood-cham- 

 ber, attaching it securely to the top-bar, 

 and see that the hive has plenty of ventila- 

 tion, we see no reason why the foundation 

 should fall down. Of course, foundation 

 should never be given unless there is a 

 honey flow or you are feeding, for otherwise 

 the bees will gnaw holes in it, and the 

 weight of bees will finally pull it from the 

 frames. 



Questions. — (1) Is it possible that a colony will 

 become queenless during winter and not die? (2) 

 They claim that you do not have to wire the shal- 

 low frames. Is this so? Paul A. Jacob.son. 



Minnesota. 



Answers. — (1) Yes, this often occurs. Such 

 colonies should, of course, be requeened as 

 soon as possible in the spring or else united 

 with some colony a little lacking in strength. 

 (2) Some good beekeepers do not wire shal- 

 low frames; but we prefer to spend the ex- 

 tra time and trouble, and have all of our 

 frames wired. It is, of course, not nearly 

 so necessary with the shallow as with the 

 deeper frames, as there is less danger of the 

 combs being Ijroken from the frames. 



Question. — As my bees were hanging out as if 

 about to swarm, I divided them. I took three 

 brood-frameis and put them in another hive with 

 the bees that adhered to them. I think all the bees 

 went back except a very few. In three days I again 

 opened the hive and found thei floor covered with 

 half-gi'own dead bees. Why was that ? Did they 

 starve, or was it due tO' some other cause? I 

 thought that perhaps they had foul brood: but I 

 found in one of the books that foul brood smells 

 bad, and my bees do not smell at all except like 

 honey. So I think they starved ; but there are still 

 bees in the hive, and one of the frames has several 

 queen-cells. Miss Liicia Adams. 



Florida. 



Answer. — If there was no honey left in 

 the cells, they probably starved; but we 

 rather suspect your trouble was that you 

 did not take enough bees together with the 

 frames of brood when making your division, 

 and that the old bees returned to their old 

 location, leaving too few bees to keep the 

 brood warm, and, therefore, it chilled, and 

 the bees pulled them out of their cells. In 

 this case it is also possible that the queen- 

 cells may have been chilled, and that no 

 queen will hatch. Close watch should be 

 kept; and if you find the queen-cells do not 

 hatch, a queen should be introduced. Next 

 time, when making increase, we suggest 

 that you take all of the sealed brood and 

 two-thirds of the bees to a new location and 



contract the entrance to a three-eighths-inch 

 opening. Then when part of the old bees 

 return to the old hive there will still be 

 enough bees left to take care of the brood 

 and keep it from chilling. 



ANSWERS BY MEL PRITCHARD. 



Question. — .\n Italian queen that I introduced, 

 the bees sealed up in the cage with wax and 

 smothered. Could you. tell me why they would do 

 that? William Wall. 



Illinois. 



Answer.- — It sometimes happens that a 

 queen-cell is overlooked, and a virgin queen 

 hatches at or before the time that a queen 

 is caged in the hive for introduction to the 

 colony. In such a case the bees aften ac- 

 cept the virgin in preference to the caged 

 queen. Since they can not reach the caged 

 queen to kill her in any other way they 

 will propolize the cage and smother her. 



Questions. — (1) A few weeks ago I received a 

 very fine $6.00 breeding-queen. I am raising some 

 fine cells, but am having quite a discouraging time 

 in getting my cells and virgins accepted, either by 

 nucleii or full colonies, and I should be very grate- 

 ful to you if you would tell me how to do it suc- 

 cessfully and why I have so far failed. First, when 

 I kill a queen and give a cell or virgin, in at least 

 half of the cases the bees raise cells of their own, 

 even tho the cell given them is ripe and ready to 

 hatch or the virgin less than 24 hours old. I give 

 the cell or virgin immediately after killing the queen. 

 Would it be better to wait a while after killing the 

 queen or to takei away all unsealed brood so they 

 would have no brood from which to raise a queen ? 

 I made 20 nuclei, out of which I got only 6 queens. 

 All the rest have cells of their own, or laying work- 

 ers. The nuclei I made by dividing a ten-frame 

 hive into three bee-tight compartments, as you de- 

 scribe on page 460 in the ABC and X Y Z of Bee 

 Culture, each compartment holding three frames — a 

 frame of hatching brood and two empty combs. Our 

 nights here are so cool that I prefer to hatch cells 

 in queen-cages in strong colonies ; for with the nu- 

 cleus, cells will chill and not hatch : and the ma- 

 jority of those that do hatch are evidently not ac- 

 cepted by the bees. If I give them a frame of open 

 brood soon after the cell is hatched, they raise cells 

 of their own. In that case can j'ou tell me whj' the 

 virgin that hatches is not accepted. If you can 

 tell me how to introduce safely a virgin into a nu- 

 cleus or full colony it would be of great value to 

 me. (2) Will a virgin become fertilized and begin 

 to lay if introduced, in a hive or nucleus where 

 tl'.ere is no brood at all? H. H. Winger. 



Idaho. 



Answer. — -We find it very difficult to in- 

 troduce a virgin after removing a laying 

 queen except to a very light nucleus. By 

 waiting 24 hours a virgin not more than six 

 or eight hours old will usually run in at the 

 entrance safely or may be introduced in a 

 Miller cage, leaving the candy exposed so 

 that the bees can liberate her in 24 hours. 

 In introducing to a strong colony it is better 

 to leave them queenless 48 hours. We find 

 that introducing cells in West cell-protectors 

 is more satisfactory. These should be intro- 

 duced on the tenth day after grafting, and 

 the hive should not be opened until the 

 third day after introducing either a cell or a 

 virgin. A virgin will introduce into a hive 

 where there is no brood, and begin laying 

 as well as or better than where there is 

 brood if the bees are not too old. 



