G T. E A N I N G S IN BEE C IT T, T U R E 



C 



LJ 



800 



QUESTION.— 

 This past 

 s u m m e r I 

 li a d so 111 

 American f o ii 1 

 brood, and, of 

 course, cleaned the 

 hives as outlined in 

 A B C, with appar- 

 ent succes.s. Now 

 I don't find any- 

 thin? as to whether drone- and queen-cells are af- 

 i'ected by American foul brood, but I found both 

 diseased. I put a frame of brood in a queenlcss 

 foul-brood colony and eight of nine queen-cells were 

 dead. Also some of the drone-cells were affected. 

 Nevada. G. H. Shippler. 



Answer. — In both American and European 

 foul brood, drone larvEe and queen larvae 

 may be affected. It is quite unusual, tho, 

 to have so large a per cent affected as in 

 the case of your colonies. This reminds us 

 of an interesting incident that came to our 

 attention this summer. A beekeeper grafted 

 from what seemed a perfectly healthy colo- 

 ny, but which in reality had American foul 

 brood. The next day he discovered what 

 he had done and so watched developments. 

 Part of the queens hatched all right, but a 

 great share of them died after the cells were 

 sealed, and it was found they were very 

 ropy. Now those larvje were no more than 

 24 "hours old when grafted and must have 

 been infected at that time, and yet develop- 

 ed until after the sealing of the cells before 

 djdng. The contaminated cells in the wood- 

 en cups were removed from the hive, and 

 the nucleus that contained them showed no 

 signs of disease five weeks later, at which 

 time we learned of the incident. 



Question. — My queen bees mysteriously disappear. 

 I have had 30 colonies queenless this summer, and 

 I am very anxious to know what has caused this 

 trouble. Some of the colonies I had to requean 

 three times, and in each instance the queen disap 

 peared after laying eggs for a period of two or 

 three weeks. I allowed some of the colonies to rear 

 queens for themselves; but not one of these queens 

 matured into a laying queen, and I was finally 

 forced to buy queens to requeen. I wish you would 

 help me solve the mystery. It has given me a whole 

 lot of extra work, besides a loss in money. 



New York. Edwin W. Frisby. 



Answer. — Such a great loss of queens as 

 you report we are unable to explain, but 

 have had a number of similar reports from 

 other beekeepers, some of whom think it is 

 the disappearing disease. In our own per- 

 sonal experience with that malady there was 

 no loss of queens. Perhaps some Gleanings 

 reader may be able to throw a little light on 

 the question. 



Questions. — (1) If the syrup should be poured 

 in the Doolittle feeder, would there not be danger 

 of bees drowning? (2) How are bees prevented 

 from making flight during a warm spell when the 

 ground is covered with snow? W. L. Wright. 



Connecticut. 



Answers. — (1) If you fear that the bees 

 may drown in the syrup, just throw a little 

 loose grass or pieces of cork on the surface 

 of the syrup. (2) Usually when snow is on 

 the ground it is too cold for the bees to take 

 a flight, but sometimes they do fly out and 



GLEANED by ASKING 



Icnj Fowls 



LJ 



December, 1919 



become lost in 

 the snow. The 

 bees that arc lost 

 in this way, how- 

 ever, are much 

 fewer than the 

 n u m b e r that 

 would be lost if 

 the entrances of 

 the hives were 

 closed, for this stirs up the bees and gets 

 them excited, increases the temperature of 

 the hive, and brings about disastrous results. 



Question. — I packed my hives, two in a case, giv- 

 ing each four % and one % -inch holes thru the 

 outer ease. I am a little doubtful as to the inner 

 or hive cntrancp, whether it should be left open the 

 full width of hive or a contracting cleat used. 



Pennsylvania. Earl B. Hunt. 



Answer. — The inner or hive entrance 

 should be left open the full width of the 

 hive. 



Questions. — (1) October 5 I bought a box hive, 

 heavy with bees and honey. I drummed the bees 

 out into a ten-frame hive, with old drawn combs, 

 except the center combs which are newly drawn, as 

 I understand the queien likes them better. After 

 the queen was in the new hive I stopped drumming 

 and proceeded to put a queen-excluder "b" over the 

 hive "a" to kc\ep the queen below. .Vbove this I 

 put a bee-escape board "c" with the escape "d" 

 removed so that the remaining bees, and later the 

 young brood, could go below and also back and 

 forth from and to the box hive "e." I was trying 

 to get the honey transferred from "e" to "a" for 

 winter stores. Was that a good way to get the 

 honey carried below? (2) Would it have been bet- 

 tea- to put the box hive with the contracted entrance 

 in front and let them rob it out? (3) Do you think 

 it would have been worth while to wait three weeks 

 for the young bees to hatch out ? The queen had 

 not been laying heavy at that time. 



New -Jersey. C. Boudewyns. 



Answers. — (1) Dark combs are greatly 

 preferred by the queens as well as by the 

 bees. Because of the cocoons left inside the 

 cells, the old dark combs are much warmer 

 during winter than are the new ones. In the 

 plan that you use it would have been much 

 b'etter, had you left some brood 'below 

 in hive "a"; otherwise, the bees might, on 

 a cool night go above into "e" to keep the 

 brood warm and not stay with the queen in 

 " a. " We have known queens to perish 

 from this very reason. After the brood has 

 hatched from the story "e, " the bees will 

 quite likely carry the honey down below; 

 but, in the case of some colonies you will 

 find that they are occasionally reluctant to 

 do so. In such cases we have found it a help 

 to place an empty body between " a " and 

 ''e. '' (2) We do not like your idea of al- 

 lowing the bees to rob out that hive, for, in 

 such a case you would lose all of the brood 

 in the hives; and, more than that, it is not 

 good for the bees to become so excited and 

 stirred up in the fall. Also, if there chanced 

 to be any foul brood in the neighborhood 

 .you certainly would not want the bees to get 

 "to robbing; for, if they once got started, 

 they would be likely to find the foul-brood 

 hive and rob that before they finished their 



