Jan. 15, 1903. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



43 



as much honey as you can together with increase. There 

 is an old saying- : "You can't have your cake and eat it, 

 too." If you want to increase as fast as possible you must 

 give up the idea of surplus ; and if you want to secure as 

 much honey as you can, you must do little or nothing in 

 the way of increase. Answering your questions specifically, 

 it may be said : 



1. The plan you propose will favor a good crop of 

 hbney. for it will leave all the foragers on the old stand, 

 but it will leave the nuclei rather weak. A little change of 

 program will not interfere seriously with the honey-crop, 

 and vpill leave your nuclei in better working order. When 

 the colony swarms, leave the old hive on its stand and set 

 the hive with the swarm as close beside the old hive as pos- 

 sible. A week later take away the old hive and use its 

 brood for nuclei, setting the swarm in place of the old hive. 

 The field-bfees of the mother colony will to a large extent 

 join .the swarm, but so many young bees will have hatched 

 in the old hive that the nuclei will be strong in bees. 



2. As already said, the division will be made about a 

 week after the issuing of the swarm. Are you not setting 

 the swarming period rather early for northern Illinois? 

 You are just about as I am, and bees in this locality are 

 more likely to swarm in July than in May. 



Langstrotli-Simpllcity Hives. 



How many Langstroth-Simplicity Sframe hives are 

 made the same size ? The reason I ask this question is, I 

 sent to one firm for hives, and to another for extra supers 

 of the same size and make, but they didn't fit. 



Wisconsin. 



Answer. — It is an unfortunate circumstance that it 

 sometimes happens that two different concerns use different 

 measurements for things that go by the same name. Gen- 

 erally, however, there is a standard size for things that have 

 a recognized name, and a super professing to fit a L,ang- 

 stroth-Simplicity hive ought to do so, and in case it is by 

 some mistake of the wrong measurement you will probably 

 find that the manufacturer will be ready to rectify the error. 



Queens Getting Through an Excluder. 



On page 12, Charles M. Darrow says : 



"I will have to call Dr. Miller's attention to the fact 

 that I had a laying queen that crawled through the queen- 

 excluder (a new one) and laid eggs in the extracting-super. 

 She was a good-sized queen at that ; of this I am positive." 



From that, one would suppose that I had said some- 

 thing understood by Mr. Darrow to teach that such a thing 

 would not happen, and I wish I knew what it was. I should 

 expect a queen to pass up into an extracting-super in any 

 case where the perforations were sufficiently large. The 

 case is different with a section-super. It is a rare thing for 

 a queen to go up and lay in sections that are filled with 

 foundation, even if no excluder is used. 



Cellar-Wintering Shaken Swarms— Extracting Amount 



of Stores for Winter— Large Yields Catnip or 



Sweet Clover. 



1. I have 40 colonies of bees in the cellar, and the most 

 of them have plenty of honey now. The cellar is under a 

 part of the house where there is no fire. It is rather damp, 

 water standing in it every time it rains much, in the fall or 

 summer, but dry when it is frozen up. Now the point is, 

 how cold will I have to keep it ? It has been about 35 or 36 

 degrees since I put the bees in. My idea is that it would be 

 better to have it 38 or 39 degrees, as it is a damp cellar and 

 liable to mold the combs. What do you think about it ? 



2. I don't want my bees to swarm naturally next summer. 

 Suppose I take two brood-combs, about May 25 or the first 

 of June, from each colony, with what bees that will stay on 

 them, and put them in an empty hive, then take 6 more 

 brood-combs from each colony, shake all the bees off of 

 them and put them in with the new queen. Don't you think 

 that would be all right for a shaken swarm ? By that time 

 the old colony would have 4 combs left in a 10-frame hive. 



3. How many stories do you think a colony of bees 

 ought to have to extract from ? I extracted from the brood- 

 combs last summer, just having the lower story, and got 80 



pounds of white honey. Could I have gotten more if I had 

 on one or two mofe sets of combs ? 



4. I have a colony of bees with a super of sections on, 

 partly filled with honey, and the bees are all up in there. 

 Will the bees go down in the lower story when they eat the 

 honey, or will they stay up there and die ? 



5. A bee-keeper here told me that a colony of bees ate 

 15 pounds of honey in October, 10 pounds in November, but 

 5 or 6 pounds would last them until the middle of March. 

 How much does a good colony of bees require each month, 

 from the first of November until the first of May ? 



6. Do you think it possible to get from 250 to 300 pounds 

 of honey from one colony of bees, in one season ? It looks 

 rather big to me. 



7. Which do you think is the better to sow around in by- 

 places for bees, catnip or sweet clover ? Wisconsin. 



Answers. — 1. I think there would be less mold, and the 

 bees would do better, if you have it warmer, say about 45 

 degrees. 



2. The great trouble with the plan is that you could not 

 have queens of the best character by letting such nuclei do 

 all the work of queen-rearing. Until the young queens are 

 nearly ready to emerge from their cells, it is better to have 

 the cells surrounded by a strong force of bees. 



3. With 10 frame hives, one upper story might do if you 

 extract often enough. If you do not extract till the 

 honey harvest is over, then enough stories should from 

 time to time be added so that there would never be any lack 

 of room for storing. From this you will see that the num- 

 ber of stories depends much upon the strength of the colony 

 and the goodness of the season. One story might be enough, 

 and five might be needed. It is quite possible you might 

 have had more honey with more room. If there were no 

 objection against extracting from the brood-combs, a suffi- 

 cient one would be that there is danger of throwing larvs, 

 and of spoiling the honey by throwing out the pap of the 

 young bees. 



4. That depends. If it should be warm enough, they 

 will move down, providing, of course, that there is honey 

 below. If too cold they will die on the empty sections. You 

 could help matters by moving the hive into a warm room 

 (better at night) and giving them time to make the change, 

 of course fastening the bees in the hive with wire-cloth. 



5. There is such a variation as to make it impossible to 

 give an exact answer. The practical point is to know what 

 will be safe. While one colony might use only 10 pounds 

 of honey from the first of November till the iirst of May, 

 another may use three times as much. It will do no hurt to 

 let the first have 30 pounds, but it would do a lot of hurt to 

 give the second only 10 pounds; so the wise plan is to give 

 too much rather than too little. 



6. Oh, yes, there have been greater yields than that. 



7. Sweet clover, if the ground is to be trodden down 

 much ; I don't know which, if the ground is protected. 



Will the Bees Winter Well ? 



The year just closing has been the poorest for bees and 

 honey of any year in the past 30, to my knowledge. My 

 bees built up strong and were put in their winter " over- 

 coats " in good shape, and left on the summer stands. I 

 say in good shape, but others may differ from me in regard 

 to ventilation, which is only at the entrance, narrowed down 

 to 7 inches long by -s inch wide, and 2 inches of sawdust on 

 all sides and top. Have I done right to have the bees win- 

 ter well ? Or should I have gone around and cracked the 

 tops all loose and put something under them to give upward 

 ventilation ? I know this has been advised by many old 

 heads, but is this correct? I have my doubts, and think 

 the bees know best, else they would not be so sticky in warm 

 weather when they will persist in sticking up every crack 

 and crevice, no difference how warm the weather. And the 

 closer the top of the hive is stuck up, the warmer it will be, 

 and the more honey you will get. So? Illinois. 



Answer.— So far as possible the covers of my hives are 

 all left glued tight. But, then, my bees are wintered in the 

 cellar. If they were wintered outside, I should want some- 

 thing else than a single board over them — either under or 

 over the board — something to keep them warm. The bees 

 are warmer with all glued tight, so long as all keeps dry. 

 But if a lot of moisture from the bees should settle and 

 freeze on the cover, and should then thaw again and corne 

 dripping down on the bees, they might be worse off than if 

 the moisture had been allowed to escape. 



