jSpUs^^ 



jJ^BUlCA-^ 



43d YEAR. 



CHICAGO, ILL, MAY 28, 1903, 



No, 22. 





Editorial Comments 



] 



Get Kiel of Vicious Bees.— Sometimes it happens thai cross 

 bees attack you whenever you enter the apiary, and careful observa- 

 tion may show that the cross bees all come from one colony. Kill its 

 queen, and replace her with one of Rentier stock. If your bees seem 

 generallj' cross, even when there is no occasion for it, as during a full 

 flow of nectar, better introduce new and better-natured blood. 



Brace-ComBs in Sections are objectionable. Some bees are 

 worse than others at such work, and when a colony shows itself par- 

 ticularly bad, care should be taken that at least there be no breeding 

 from it. But be sure that you do not lay the blame on the bees when 

 they are innocent. When bees are crowded for room, any bees may 

 be forced to build unnecessary brace-combs, so be sure that they have 

 plenty of super-room. 



The Correct Use of Bee-Terms, at least of a few of them, 

 is a matter of more or less perplexity to those not familiar with them. 

 An egg in a cell hatches out into a larva. Larva is the singular, 

 larva the plural ; one larva, two or more larvce. Larval is the adjec- 

 tive; as •■ bees in the larval state." .N'ucleus is the singular, )nu-lei the 

 plural ; one nucleus, two or more nuclei. When used as an adjective 

 nucleus is the word; nucleus plan, not nuclei plan of increase, no mat- 

 ter if a hundred nuclei are used. 



Testing Barrels for Leaks. — Some discussion upon this 

 point has occurred in Gleanings in Bee-Culture and the American Bee- 

 Keeper. It appears there are different ways. If you blow into a bar- 

 rel, a leak may be located by a hissing sound. The use of a pump, 

 such as cyclers use for inflating tires, makes the blowing easier and 

 stronger. The same hissing sound occurs if the lips be applied to the 

 bung-hole and the air drawn out instead of blown in, and, perhaps, 

 greater force can be used in this way. N. E. France suggests a plan 

 still easier, if you already know the particular point to be tested. 

 Apply moisture to the spot, then blow into the barrel. It there he any 

 .hole, the slightest blowing will show it by means of the bubbles that 

 appear. ______^_^^ 



Transferring Liarvse into Queen-Cells is a thing that 

 any novice may undertake, and he is likely to be delighted to find 

 what an easy thing it is to do. The only tool needed is a i|uill tooth- 

 pick, or, perhaps better, a tooth-pick cut from a joint of timothy 

 grass. When you find queen-cells started in any colony, after brush- 

 ing the bees off the comb dip out the larva, and then be sure to wipe 

 it off the end of yoiu- pick. Having obtained a comb of young tirood 

 from your best queen, dip out a small larva — one not more than a day 

 or two old — and place it in the same place from which you have 

 already removed the larva in the queen-cell. 



It is not easy to dip a larva out of the bottom of a worker-oell of 

 full depth, so break down the cell-walls sufKcieutly for that puriiose. 

 When you have transferred the larva, mark the cell by thrusting in 

 above it a wire-nail I34 or 1'., inches long. In this way proceed with 

 all the queen-cells you And in the hive. Nine days later cut out the 

 queen-cells and use them where wanted. 



l>o Old Combs Aft'cct Surplus Honey ?— There is no 



question, probably, that they may have some effect upon either comb 

 or extracted honey. Whether they always do, and to what extent, 

 are separate questions. For ordinary purposes, old combs do very 

 well for extracted honey, although it is possible that the honey may 

 be very slightly darkened when stored in cells that have been used for 

 brood-rearing. But after having been once extracted from, if not 

 again used for breeding purposes, they ought to be as good as if never 

 used for breeding, with the advantage of being tougher. 



As to comb honey, however, the influence of old, black combs may 

 be emphatically bad. Let such a comb face a frame filled with sec- 

 tions, and you may confidently count that some of the cappings of 

 the sections will be very dark, the black wax being apparently carried 

 over from the brood-comb to the sections. If sections be placed over 

 black combs, the bees may be relied on to carry up some of the black 

 comb, if the distance be not too great. This explains the reason for 

 whiter sections when a honey-board or excluder is used between the 

 brood-chamber and sections. The same whiteness is claimed by the 

 use of thick top-bars. ' 



Feeding Meal in Spring.— Feeding some kind of meal in the 

 spring as a substitute for pollen is perhaps more common in England 

 than in this country. John M. Hooker, a man held in high esteem 

 among British bee-keepers, who is now in this country, offers the fol- 

 lowing note of warning in the American Bee-Keeper: 



I tried the feeding of pea-meal in England, where, at one time, its 

 use was advocated by many, but only in exceptional districts is 

 it now used, where little or no early pollen can be obtained in the 

 natural way until much later in the season. It was found that many 

 of the combs were half tilled with this meal, honey being placed on 

 the top of it and sealed over, having both the weight and appearance 

 of being full of honey. Little honey, however, was obtained from 

 them in the extractor, and the pollen-bound combs had to be melted 

 down. Sometimes the bees will bite away the comb down to the mid- 

 rib, and roll the hard masses of meal out at the entrance, and the 

 labor and time occupied in doing this is considerable. I have seen 

 this occur in my own apiary. 



Watery Sections of Honey, or those whose cells are filled so 

 full of honey that there is no air-space between the honey and the 

 cappings, are very undesirable. The best way — perhaps the only way — 

 to avoid them, is to avoid the bees that make them. Two colonies 

 may stand side by side, working on the same flowers, and one will 

 store honey of snowy whiteness, while the sections of the other will 

 look so dark and watery as to bring two or three cents less in price. 

 If you observe closely, you may find in the same apiary some colonies 

 that make sections distinctly whiter than those made by any other 

 colony in the apiary. Breeding from such a colony, if the bees are 

 desirable in other respects, will whiten your future sections. 



Straining Foreign Particles Out of Wa.\. — Some who 

 use solar extractors may take advantage of a plan given in the British 

 Bee Journal. Take the wax that has been extracted in the usual way 

 and put in fine muslin and return to the extractor. As it melts the 

 debris will remain in the cloth, while the pure wax will slowly ooze 

 through. 



Introducing Queens at Swarming-Time is recommended 

 by the Modern Farmer and Busy Bee. A few days before a swarm 

 issues, place the new queen, caged, in the hive, where the bees have 

 free access to her; then, after the swarm has issued, arrange the cage 

 so the bees can liberate the new <iueen by eating out the candy. 



