March, 1914. 



•■*1«^"P' 



American Tiee Journal 



storage room I had to resort to sec- 

 ond supers. I did not place them un- 

 der nor above tlic first one, but ex- 

 changed one-half of the full combs of 

 the first with one-half of the empty 

 combs of the second and then placed 

 the latter on top. All the empty 

 combs, below and above, were quite 

 heavy again long before the combs on 

 which bees were capping were ready 

 for the extractor. 



Taking a review of the little exper- 

 ience just related, the following facts 

 revealed themselves: During the 

 four days of experimenting each colo- 

 ny stored in the two, four times re- 

 newed combs, between 30 and 40 lbs. 

 of honey, while during the same time 

 the gain of the remaining combs that 

 were being capped, about three- 

 quarters of the super's storing sur- 

 face, was only a few pounds. This 

 demonstrated that the gain in supers 

 when bees are storing is greitly in 

 excess of the gain when ripening and 

 capping and it seemed very evident 

 that by the application of this princi- 

 ple in a general way gre.it advantage^ 

 could be obtained. If, for instance. 

 all the combs in each super had been 

 changed, the same as the two in the 

 center, and bees had stored in all at 

 the same rate, the amount gathered in 

 those four days wo\ild have been near- 

 ly four times as much or anornx-i- 

 matelv ISO pounds. Assuming thai 

 the honey flow had lasted three 

 weeks the honey gathered during ti"'- 

 time would have reached the mcdpr- 

 ate little amount of T.'iO pounds 

 Quite an item for one colony. 



Bright as this prospect seemed p* 

 first, a little doubt crent In through 

 the question: What shall we do with 

 all that green, unripe honey? This 

 question will be answered by the suc- 

 cess of mv method, which I will give 

 ?<! n contini"»tion of this article. 

 Ln Palle, N Y. 



Notes from Northern Indiana 



BY E. H. UPSON. 



THE PROBLEM of wintering i"; 

 one which taxes the ingenuity of 

 th^ beekeener in this latitude 

 ^between 40 and 41 degrees). 

 Hardlv cold enough to require 

 cellaring and hardly warm enough for 

 outdoor wintering without some sort 

 of protection. For a number of years 

 I have practiced placing a super full nf 

 dry chaff over the hrood-nest, and in 

 ordinary winters this is sufficient: but 

 when we have a winter such as 1011 

 1912, we need more protection. This 

 winter I am trying jackets of orepared 

 roofing over most of mv hives, and 

 have them so constructed that each 

 hive has a dead-air space around it. T 

 have figured that this will be an ideal 

 protection, but will await results and 

 report in the spring. 



I am wintering my bees this winter 

 in double-storv8-frame hives, and these 

 jackets extend from the bottom-board 

 up over both hive-bodies and nearly or 

 quite to the top of the chaff super, the 

 whole being co\ered with a sheet of 



galvanized metal to keep everything 

 dry. 



Our agricultural journals should 

 maintain a bee-department under the 

 management of a practical beekeeper. 

 About a vear ago I called the attention 

 of the editor of one of our leading 

 farm papers to this subject, and he 

 claimed he could not afford to pay the 

 prices for contributions equal to the 

 prices paid bv the regular bee-journals. 

 This same editor publishes articles by 

 beekeepers, but some of them are so 

 misleading as to be an injury rather 

 than a benefit to his readers. 



The season of 1913 proved to be a 

 good one for beekeepers in northern 

 Indiana, and bees are in splendid shape 

 for winter, while clover is plentiful and 

 there is a prospect of another good 

 season in 1914. 



Ubee, Ind. 



Odor and Scent in Bees 



BY DR. BRUNNICH. 



ON THIS EAGERLY discussed 

 theme I will write once more, 

 and for the last time. The abso- 

 lutely safe introduction of queens 

 was for me always, and t's unlil 

 nozc an iinsolz'ed pyoblcyyi, although I 

 have made a great many experiments. 

 I confess freely that years ago I lost 

 numerous queens with the direct meth- 

 od, so that I returned to a modified 

 cage method : The queen is caged two 

 or three days or longer in the hive, then 

 all frames with bees are powdered with 

 meal, a great many of the bees are 

 shaken, and in the midst of them the 

 powdered queen is allowed to enter the 

 hive. This method is based not only 

 on the smell theory, but also on the 

 intimidation of the bees. A perplexed 

 bee will not use its sting. But also 

 with the new method of Arthur C. 

 Miller I had losses. 



Besides a great number of experi- 

 ments in this direction I employed, 

 generally with success, is the following 

 based on the scent theory: I crushed 

 the heads and breasts of two bees with 

 a little water. With this liquid I daubed 

 the new queen and let her enter or put 

 her on a frame. It is not to be for- 

 gotten that not in a single circumstance 

 does the scent decide the good or bad 

 result, but that there are always a num- 

 ber of facts which influence it. 



I. for my part, uphold the theory that 

 it is the scent which enables the bees to 

 distinguish each other, for the follow- 

 ing reasons : Almost all of the insects 

 have an exceedinglv sharp sense of 

 smell. We know that the males of 

 butterflies will scent a female which is 

 confined in a room with closed win- 

 dows, and it is of course not only the 

 sexual odor \i\\\(:.\\ guides the male, but 

 also the odor of the species. Like the 

 Editor. I think that each colony has its 

 individual scent ; certainlv the bee has 

 a very acute sense of smell. We must 

 admit that it is this very scent which 

 makes the bees recognize each other 

 or foreign ones. 



With the scent theory we can explain 

 all the respective phenomena, if we do 

 not forget that there are still a number 

 of other influencing facts : season, time 

 of the day. honey-flow, robbing, etc. 

 Why then not accept a hypothesis, 



which is most probable, and accords 

 well with the facts ? We will never be 

 able, of course, to /rarv mathematically 

 this hypothesis; but Mr. Arthur C. 

 Miller gives no explanation at all, 

 therefore I see no reason to drop the 

 hypothesis until a better one is given. 

 I can but support all that the Editor 

 and Dr. Miller say in the February 

 number. 



An experiment which I hpve made 

 often,''and which each beekeeper can 



Feeding Bees Rye Chop as a Good Sub- 

 stitute FOR Pollen in the Spring. 



—Photographed by D. M. Bryant. 



control is the following: To a little 

 colony I united the bees of a queenless 

 nucleus, which goes very well if we 

 spray both with water with about one- 

 half percent of thymal, to cover the 

 scent. The following day I put some 

 bees, which had still remained on the 

 last place, on the alighting-board of the 

 colony, and it was interesting to ob- 

 serve the behavior of the guards. In 

 the first moment the guards rushed 

 quite hostilely against the intruder, 

 but after smelling it, retired and let it 

 enter. I cannot but assume that in the 

 first moment the guard considered the 

 bee as a stranger, but found that it was 

 one of the same bees with which the 

 colony had made friends. 



As to the last point, " requeening 

 without dequeening," I can but say 

 that my bees, as a rule, ball and kill the 

 foreign queen, and the case of their 

 oicn queen being killed is certainly an 

 exceptional one. Bui zvith the bees all 

 things are possible. 



A great many of the reported good 

 results of queen introduction are doubt- 

 ful, because the queens are often not 

 marked in an infallible manner. After 

 the experiences with the new direct 

 method, which does not differ essen- 

 tially from the old one, with my bees, 

 which are of the black race (which I 

 thought rather to be less diffident than 

 the Italians), I can say: A /rt.i7«^ queen 

 is accepted by a regular queenless col- 

 ony under difficult circumstances (/. <•., 

 dearth) in about 80 percent of cases; a 

 queen which has not produced eggs 



