170 



May, 1914. 



American Bac Jonrnalj 



Dr. Miller^s 



Answers^ 



Send Questions either to the office of the American Ree Journal or direct to 



Dr. C. C. Mii.i.er. Marengo. III. 



He does not answer bee-keepine questions by mail. 



How to Tell Pure Homey 



How do you tell whether honey is pure ? 

 New Jersey. 



Answer.— I don't know any way by whicli 

 a mere beekeeper like you and me can tell 

 for certain whether honey is adulterated. 

 Usually, however, if there is much adultera- 

 tion in the case, a pretty good guess can be 

 made by the taste.— [See article by Alin 

 Caillas inMarch number— Editor 1 



A Beginner's Questions 



1. Is it neces.ary for a beginner to use a 

 drone and queen trap ? 



2. Could one keep several different races 

 of bees in the same apiary ? 



3. Would you recommend the division- 

 board feeders for beginners ? 



J. What months do bees generally swarm ? 



5. What month can honey be harvested ? 



6. I have a colony of bees which I captured 

 from a bee tree. 1 have them in the cellar. 

 They have iS pounds of capped honey. They 

 seem restless, and bees come out of Ihe 

 hives and don't return. The temperature is 

 ,10 degrees where they are. What is the 

 cause of this? New York. 



Answehs.— 1. No; and the advanced bee- 

 keeper may get along very well without 



2. Unless it be for the sake of experiment- 

 ing with a different race, it is better not to 

 try to keep more than one kind. Kven with 

 only one. you may find it beyond you to 

 keep them pure; for they will mix with bees 

 as far as a mile or two away and farther. 



3. They are excellent where you do not 

 care to feed a larger amount than they con- 

 tain. 



4. In the State of New York June is the 

 greatest swarming month, with a few 

 swarms in May. some in July, and a few still 

 later. 



5. Comb honey is generally ready to be 

 harvested whenever it is fully sealed over. 

 That probably means in your locality that 

 most of it will be taken off in July and Au- 

 gust, and still later if there is a late flow. 

 The same rule applies to extracted honey, 

 only some of the best beekeepers prefer to 

 leave all on the hives until the close of the 

 season. 



6. It would be better if they were warmer. 

 Still, there are always some bees dying in 

 winter. 



Keeping Honey Liquid 



L My honey granulates very soon after it 

 is extracted and put in glass jars for retail 

 trade. I always melt it before taking it to 

 grocery stores, but in a few weeks it granu- 

 lates again and the store-keeper has the im- 

 pression it has spoiled. I put labels on tell- 

 ing them what to do with it, but it does no 

 good. The same store-keepers will buy honey 

 put up by some company while it remains 

 liquid for a year. This honey has a serial 

 number on it. Mow can this honey remain 

 liquid, have a serial number, and still an- 

 swer the pure food law ? 1 read in the Hee 

 Journal that honey that granulates shows 



it is pure. ■ ..i » 



2. Where can I buy s-ounce bottles for ex- 

 tracted honey ? New Jersey. 



Answers -I. There is quite a difference 

 in honey as to the matter of candying; some 

 of it begins to candy about as soon as it is 

 extracted, while a very few sorts may re- 

 main liquid a year or more. The honey in 



question may have been of the latter sort. 

 It is also possible that it would not come up 

 to the requirements of the pure-food law, 

 serial or no serial. Persistence on your part 

 in trying to educate the public as to the 

 purity of candied honey will probably win 

 in the long run. Indeed it might not be a 

 bad thing for you to furnish it in the can- 

 died state, and let them learn to liquefy it. 



1. Likely through any of the large dealers 

 in beesupplies. 



Good Crop in Colorado 



I started last season with n colonies of 

 bees. I secured ii8o pounds of extracted 

 honey, and have 20 colonies now. I have my 

 bees packed in straw with about 60 pounds 

 of honey left to each 



1 Is it best to keep the heavy snow shov- 

 eled ,nway from the entrance of the hives ? 



2 Will bees that are queenless go through 

 the winter when they have plenty of stores ? 



COLORAUO. 



Answers —I. Sometimes it is better to 

 h.Tve them covered up with snow, and some- 

 times not. Sometimes when covered up 

 they are too warm, and it may happen that 

 slushy snow may fill the entrances and 

 freeze there. On the whole it may be best 

 to keep the entrances shoveled open. 



2. They may; but not so well as with a 



Laying Queens and Virgins— Rearing Queens 



1. When bees are in trees 1 have read that 

 the best plan is to take the log home, pre- 

 pare a small colony or a nucleus in a mod- 

 ern hive, place the hive beside the log, put a 

 Porter bee-escape over the log, and as fast 

 as the bees come out they will go into the new 

 hive. But I don't know whether to use a 

 virgin queen or a laying queen. Which is 

 better? 



2 Is it a good plan to rear queens in the 

 same hive where there is a laying queen 

 and have them fertilized in an upper story 

 by putting a queen-excluder between ? 



3. Wouldn't I get more honey by having 

 two laying queens in a hive; first a hive- 

 body then a super, then a honey-board; 

 next a hive-body with the second queen, 

 lastly a cover. Would the two laying queens 

 fight throuijh the honey-board ? 



4. How can I rearandiniprovemy queens? 

 How are the best queens reared ? For ex- 

 ample. I have a hive of bees with a laying 

 queen. I put in cell-cups, and in them a 

 worker larva from the same hive. When the 

 new queen-cell hatches it is a virgin When 

 she takes her wedding flight she meets a 

 drone of the same hive, a drone that comes 

 from one of the eggs that her mother layed; 

 thus being her brother. 



=,. Which is the best way to rear good 

 queens? New Hampshire. 



Answers— I. The bees will feel more at 

 home with a laying queen than with a virgin 

 Instead of setting the new hive beside the 

 log hive, it might be better to set it directly 

 on top. 



2. With me the plan has generally been a 

 failure. 



3. The queens could not very well fight, 

 but I don't think you would gain by the plan. 

 One of the (lueens is likely to disappear be- 

 fore long. 



4 If virgins mate with drones from the 

 same mother, they will deteriorate; but 

 that is not likely to happen, for the virgins 

 may meet drones from other hives in your 

 apiary, or from hives a mile or so away. 



5. The first point in rearing best queens is 

 to keep record of the work of each colony, 

 and then to breed queens from the best. 

 There are different methods of rearing 

 queens, and it would be beyondthe compass 

 of this department to go into full particu- 

 lars. Such particulars were, however, given 

 as to the plan I like best and use, in a 

 former number of this journal, and also in 

 " Fifty Years Among the Bees." very fully. 



Feuding Granulated Honey- 

 Swarming 



-Prevention of 



1. I have a lotof frames full of honey nicely 

 capped and in a cool room where the tem- 

 perature goes down to zero. I presume this 

 honey is granulated. I intend to take those 

 frames in the spring and divide them among 

 my colonies as feed. Is this frozen honey 

 good; can the bees tluiu' that out or will they 

 carry the sugar out instead of using it for 

 brood-rearing? 



2. If you melt 10 frames of comb will you 

 have wax enough to produce 10 frames of 

 foundation? In producing extracted honey 

 is it always best to give foundation instead 

 of dry combs in the brood-nest ? This would 

 be an expensive outlay to buy every year 

 new foundation and not have much income 

 from the surplus old combs. 



3. I have read about concentrating the 

 brood-nest to five frames with inch starters 

 in producing comb honey. Wouldn't it work 

 to put a deep super with lu shallow extract- 

 ing frames under the comb-honey supers, 

 excluder between, and shake the bees into 

 that super with shallow frames, and at the 

 close of the honev-flow add another shallow 

 superl? This would make a divisible hive. 

 Will it work ? 



4. I always make my bees strong in spring, 

 then I add a super with shallow extracting 

 frames, no excluder. When the white 

 clover is in full bloom I shake all my bees 

 into an empty new hive with five frames and 

 inch starters, but last year I had almost as 

 many drones as workers. They also filled 

 the vacancy between the 5-inch starters and 

 the body with natural combs, as I had only 

 one division-board next to the comb. It was 

 a very disagreeable job to cut this wild 

 comb out, still I had an average of five su- 

 pers of comb honey in each hive. 



5 I also have read in " Fifty Years Among 

 the Bees " the plan to produce comb honey 

 by manipulating tivo hive bodies just before 

 the honey flow. Put excluders between the 

 two brood-nests, and in 10 days put the 

 queenless part down, cut queen-cells out. 

 and give them their queen. I have tried this 

 plan, but in a short time the bees were ready 

 to swarm again. Wisconsin. 



Answers.— I. The honey is entirely whole- 

 some, but very likely the bees will waste a 

 good deal of it by carrying out the undis- 

 solved granules. You can do something to 

 prevent that if you will go to the trouble of 

 spraying the combs with warm water by 

 means of an atomizer, first uncapping any 

 cells of honey that may be sealed. When 

 the combs are cleaned off dry by the bees, 

 they may be sprayed again. Don't begin this 

 until the bees are flying freely. 



2. Ten Langstroth brood-combs will pro- 

 duce from i'« to 2'i pounds of wax. Ten full 

 sheets of medium brood foundation will 

 weigh a little less than i!4 pounds. 



3. With shallow frames in a deep super 

 there is danger that you would have all 

 sorts of combs built to the bottom-bars in 

 the empty space. Also there would be too 

 much danger that they would not build in 

 the super given after the flow was over. 



4. Yes. you may expect too much drone- 

 comb with nothing more than inch starters. 



5. With me they are not ready to swarm 

 again in a short time, at least rarely. But 

 you made an unwarranted variation from the 

 plan given in the book. You say "just be- 

 fore the honey-flow to put excluder between 

 the two." etc. Please look again and see if 

 you will find in the book anything about 

 "just before the honey-flow." Instead of 

 that I don't operate until queen-cells are 

 started; and not then if I can stop them 



