OCTOBER 15, 1912 



Heads of Grain from Different Fields 



Beginner's Questions 



1. Must there be two queens to swarm? 



2. How may honey be extracted from frames ? 

 I have only a few colonies and do not want to 

 buy an extractor. 



3. Do bees breed all the year? 



4. How many frames of honey should be left 

 in a good strong hive for wintering? 



5. How often should one inspect his hive to see 

 if all is going well ? 



6. If the comb in frames is old, should it be 

 cut out and let them build fresh comb ? What is 

 the best time to do this? How often should it 

 be done ? 



7. What will the bees do when all the frames 

 and supers are full? 



8. Tliis year I bought a hive with bees in it; 

 and when it arrived the supers were in a box 

 with some bag cloth over one end. What is this 

 for? 



9. What months are the best for honey? 

 Philadelphia, Pa., July 1. J. Sweeney. 



[1. When a prime swarm — that is, the first 

 swarm of a normal colony in a season, issues, it 

 is accompanied by the old queen, and there is 

 left for the parent colony, so called, ripe queen- 

 cells from which will come a virgin which, after 

 being mated, will become the mother of the colony. 



2. It is difficult to extract honey from frames 

 without a honey-extractor. You can shave the 

 cappings off, place the comb in a horizontal posi- 

 tion in a warm room, and drain the honey out, 

 turning first one side and then the other to the 

 screen on which the comb rests, but this is a slow 

 process, and you can not get all the honey out. 



3. In some localities there is more or less 

 brood-rearing going on nearly the whole year ; 

 but in your locality the queen slows up on egg- 

 laying after the main honey-flow is over, and, by 

 early fall, has almost or entirely ceased. At such 

 times she may be stimulated to further egg-laying 

 by stimulative feeding, so as to make sure of a 

 good force of young bees to go into winter quar- 

 ters. Colonies wintered in a cellar are unlikely to 

 begin brood-rearing along in the spring, while those 

 wintered outdoors in your locality probably would 

 not begin before March. 



4. There is no definite number of frames of 

 honey that should be left for a colony during the 

 winter, for it depends upon the strength of the 

 colony and also upon the place where the colony 

 is wintered as to how much honey is needed. For 

 a colony wintered in a packed hive outdoors, from 

 20 to 25 pounds should be left in the hive, and 

 this means that there should be some honej' in 

 the upper part of the combs with considerably 

 more in the outside combs on each side. Perhaps 

 three inches of honey in the upper parts of the 

 central combs would be sufficient, provided the 

 two outside combs on each side were nearly full. 



5. Do not open a hive oftener than is necessary; 

 that is, do not open unless you have reason to 

 think something is wrong or needs your attention. 



6. If the comb is straight and good, with but 

 very few drone-cells, there is no particular need 

 of renewing it unless there is danger of disease 

 lurking in it. The fact that it is old and black 

 makes no particular difference, for this color al- 

 ways comes after a few generations of brood have 

 been reared. 



7. If all the available space for storing honey 

 in the brood-chamber and super is taken up, the 

 bees will probably hang out on the front of the 

 hive, and will very likely cast a swarm a little 

 later. Such a condition of affairs is conducive 

 to swarming. It is needless to say that such a 

 state of affairs should be prevented. 



8. We can not say what this box covered with 

 burlap is used for. Very likely it is merely a re- 

 ceptacle to keep the bees away from the supers. 

 If it is a shallow box, it may be the chaff tray 

 for use in winter. 



9. If you mean what months are the best for 

 the secretion of nectar, we will say that this will 

 depend considerably upon your individual locality. 

 If you depend mainly on white clover, we will say 

 that in the latter part of June you will get your 

 main honey-flow. If you have other honey-produc- 

 ing plants coming later, such as buckwheat, gol- 



denrod, aster, etc., then these will come in their 

 own seasons. The best way to find out particulars 

 in this respect is to inquire of some old beekeeper 

 living near you. — Ed.] 



Building a Support for Packing Over a Row of 

 Hives 



When getting ready to pack my bees for win- 

 ter I build a board wall about three feet high. 

 then place my hives on their summer stands in 

 front of this wall side by side, leaving about four 

 inches of space between the back of the hives and 

 wall, and place the hives as close as they will 

 stand and yet have room tb work packing between 

 them. I then use a ten-inch board to make a 

 shelter in front, securing it bear the top of the 

 homestead, giving a slope sufficient to run the 

 water off; and from this boatd I build up high 

 enough so that, when the roof is on, it will slope 

 back. 



In placing the bees I leave the super on, and 

 use a burlap or something of that kind to cover 

 the bees; but under this I place two or three small 

 corncobs across the frames half an inch apart. 

 This gives the bees free access to all the stores. 

 I fill the supers with oat chaff, put on the cover, 

 and then fill the space back of and between, and 

 in front and above, with autumn leaves well packed 

 in, and then put on the roof. Now they stand 

 facing the east, all well protected except in front 

 of the homestead, and that sheltered with a ten- 

 inch board. 



I fill the space under this board with straw well 

 packed in. This gives ventilation, keeps out the 

 snow, and is easily removed at any time when 

 the mercury runs up to 45 ; and the straw scat- 

 tered out in front of them makes a good alighting- 

 place. When spring comes it is safe to leave them 

 in their winter quarters until severe weather is 

 over. 



I have tried wintering in the cellar, but do 

 not have as good success as with the above plan. 



Milo, Iowa. B. A. Manley. 



Bees of a Laying-worker Colony Desert Their 

 Own Combs for Combs Having a Laying Queen 



With reference to your reply to P. B. Fenner, 

 Aug. 15, p. 523, I should like to relate my experi- 

 ence with "laying workers." I had two strong 

 colonies with "laying workers. After trying un- 

 successfully three times to introduce queens I took 

 a laying "queen with two of her own frames of 

 brood and bees, and placed her in an empty body 

 (filling up the extra space with empty combs) ; then 

 I put this body with the frames over one of the 

 colonies of laying workers, using an empty body 

 between the laying workers and the new queen. 

 It was not long before the laying-worker colony 

 deserted the combs and joined forces with the new 

 queen. This experiment proved successful in case 

 of both colonies. It is possible that a queen-cell 

 would do instead of the laying queen; but I can 

 not vouch for it, as I have not had a colony of 

 laying workers to experiment with since the two 

 mentioned above. 



Calabasas, Cal., Sept. 3. James K. Hbdstrom. 



Brood that Hatched in Spite of Having Been Under 



Water 



I have noticed some reference lately to the 

 amount of cold that brood will stand without 

 chilling. I had some experience this summer 

 along that line that indicates to me that it will 

 stand considerable. 



On the night of July 21 a big thunderstorm 

 passed over here, and it rained heavily — so heavily 

 that the irrigation ditch overflowed. Our bees hap- 

 pened to be so located that about 20 colonies be- 

 came flooded, a number of them being under water 

 nearly to the top of the brood-frames. As there 

 were supers on most of tiie hives the bees man- 

 aged to keep above water. However, the strange 

 part of it is, this brood that must have been sev- 

 eral hours under water did not get chilled, for I 

 found only a very few larvae carried out. Most of 

 the brood was capped, and it hatched all right. 

 One colony that was nearly submerged has made 



