54 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Jan. 23, 



the bees. Of course there may come another change, and the 

 next ten years may be better than the past ten. 



Your private letter e.xp!ains to me that you are near a 

 large city where there is much vacant land and plenty of 

 sweet clover. I feel more uncertain how to reply than if you 

 said you lived miles from any town or city, and yet the un- 

 certainty leads rather to the hopeful side, for without know- 

 ing anything very definitely about it, I suspect that in such a 

 place as you occupy there may be more uniformity of crops 

 than the average. I have a good deal of faith in a big lot of 

 sweet clover, and should count on rather greater uniformity 

 in its performance than in the average of honey-plants. 



As to how many colonies you should have to secure an 

 income of $500, the easiest way is to answer that I don't 

 know. But I'll give you some points upon which an answer 

 would be based. It is possible to have a crop of 100 pounds 

 or more from each colony in a good season. Supposing it was 

 comb honey and you got 15 cents a pound for it, that would 

 be $15 per colony. It is also possible to have not only no sur- 

 plus, but to have to spend .$1.00 or more per colony to get 

 the bees through winter and spring. Now averaging the 

 minus dollar with the $15 gives $7 per colony, and at that 

 rate it would require a fraction more than 71 colonies to 

 allow an expectation of $50 annually. There are the figures 

 for you, and I've confidence enough in your abilities as an 

 accountant to see that they're all straight. The old saying is 

 that figures won't lie, but between you and me this is one of 

 the cases in which they will lie egregiously. The fact is, that 

 it isn't an even chance between 100 pounds and a dead fail- 

 ure, but the failure comes oftener than the hundred pounds, 

 and when it isn't a failure it's more likely to be a low figure 

 than somewhere near the hundred mark. 



To make something of a guess guided by what has been 

 for a few years past, I should say that instead of 71 you 

 would need from 150 to 200. I'm afraid that would be 

 rather more work than you ought to undertake. I said there 

 would be no trouble on the score of strength, providing you 

 were sure of good crops every year. For in that case you'd 

 need to keep less than 100 colonies. I think you might take 

 care of that many, but more than a hundred raightswamp you. 



Now I haven't given you a very satisfactory answer, but 

 you see it's a good deal like saying how many fish you can 

 catch daily in the Chicago river. Your plan of starting with 

 two or three colonies to make the trial is the eminently wise 

 one. 



IVants Crimson Clover Seed. 



I wish a sample package of your crimson clover seed, and 

 a price-list telling how you sell it. I am thinking about going 

 into the bee-business, and if so I will sow a large field of it. 



Longtown, Minn. R. R. P. 



Answer. — Bless your heart, I haven't any seed to sell, or 

 anything else of the various things I write about that bee- 

 keepers use. But you'll find crimson clover seed at the seed- 

 stores almost anywhere. I think it has also been advertised 

 in the bee-papers. [No doubt very soon there will appear in 

 the advertising columns of the Bee Journal, notices from 

 various seed-firms, to whom all should apply if you desire any- 

 thing in the seed line. — Editors.] 



Tivo Questions and Two Guesses. 



I use the dovetail hive with Hoffman self-spacing frames. 

 I packed my bees in dry leaves about the middle of November, 

 by making a rough box large enough to hold three hives, put- 

 ting a stroug colony on each outside and a nucleus in the cen- 

 ter, setting them close together. The box was large enough 

 to pack three or four inches of leaves between it and the 

 hives. There is a tunnel at the entrances of the hives. 



1. A week or ten days after I packed my bees, I found 

 one of the queens dead on the alighting-board in front of the 

 hive. What caused her death ? 



2. One of my neighbors had a large colony of bees, and 

 he found them all dead a few days ago. They were on the 

 summer stands, and had lots of honey. What caused their 

 death ? E. B. T. 



Wallaceton, Pa., Dec. 31. 



Answers. — 1. This is another of those questions which 

 can only be answered by a guess without more particulars. 

 It's very much like giving a doctor a question like this : " A 

 man was found dead on Jan. 5, in Chicago. What caused his 

 death?" The manner of packing may and may not have had 

 something to do with the queen's death. For if the entrances 



were very close together, and especially if the position of the 

 hives at the time of packing was so changed as to throw bees 

 into the wrong hives, then the strange bees may have had 

 something to do with the death of the queen. 



2. Another conundrum to be answered only by a guess. 

 One of the most probable guesses is that the colony was queen- 

 less, and without the owner's having noticed it, it had grad- 

 ually become reduced in numbers until almost all gone, and 

 then the first cold-snap finished the few very old bees that 

 were left. 



^ 



Bees Tlirowinj? Out their Young. 



In September I had a colony of bees that would carry out 

 the young ones of their hive, some of them being dead and 

 some alive. What was the cause ? G. E. L. 



Morocco, Ind. 



Answer. — It might be the work of worms. The worms 

 burrow their way along the base of the cells, and in digging 

 after them the bees throw out the brood and young bees. 

 Probably the brood is injured by the worms, and that of itself 

 would make the bees throw it out. 



A Queen tbat Left the Hive in Winter Out-Doors. 



I was puzzled yesterday, while passing through my apiary, 

 when I noticed the hive-cover had been left on the ground, 

 and on it was my best golden Italian queen (a clipped one). 

 She was cold and unable to crawl. She had been out all night 

 in a heavy rain and wind. I recognized her as the queen of 

 hive No. 6, by the manner in which I had clipped her wing. I 

 had not handled her hive for several days, and cannot account 

 for her leaving the hive. Her colony is a good one, with 

 plenty of stores. I put the queen back into her hive, and the 

 bees balled her immediately. This was at 9 a.m., Dec. 24. 

 At sundown I looked after her, and saw she was yet in a ball 

 of bees. At 9 a.m. to-day (Dec. 25) I found her all right. 

 Have you any idea why she left the hive ? Subscriber. 



Answer. — I don't know. If any of the brethren or sisters 

 know, such an one will please take the floor. 



Several Eggs in a Cell — Queens Carrying 

 Brood — Hive and Frame Dimensions. 



Foul 



1. I wish to know what is the matter, or what caused the 

 queens in two of my colonies to lay five or six eggs in one cell 

 when there was plenty of room in the brood-nest. Was she 

 too old ? She was not a drone-layer, for what eggs hatched 

 and matured produced workers, and the queens were nice, 

 large ones. I have several good bee-books, and can't find a 

 case like it described. 



2. Will I have to requeen them in the spring ? 



3. Do you think queens from foul-broody colonies would 

 carry the disease ? 



4. What are the dimensions of the inside of the standard 

 Langstroth hive, and the length of the top-bar of the Hoffman 

 brood-frame ? D. E. D. 



Whittington, Ind. 



Answers. — 1. With just the light you give on the case I 

 should suspect that there were too few bees to cover enough 

 brood to suit the queen. She will not lay outside of the space 

 covered by the bees, and if the bees are too few there is noth- 

 ing but for her to lay a second time in the same cell. 



2. If the plurality of eggs in a cell came from the small 

 number of bees, it's rather an indication of a good queen, and 

 no indication that she should be replaced. 



3. I think no one has yet reported a case in which the 

 disease was carried by the queen, and a number of cases have 

 been reported in which a queen from a foul-broody colony was 

 given to a healthy colony with no bad results. That's pretty 

 strong evidence, if not entirely conclusive, that the disease 

 will not be carried by a queen. 



4. I suppose the dovetail is as nearly a standard Lang- 

 stroth as anything, and the inside measure of that is lS?aX- 

 12 Js, and O^.l inches deep. The top-bar of Hoffman frame is 

 19J< inches. 



%W I firmly believe that better results can be obtained 

 where bees swarm, than would be the case if we could breed 

 out the swarming trait. — Doolittle. 



