1896. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



151 



she soon disappears. It is doubtful whether there is any 

 known way to have two queens laying permanently on the 

 same combs. In England what is known as the Wells hive is 

 used, and a good deal has been said about it. Practically, if 

 I understand the matter rightly, it is a large hive with a per- 

 forated division-board through the center, the perforations 

 being burned through, and not large enough to allow the 

 passage of a worker. Perforated zinc over the top prevents 

 the queens from going up, and there is a queen on each side. 

 The workers of each side work peaceably together in the 

 super. Some report good success with this hive, acd others 

 say they get better results by having the queens in two sep- 

 arate hives. 



I have some doubts whether you would find any real ad- 

 vantage in it, even if you could get two queens to work per- 

 manently side by side. One trouble with the Wells hive is 

 that when one side swarms the other side is likely to follow its 

 example. Very large colonies of bees have been found with 

 single queens, and it is just possible that the size of your hives 

 has something to do with the number of bees present. If the 

 hive is so small that the queen hasn't room enough to lay all 

 she would, then you would have no more bees in that hive if 

 40 queens were present. 



I might say in this connection that in several cases I have 

 had two queens (mother and daughter) laying in the same hive 

 at the same time, and I've left them so, but I never noticed 

 that such a hive was filled with bees beyond the average. 



2. Kill the black queen two or three days before uniting. 

 Then dump them all (blacks and Italians) into the same hive, 

 getting them all mixed up together, giving them some smoke, 

 and half an hour later give them theircombs. If any fighting 

 is seen, smoke till they promise to behave. 



3. If you keep your queens clipped, no prime swarms will 

 go to the timber. When a swarm issues, hive the swarm on 

 the old stand after first removing the old hive to a new stand. 

 That will so weaken the old colony that a second swarm is 

 not likely. But some say this is not always efiectiye. It will 

 be more effective if you set the old hive close beside the swarm, 

 after hiving the swarm on the old stand, and then a week 

 later move the old hive to a new stand. Then in the spring 

 unite until you have the desired number. 



Unusual Actions of a Queen. 



Last summer I ordered a queen from an Ohio breeder. 

 When she arrived I introduced tier to a queenless colony, not 

 very strong — it contained about 4 or 5 frames — and filled a 

 10-frame Langstroth hive about half full. The next morning, 

 when I opened the hive, I found the bees hard at work trying 

 to get her out, so I opened the cage and set it down on the bot- 

 tom of the hive. The bees rushed right into the cage, and 

 they kept on running in and out, and quite a number of the 

 bees covered the bottom of the hive, standing with their heads 

 down and fanning. After awhile the queen came out and ran 

 in amongst the bees and commenced fanning like a worker- 

 bee ; she fanned there for about half a minute, and then ran 

 toward the combs. Is this a common occurrence for queens ? 

 I have never seen one act that way. F. B. 



Searsboro, Iowa. 



Answeb. — A queen does not usually act in that way. She 

 hardly ever moves her wings as you see her moving over the 

 combs, even when she travels pretty rapidly, but sometimes 

 when there is special cause for excitement she moves in a 

 different way, making her wings go as if trying to fly, but 

 hardly just like a worker ventilating. Still, they sometimes 

 look a good bit like it. 



Wants to Know if It is Sweet Clover. 



I have seen so much about sweet clover that I should like 

 to know if it is what we have. It is a biennial, and makes 

 quite a growth the first year, but no blossoms. The next 

 spring the roots look very much like a parsnip, a foot long, 

 and one inch to an inch and half thick at the crown. I have 

 pulled them up, and they will keep a long time out of 

 the ground, the same as parsnips. We set out a row in the 

 kitchen garden last spring, four feet apart ; they made a very 

 rapid growth, and blossomed early. They branched from the 

 bottom, and every branch is a blossom, and as it grows it 

 forms seeds, and the ends are blossoms. The branches are 

 from two to three feet, and the main stalk is from five to six 

 feet tall, and branches clear to the top. 



I would as soon think of feeding my cow on a brusb-pile. 

 If cut for the cow it would have to be cut before it branched, 



then it would be of no use to the bees. Our bees work on it 

 early and late. It is covered in the fall with seeds and blos- 

 soms, and it takes a very hard frost to kill it. It will not 

 grow here unless cultivated. Bee-keepers could make it pay 

 to grow it for the seed if they had a market for it, as I should 

 think it would yield a pint of seed to a root. H. N. L. 



South Warren, Maine. 



Answer. — One cannot be certain from your description 

 whether sweet clover is the plant you have or not. While the 

 roots are quite large, one would hardly compare the roots 

 to parsnips. If the plant will not grow without cultivation it 

 can hardly be sweet clover. The fact that your cow will not 

 eat it settles nothing one way or the other. Cattle will not 

 eat sweet clover that are not used to it, neither will they eat 

 alfalfa. Look on page 805 of this Journal fo.' 1S95, and the 

 picture there given may help you to decide. 



Italianizing — Foundation for Sections — Finding 

 Black Queens. 



I have a few colonies of bees and would like to Italianize 

 them ? 



1. What time would you advise me to purchase my 

 queens, and where ? 



2. I shall have to buy some foundation, and would like to 

 have you tell me (by putting full sheets of foundation into 

 each section) how many ought a pound to fill, using medium 

 surplus foundation ? 



The principal honey-flow is in the spring. 



3. What is a good way to find a blacl< queen in the hive 

 when I want to Italianize the colony ? C. S. W. 



Answers. — 1. Perhaps you'll do well not to try to Ital- 

 ianize too early. You can't get queens very early without 

 paying more for them, and it is not quite so easy to have a 

 queen accepted kindly, and if you lose a queen early in the 

 season the loss is more serious than later. Wait till June. 



As to where to get queens, that belongs rather in the ad- 

 vertising columns than here. Other things being equal, it is 

 better to get from breeders not too far away, although when 

 queens are sent by mail it doesn't make such a great differ- 

 ence about distance. Now-a-days they are sent safely thou- 

 sands of miles in the mails. 



2. By " medium surplus" I suppose you mean what is 

 classed in the trade as " thin." A pound of this will make 

 full sheets for about 100 4Jix4ii sections. 



3. There is no short cut toward finding a queen. You've 

 got to look till you find her. Don't use much smoke or you'll 

 set the bees to running, and then it's very hard to find a queen. 

 You'll be likely to find her on one of the combs that contain 

 trood. If you don't find her after looking two or three times 

 over the combs, the likelihood is that you'll not find her if you 

 keep on for half an hour. But if you close the hive and 

 come back in half an hour, you may find her then first thing. 



Honey as Food and Medicine.— A new and revised 

 edition of this 33-page pamphlet is now issued. It has 5 blank 

 pages on which to write or paste recipes taken from other sources. 

 It is just what its name indicates, and should be liberally dis- 

 tributed among the people everywhere to create a demand for 

 honey. It contains a number of recipes on the use of honey as 

 food and as medicine, besides much other interesting and valuable 

 information. Prices, postpaid, are: Single copy, 5 cts. ; 10 copies 

 35 cts. ; 50 for ?1.25 ; 100 for -$3.00. Better give them a trial. Send 

 all orders to the Bee Journal ofHce. 



Back PJunitoers. — We have on hand a few back 

 numbers of the Bee Journal for 1895, which we will mail to 

 any one wishing them at 15 copies for 20 cents. They will all 

 be different dates, but we have no complete sets for the year. 

 Just send us 20 cents in stamps or silver, and we'll send you 

 15 copies. No doubt there are many new subscribers who 

 will be glad to take advantage of tliis offer. 



Xlie Alsike Clover Leaflet consists of 2 pages, 

 with illustrations, showing the value of Alsike clover, and 

 telling how to grow it. This Leaflet is just the thing to hand 

 to every farmer in your neighborhood. Send to the Bee Jour- 

 nal office for a quantity of them, and see that they are dis- 

 tributed where they will do the most good. Prices, postpaid, 

 are as follows : 50 for 25 cents ; 100 for 40 cents ; or 200 



for 70 cents. 



■*-'-* 



li^" See "Bee-Keeper's Guide" offer on page 159. 



