442 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



July 9, 



of room, and keep the honey constantly extracted, and in 

 many cases there will be no attempt at swarming. This will 

 give you the largest returns in honey with no increase, pro- 

 viding the early or white clover and linden harvest is the only 

 source of honey. If, however, the fall flow is considerable, 

 possibly the chief harvest, then you may get better returns by 

 having the bees swarm early so as to have a double force 

 working on the late harvest. 



If you work for comb honey instead of extracted, then the 

 problem of keeping down swarming with its consequent in- 

 crease is a very difficult one. Large hives may do something 

 toward it, but in spite of all you do the bees are likely to 

 swarm. Perhaps the best way for you to do is to count on 

 having the bees swarm once. Then hive the swarm on the 

 old stand, setting the old hive a little to one side to make 

 place for it. In five or seven days remove the old hive to a 

 new location, perhaps 10 feet or more away, and the result of 

 this removal will be that all the field-bees from the old hive, 

 when they return from gathering in the fields, instead of re- 

 turning to the old hive, will go straight to the spot where it 

 formerly stood, and join the swarm. The swarm thus 

 strengthened will give you the crop of honey, and if the sea- 

 son is very good there may be some yield from the old colony, 

 especially if there is a fall flow. 



If increase is your object, there are several ways of man- 

 aging. One way is to let the bees swarm naturally, and hive 

 the swarm on a new stand. Then hive all after-swarms, if 

 any there be, and if some of them are very weak, give them a 

 frame or two of brood from the first swarm. Sometimes, how- 

 ever, bees refuse to swarm, in which case you may use one of 

 the different plans for artificial increase. Here's one way : 

 Take two frames of brood and bees with the queen, and put 

 them into an empty hive on a new stand, but don't do this till 

 about the time they ought to swarm naturally, say about the 

 beginning of clover harvest. Then not more than nine or 

 ten days later, you can divide the contents of the old hive, 

 putting brood, bees and queen-cells in two or more hives. Two 

 frames of brood well covered with bees will make a fair nu- 

 cleus. In this way your original colony can be increased to 

 three, four or more. How well they come out will depend on 

 the season, the original strength of the colony and the amount 

 you feed when they can gather nothing. 



Probably the best thing to do with drones is to let them 

 alone and prevent too many being reared by having very little 

 drone-comb in the hives. You can cut out the drone-comb 

 and put patches of worker-comb in its place, and you can 

 have all new combs built on worker foundation. 



Bees left to themselves will generally send out one swarm 

 in a season, often sending out a second swarm, sometimes a 

 third, fourth, and even a fifth and sixth swarm. 



Keeping Bee-Eggs and Royal Jelly. 



whether the bees would go on making use of it when returned. 

 Your questions have a direct practical bearing, for if either 

 eggs, or queen-cells containing larvK, can be safely kept out 

 of the hive, then they can be sent by mail. 



1. How long will an egg keep, or is there no " keep" to 

 an egg ? Must it be in condition to hatch, or become dead ? 



2. How long will royal jelly keep, to be of good use ? 



Of course, I mean queen-eggs — if they can be kept as one 

 would keep hen's eggs a certain limit, and then be put in con- 

 dition to hatch. A. J. W. 



Answers. — 1. I don't know just how long an egg will 

 keep, but I'm afraid from a very little experimenting that I've 

 done in that direction that there's practically " no keep " to a 

 bee's egg. When it gets so old that it will not hatch, of course 

 it is practically dead. 



2. I don't know whether any experiments have ever been 

 tried as to the keeping qualities of royal jelly, but I should 

 have some faith that it might be kept safely out of the hive 

 for a day or two. You can try the experiment by taking from 

 the hive a queen-cell containing a grub and well supplied with 

 jelly, keeping it out of the hive for a time, and then seeing 



iONGTlltlltrtAPHft 



"Strawlets" Gleaned from "Gleanings." 



Centralblatt says foul brood spores can give the disease 

 after being kept seven years. 



Great Britain, says British Bee Journal, imported ia 

 1895 honey to the value ot $200,0(.»0. 



M. S. Thibant, editor of La Progres Apicole, says honey is 

 used in the manufacture of all the best toilet soaps. 



In France there is complaint that honey granulates too 

 slowly this year, making consumers suspect its genuineness. 



Gravenhorst says he has often had laying workers in the 

 same colony with virgin queens, the laying workers disappear- 

 ing when the queens commenced business. 



Total sugar consumed in U. S. in '95, 8,899,488,000 

 lbs. — just about 60 lbs. for every man, woman, and child. 

 Wouldn't the nation be stronger if one pound out of ten had 

 been honey ? 



Brood-frames filled with foundation usually have a space 

 of ^-inch left at the sides. Is that desirable when the frames 

 are wired ? I have a lot of combs built on foundation that 

 touched the end-bars, and it seems to work perfectly. 



I've been anxious for a genuine sample of sweet clover 

 honey. I got some from Editor York that's reliable. Smells 

 distinctly like sweet clover seed. I didn't like it much at 

 first, but it grows on acquaintance. I'd like a crop of it. 



Normally, no bee less than two weeks old works in the 

 field, and no bee more than three weeks old does housework ; 

 but if necessary a bee five days old can forage, and it can 

 tend baby and build comb when more than six months old. 



De Layens reports in L'Apiculteur a thorough series of 

 experiments which seems to show that bees ventilate, not to 

 cool the hive, but to evaporate the honey. Tbe number of 

 fanners early in the morning was in proportion to the flow of 

 honey. 



When talking about the danger of missing queen-cells in 

 cutting them out, bear in mind that it makes a big difference 

 whether you cut out after natural swarming or after removal 

 of queen without swarming. In t'ne latter case the cells are 

 much harder to find. 



Unite a swarm having a virgin queen with a colony hav- 

 ing a fecundated queen, whether she lays or not, and Graven- 

 horst says the bees with the virgin queen will be killed. But 

 remove the virgin queen and sprinkle the bees with salt 

 water, flour, etc., and all will be well. 



When it comes to adulteration of wax, America must 

 take a back seat for Germany. Much has been said about the 

 adulteration of foundation ; and now comes. an enterprising 

 firm at Cologne, boldly advertising Gewerbe-wachs (trade-wax) 

 of three grades, at 18, 25, and 61 cents a pound. The best 

 is % beeswax ; the cheapest is pure Gewerbe-wachs. 



Renewal of queens. Herr Strutz says in Centralblatt that 

 he thinks strong colonies usually renew their queens annually 

 at the close of harvest, and that prime swarms do the same. 

 That may be partially true; for, naturally, a queen that had 

 laid heavily throughout the season would be more likely to be 

 superseded than one whose laying room had been limited. 



A seedsman in Kent, England, as reported in British Bee 

 Journal, banished bees from his neighborhood because of 

 crossing his seeds ; but when he found the seeds were insuf- 

 ficiently fertilized he was glad to get the bees back. [It is the 

 same old story over again, and yet some won't be convinced. 

 Keep such stories, as long as they are true, afloat. — Ed.] 



