1896. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



471 



sure of it, for often a young queen is in the hive which has not 

 yet commenced laying, and such queens are great at hiding, 

 and much harder to find than laying queens. Take an empty 

 hive and put in it a brood-comb, first shaking all the bees off 

 the comb. Put a queen-excluding honey-board over the hive 

 and set over this another empty hive. Now brush off into this 

 upper hive all the bees from all the combs. They will soon 

 find their way down through the perforated zinc to the lower 

 hive, but the queen not being able to go through will be left 

 in the upper hive. If no queen is found in the upper hive, 

 the supposition is that no queen is present. 



2. Dear knows. Perhaps they have no queen. Possibly 

 there is nothing for them to do, but that can't be the trouble 

 if other colonies are doing well. Give them some young brood, 

 and if they have no queen they will start queen-cells and be 

 in better heart. 



3. Probably the best thing is to let them alone as they 

 are, and give them abundant room to store surplus. There 

 might have been some advantage in dividing earlier, but by 

 this time the bees that were in the swarms are getting pretty 

 old, for at this time of year the life of a worker is only about 

 six weeks, and after the first six weeks the colony will hardly 

 be any stronger than if there had only been one swarm. 



4. I might give detailed plans for several different hives, 



but I don't believe it would be of any value to you. You can 



buy them cheaper than you can make them, just as you can 



buy ready-made clothing cheaper than you can have it made. 



There's this difference, however: The ready-made clothing is 



not so good as that made to order, while the ready-made hives 



are better. Get the stuff ready cut, and nail the hives together 



yourself. 



^ 



Inverting Sections to Fasten Combs. 



Would it be practicable to invert the sections after they 

 are nearly completed, to cause the bees to fasten the combs 

 more securely ? If not, why not? A. M. T. 



Answer. — I think the plan has been practiced to some 

 extent, but I doubt its advisability. It makes extra work, 

 and there is no need of it, for by having bottom starters you 

 can have just as solid work. 



Trouble with Cedar Hives. 



We have bought some new cedar hives from a Tacoma 

 factory, aud the bees will not stay in them. Is the smell of 

 cedar the cause ? If so, how can we fix them so they will do 

 to keep bees in ? Is there any preparation we can use to 

 paint the inside ? S. W. B. 



Answer. — I should hardly think the smell of the wood at 

 fault, still if very strong it might be offensive, especially when 

 the hives become hot standing in the sun. As the wood be- 

 comes older and more fully seasoned, the rank odor will par- 

 tially disappear, and it is possible that heating or charring 

 them might have the same effect. Painting the inside would 

 accomplish the desired object, but the paint must be well dried 

 or it will be equally objectionable. It is possible that when 

 swarms were hived in the hives they were put in the hot suu, 

 and this alone often makes bees desert. The strong odor of 

 the wood would make the matter worse. It may be that if the 

 hives are allowed to stand in a cool, shady place the bees will 

 stay in them. 



What Caused tiie Queens' Death t 



What caused the death of the queens of two of my swarms 

 that we hived lately? They were both found dead outside, 

 with the bees iu a flurry and very cross. We put the swarms 

 into hives that were full of old comb and some honey. The 

 bees had died last winter in Ihem, but I could see no reason 

 why they were not all right. We have one swarm yet that 

 was put in as the other two, and they are all right. We lost 



the bees last February by letting them out. They flew out, 

 and with the snow on the ground and cool atmosphere, they 

 dropped down and chilled. S. W. B. 



Kendrick, Idaho. 



Answers.— It is not likely that anything in the condition 

 of the combs in the hives was at all connected with the death 

 of the queens. If the swarms were afterswarms there would 

 be nothing strange in finding one or more dead queens outside 

 the hive, for a second or later swarm may have several young 

 queens, and these are all killed but one. If the swarms were 

 first swarms, then the case is unusual. The death of a queen 

 might be by some accident. Sometimes, however, bees ball 

 and kill their own queen when it isn't easy to see any reason 

 for their doing so, but I don't think such a thing often occurs 

 at time of swarming. Strange bees getting mixed in some 

 way with the swarm might possibly be the cause of trouble. 

 But without being told anything else than that a dead queen 

 was found outside a hive just after a swarm had been hived in 

 it, I should say it was one of the supernumerary queens in a 

 second swarm. 



M I ^ 



Evaporating Thin Honey. 



I wish to thicken some honey by running it through an 

 evaporator. I think of getting one made like that illustrated 

 on page 109 of the " A B C of Bee-Culture," used by L. C. 

 Root. Will you please tell me how large the surface of this 

 evaporator over which the honey runs should be? And at 

 what temperature the water should be kept to secure the best 

 results? The honey has been extracted from combs for the 

 most part about half capped, and is not quite thick enough. 

 Later I shall have some honey which, when fully capped, is 

 thin, and though of a very fine quality, does not sell so well on 

 that account. J- H. H. 



Artesia, Fla. 



Answer. — I don't think there's any rule about it. The 

 larger the surface of course the more can be evaporated in a 

 given time. At a guess I should say 20 to 25 inches square 

 might answer your purpose. The less slant the more thor- 

 oughly the honey will be evaporated. It may be well not to 

 let the surface be heated above 160°. 



Swarm Leaving the Hive, Etc. 



I have had a bit of experience that I cannot find in the 

 bonks. One colony swarmed the middle of the afternoon ; I 

 hived them all right, and they stayed for two days in the hive, 

 when I opened it to see what they were doing, and found that 

 they were starting from the roof of the hive, all of the frames 

 having starters in them. So I put in three frames full of 

 foundation, but they swarmed shortly after that. The queen 

 is all right. What was the matter with them ? I am starting 

 on a small scale, and I would like to know all about it, so as 

 to be ready in the future. J. T. B. 



British Columbia. 



Answer. — I can only give a guess at the case. If I un- 

 derstand you rightly, instead of starting to build in the 

 frames, the bees weut up into the cover or cap which had 

 room enough to hold them. The natural thing for bees to do 

 is to go to the highest point they can reach in the hive, and 

 you should have closed the hive over the frames so the bees 

 could not get up. Then I suspect that about two days after 

 they were hived there came a very hot day, and the hot sun 

 shining directly on the roof close to where they were made it 

 so hot they swarmed out. But this is only a guess, and there 

 may have been some other reason. 



The Alsilce 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. 



