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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Oct. 1, 



let it fly on the window. Be sure not to miss counting the 

 first band, tbe one toward the head, for that is not so broad as 

 the others. But in the usual acceptation of the term you can 

 hardly decide by seeing any one worker whether it is a " pure " 

 3-banded or 4-banded bee. For in a colony of hybrids you 

 may find many 3-banded bees, but you cannot say any one of 

 them Is a pure Italian or 3-banded bee, for to be pure it is re- 

 quired that not only part but all the worker progeny must 

 come up to the mark. 



3. Drones vary very much in appearance, and there is no 

 marking of the drones that would be taken as a test of pure 

 Italians. The workers are the ones to go by, the test of pure 

 Italians being the three yellow bands on all tbe workers. Of 

 course there may be an occasional black or hybrid bee in a 

 colony of pure Italians, for strange bees sometimes get into a 

 hive and become adopted as members of the family, but the 

 progeny of the queen must all show the three yellow bands. 



Dives Put on $»ingle Po§ts. 



Is there any objection to putting a hive up from tbe 

 ground on a single post. I wish to have them put up on a 

 frame nn a single post in the center, so I may keep the grass 

 cut si ort under and around the hive. If there is any objec- 

 tion to this plan I would be pleased to know it. 



W. P. W. 



Answer. — One objection is that if a swarm should issue 

 with a clipped queen, or a queen that for any reason could 

 not fly, she would not be so likely to get back into the hive. 

 Another is that heavily laden bees dropping on the ground ou 

 their return from the tields could not crawl into the hive. 

 This difficulty would be chiefly obviated by having the alight- 

 ing-board project well in front. Another objection is the diffi- 

 culty of having the support sufficiently firm. The 3 by 4 post 

 that you propose to use would have to be buried pretty deep, 

 and there might be some danger of its rotting ofif and some 

 day letting the hive topple over. Aside from the objections 

 mentioned, I know of no reason why bees might not do well 

 with their hive placed solidly on a single post. 



Two Swarms To^ellicr -Superseding — Comb. 

 Building, I^lc. 



1. I had two strong swarms of bees on June 23. one at 

 12 o'clock and the other at liJroO p.m.; both settled in one 

 cluster. I hived them in one hive on one of the old stanrts, 

 and gave them two supers. What became of one queen I do 

 not know. The other went right iLto the supers to do her 

 work. I gave them nanow starters in the brood-nest. The 

 last queen was superseded four or five days after, so the 

 queen-cells proved in the lower story. They built almost all 

 drone or honey comb. What or how could I have done to 

 separate these swarms ? 



2. What made the queen go up into the super? 



3. What made the bees supersede their queen, as she was 

 one year old ? 



4. What made them build all drone-comb in their brood- 

 chamber ? 



5. Is there any difference between drone and honey comb ? 



6. I gave one of my observatory hives a virgin queen 12 

 days old on Aug. 2, which was accepted all right. She com- 

 meni-ed to lay nn Aug. 8, and it lakes her 8 to 43'2 minutes to 

 lay one egg. Will the queen be any better later ? If not, 

 then this will be a strong argument against rearing queens 

 late in the fall or early in the spring, when they sometimes 

 cannot get out to mate (on account of bad weather) at the 

 right age? 



7. What makes bees pick at each other around their 

 wings, as if they would find something ? A. B. 



Seattle, Wash. 



Answers. — 1. You might have hunted out the two queens 

 and given part of the bees to each. After hiving the swarm, 

 If you had looked you would perhaps have found one or both 

 queens balled. Another, and an easier way I have seen rec- 



ommended, is to put the united swarm into a two-story hive 

 with combs in each story, allowing the bees to separate Into 

 two parts, each one with its own queen. But I know nothing 

 about this last plan from actual experience. 



2. When a swarm is first hived the natual tendency seems 

 to be upward, and if there is free access to the super the 

 queen is just as likely to go there as to stop in the brood- 

 chamber unless there is some inducement to stay below. With 

 only narrow starters in the brood-chamber, it may have 

 seemed to the queen just as good a place to commence house- 

 keeping in the super. If a queen-excluder bad been used, 

 then the queen could not have gone into the super. Or if the 

 super had been left off till the queen had commenced laying 

 below, there would have been no trouble. Or if a frame of 

 brood, or even a frame of empty comb had been in the brood- 

 chamber, the queen would hardly have gone above. 



3. Many a queen is superseded before she is a year old, 

 and it isn't always easy to tell why. In the present case the 

 queen may not have been in entire favor with the bees that 

 were strange to her at the time of swarming, and their dislike 

 may have continued and resulted in their killing her. Or she 

 may have been roughly handled and somewhat injured, in 

 which case she would prepare for supersedure the same as a 

 queen incapacitated from old age. 



4. The comb in the brood-chamber may not have been 

 built till after the death of the queen, and a strong colony of 

 queenless bees are not likely to build worker-comb. Even 

 with the queen in the super, the comb built below might have 

 been considered for storage only, and when bees store rap- 

 idly the surplus comb built is generally drone-comb, perhaps 

 because a given amount of wax will contain more honey if 

 drone-comb than if worker-comb. So it's a saving of time to 

 build drone-comb, and such busy creatures as bees like to 

 save both time and wax. 



5. All comb built by the bees goes under the name of 

 honey-comb. In the Bible the word means the comb and the 

 honey contained in It, and perhaps this use prevails in Eng- 

 land, but in this country, according to present usage, only the 

 wax structure is meant. Cells will be found in honey-comb 

 measuring five to the inch, and these are worker cells, while 

 drone-cells meaure four to the inch. In changing from drone 

 to worker cells a few irregular cells are built called " transi- 

 tion cells." All of these are used for storing honey as need 

 requires, but there are no cells called honey-cells meant for 

 storing honey alone, and in the sense in which I think your 

 question is meant, there is no difference between drone and 

 honey comb. 



6. A queen that doesn't commence laying till she is 18 

 days old will probably not prove to be a very good queen, pro- 

 viding conditions are favorable. If it takes her 3 to 4>i min- 

 utes to lay an egg when she first commences, that's nothing 

 strange, but if she keeps that up afterward at a time when 

 queens in general are doing good work, I wouldn't give much 

 for her. But if she turns out poor, that hardly proves any- 

 thing for or against late-reared queens. In any case a single 

 example doesn't prove much, and although as a rule a queen 

 that is long in commencing to lay turns out poor, if the delay 

 in laying is caused by bad weather or by the season of the 

 year, it is still possible that she may turn out well. I know 

 nothing about the matter from my own experience, but some 

 claim that excellent queens are reared in the fall that do not 

 commence to lay till spring. I have had some experience with 

 queens reared early in the spring, and they are not always 

 good. On the whole, I'd rather have queens that are reared 

 about the time of swarming, or at least when bees are busy in 

 the field. 



7. When a strange bee gets into a hive, the bees pick at 

 it and tease it in the way you mention. A diseased bee that 

 belongs to the colony is treated In the same way. 



