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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Oct. 8, 



CONDUCTED BY 

 OH. O. O. aULLER. MAREXao, ILL, 



LQuestlons may be mailed to the Bee Journal, or to Dr. Miller direil 1 



Leaving ilic Surplus Arrangement on in Winter. 



I have some hives of bees with surplus boxes on, with a 

 little honey in. They have zinc division-boards between them. 

 If I put them in the cellar that way, would they winter as 

 well as they would without the top hive? I have plenty of 

 room in the cellar. The top hives are full of drawn comb, 

 with about 10 or 12 pounds of honey in each hive. I would 

 like to leave them on if it would be advisable. Would they 

 winter better without the bottom-boards on ? 



Verona, Ont. W. S. G. 



Answke. — Your bees will probably winter just as well 

 with the supers left on. Indeed, some think it a decided 

 advantage. If all is left glued at the top, just as the bees had 

 it, you will probably do well to leave off the bottom-boards. 

 There is hardly any danger that you will have it too open 

 below while in the cellar, but you can make very bad work by 

 having it too close. In general, I should say that if the upper 

 part of the hive is left in the cellar just as it was on the sum- 

 mer stand, that there should be a good deal more ventilation 

 below, and no harm can come from leaving it entirely open. 



Rearing Quren§— Bee« Exiiibilcd at Fairs- 

 Su arming. 



1. Regarding rearing queens in nucleus hives, you advise 

 rearing them in large colonies instead. How do you do it ? I 

 would like to rear a few queens for my own use, and want to 

 Kpep my bees gathering honey to extract. I would like to 

 increase by the nucleus plan. I don't object to feeding a few 

 nuclei, if necessary. 



2. I have a very nice queen and bees that I should like to 

 exhibit at our Fair in an observatory hive, and return after 

 ;in absence of S or 10 days. Would the bees accept them ? 

 How should I proceed ? 



3. Would you advise placing one 8-frame hive over 

 another, giving the quepn full sway, and three weeks before 

 basswood bloom put on the excluder, and expect the bees to 

 fill up with honey to extract? Would it cause swarming? 

 The queens are good ones. J. M. Q. 



Syracuse, N. Y. 



Answers. — 1. All that's necessary to rear one or more 

 queens in a strong colony is to make the colony queenless, and 

 this should be done at the time when they are getting abun- 

 dant stores. Generally the time of natural swarming is per- 

 haps the best. As you want to rear queens and increase by 

 nuclei, keeping the old colony at work gathering honey to ex- 

 tract, perhaps you may accomplish it in this way : 



Take from the colony two frames of brood with adhering 

 bees, taking the queen with them, and put in an empty hive, 

 adding two or three empty combs. A week later you will find 

 a number of sealed queen-cells in the now queenless hive. If 

 you care to have so many, you can make a nucleus for every 

 sealed cell. But don't have less than two brood-combs with 

 adhering bees in each nucleus. If you haven't so many combs 

 as you want in this one hive, you must draw from other colo- 

 nies. If you take from a colony having a laying queen, most 

 of the bees you take will go back to their old home. So take 

 away the queen from any colony you want to draw brood and 

 bees from. Do this a day or so before taking the brood, and 

 return the queen as soon as you have taken what brood you 

 want. You can now return to the old hive the queen that you 

 took away a week before, swapping the brood of the two. 

 That will make quite a respectable colony with the queen, to 

 produce for you some honey. If your work is done early 

 enough in the season, you ought to have no great difficulty in 

 building your nuclei up to good colonies for winter. 



You will do well to get Doolittle's excellent work on queen- 

 rearing. 



2. No complicated procedure is necessary. If only eight 

 days elapse, all that will be necessary will be to replace the 

 frame with the bees and queen ; but if you wait as long as 10 

 days, there is some danger that a young queen may have 

 emerged. Better destroy all sealed queen-cells about the 

 eighth or ninth day. 



3. If I catch your meaning, you would put the excluder 

 between the two stories. If the two stories were fairly occu- 

 pied at the time of doing this, you would be pretty sure to 

 have swarming. If the colony was not very strong, and if 

 you put nearly all the brood in the upper story, leaving the 

 queen below, it would work well. If the colony was strong, 

 and the two stories well filled with brood— for a strong colony 

 will kpep 10 to 14 combs filled with brood — then your better 

 plan will be to put the queen in a third story put under the 

 other two, an excluder between the first and second story. In 

 a good season you'll find the two upper stories pretty well 

 filled, and possibly the two stories may not be enough. 



What About Stingies§ <tueen§ } 



Will a queen live, and lay just as well, if she loses her 

 sting? A. P. Q. 



Cedarhome, Wash. 



Answer. — I don't know. I never had any such queen 

 that I know of, and for that matter I tever heard of any. 

 But I may give something of a guess in the case. If she lived 

 after the loss of the sting, very likely she would lay all right. 

 I have had a number of queens with only five legs, and they 

 did good work. But I think the defect was from birth. If a 

 queen should be born without a sting, I see no reason why she 

 might not be a good layer, just as a moolly cow may be as good 

 a milker as one with horns. Of course, much would depend 

 upon how she lost her sting. I can hardly imagine its loss in 

 any other way than by the act of the bee-keeper, and possibly 

 you are contemplating unstinging a lot of queens so as to have 

 them all laying in one hive. I think you might cut off the 

 end of the sting without permanently injuring the queen. But 

 if you should be successful in that respect I doubt whether 

 more than one queen would still be left in the hive. I know 

 it is the general belief that when two queens meet there is 

 always a fight, and a fight to the death, rare exceptions occur- 

 ring. It may not be the safest thing for me to express my 

 private opinion, but I am skeptical as to a fight In any case 

 between two laying queens. A virgin queen seems always 

 ready to fight with a rival, but I never saw two laying queens 

 fight, and I've had them caged together more than once. I 

 suspect it's the workers that "get up sides" and kill one or 

 other of the queens. In that case it would not help matters 

 to have the queens stingless. Of course, I'm not sure that my 

 view is correct. 



^ ■ — ■ 



€ubicai Hive— Building Cell-Cups — Cypro-Italian 

 Bce§. 



1. In what number of the American Bee Journal did the 

 letters of two bee-keepers to you appear, describing their 

 size of cubical hive? One bee-keeper was from Texas, and 

 the other from Michigan, and the size of their hives were 

 almost the same; but I can't find the number of the American 

 Bee Journal which describes the size. 



2. On July 25, I introduced an Italian queen to a colony 

 of hybrids ; a week later I opened the hive and found the 

 queen laying, but there were about ten queen-cells built. I 

 tore them off, but they continue to build cell-cups to this day, 

 and the queen seems to be all right. What is the matter with 

 them, and what shall I do ? 



3. Do you think a direct cross between a Cyprian queen 

 and an Italian drone (or vice versa) would make a desirable 

 strain for honey-gathering ? G. J. K. 



Answers. — 1. I am not able at present to turn to the 

 desired numbers, but perhaps some one else can. 



2. The first possibility is a determination to swarm, but 

 although bees sefinto swarm later and more persistently than 

 usual, it hardly seems they would keep it up from July into 

 September. The second thought that occurs is that in some 

 way the bees are not satisfied with the queen, and are deter- 

 mined to supersede her. Whether your persistently destroying 

 their queen-cells will make them change their minds is doubt- 

 ful, but it is probably the only thing that can be done. 



3. Some have spoken well of such a cross, but the ma- 

 jority would probably prefer to leave out the Cyprian blood. 



