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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



J^'nv. 5, 



thicknesses) over this hole on one side of the plank (which 

 may as well be cleated for fear of warping). That's the whole 

 plant. At feeding-time go around with a bucket of water, 

 with a little tio measure in it, in one hand, and a bucket of 

 sugar, with a correspondingly sized tin measure in it in the 

 other hand. Gently raise the hive-cover lid ; take up the 

 glass jar, put in a measure of sugar, then one of water, stand 

 it on the quilt, and go on to the next hive. Your assistant, who 

 follows you, picks up the jar which you filled, takes the 

 cheese-cloth lid off the cage, claps it over the jar's mouth, in- 

 verts the whole suddenly, places it on the cage, puts on the 

 hive's lid, and follows you to the next. It takes an hour to 

 feed 100 colonies in this way. S. D. 



South Africa. 



Answer. — So far as I know, the crock-and-plate method 

 of feeding you mention — without first dissolving the sugar- 

 had never been used until about a year ago, and is the logical 

 outgrowth of percolating instead of cooking sugar syrup. If 

 you give the matter an actual trial, I think you will find it 

 simpler merely to take a crock large enough to hold all the 

 feed needed at one filling, put a cloth over it, an inverted 

 plate on top, upset the whole and set it on the frames. Aside 

 from the expense, I like best the Miller feeder with rags 

 stuffed in so as to allow sugar syrup to soak through as fast 

 as the sugar dissolves. 



nay Be Foul Brood. 



I have some strange bee-trouble. I found a hive beeless, 

 that stored some surplus the past summer, notwithstanding 

 over 150 days of drouth. Yesterday I noticed no bees were 

 about the hive, and on examination I found neither live nor 

 dead bees in it, and a horrible stench in the hive. After re- 

 moving that one I noticed the same odor in another one, that 

 has plenty of bees. The smell is very offensive, and can be 

 smelled 50 feel from the hive. Is it foul brood ? After air- 

 ing the hive the stench leaves. A. U. W. 



Walnut Springs, Tex., Oct. 6. 



Answer. — It is hard to tell from the description what is 

 the trouble, but I should fear foul brood. It will be well 

 worth your while to study up that disease thoroughly, and 

 you will probably fiud nothing better than Dr. Howard's book 

 on foul brood. It certainly is a very serious matter to have a 

 colony perish outright, as yours has done, but it is still more 

 serious if the disease be a contagious one, such as foul brood, 

 so that it may spread through the whole apiary. See to it 

 that the hive in which the diseased colony died is removed en- 

 tirely from the reach of the remaining bees. 



While Clover — Slaking !^%varin$> — Out-.4piarics- 

 Separators — Wiiileriiig. 



1. Why did clover yield nectar so freely at Marengo and 

 so scantily at Delmar, Iowa ? 



2. Will a prime swarm supplied with a virgin queen build 

 more drone-comb, or less, than the same with a queen one 

 year old '? 



3. Did you ever try making swarms by shaking the bees 

 and queen in front of a new hive, leaving it on the old stand ? 

 If so, did they do well ? And are such any more liable to 

 have their swarming-fever to go through, than if they were 

 allowed to increase at will ? 



4. How many out-apiaries (100 colonies each), with one 

 helper, can you handle, or do you think you can run, for comb 

 honey ? 



5. Do you think it best to use separators between every 

 row of sections, or will one in every row or two do about as 

 well ■? or would you have none at all '? 



6. Won't bees build evener comb in narrow sections than 

 in 1% wide ? 



7. Do you think it best to dig a cave for out-apiaries, or 

 haul all the bees home to one big cellar, where plenty of heat 

 and ventilation can be bad ? or would you have chaff hives 

 and winter them outdoors ? 



It seems I am intruding on good nature by asking so 

 many questions, but I couldn't get to Lincoln, as I had so 

 much to do. F. C. 



Answers. — 1. That's a question that is likely to arise to 

 any reflecting mind, and the only reason why I don't give a 

 full and satisfactory answer is because I don't know. 



2. It will generally build less. 



3. Yes, I have in more than one case shaken the bees and 

 ,ueen from the brood-frames, leaving, in place of the frames 



of brood, frames filled with foundation, and I think they are 

 no more inclined to swarm again after such treatment than 

 they are after swarming naturally, unless it be that in some 

 cases more bees would be left than after natural swarming, 

 and the stronger in bees the more likely a colony is to swarm. 



4. Three; that is, one home apiary and two out-apiaries. 



5. I use separators between each two sections. Possibly 

 I might get along to omit every other one, but I wouldn't 

 think of getting along without any separators at all so long as 

 the honey is to be packed for shipment to a distance. 



6. It seems more natural for them to build straight in the 

 narrower sections, and yet I have no fault to find with the 

 straightness of the combs my bees build in 1% sections. 



7. So far I have thought best to haul my bees home each 

 fall, but if I had the right kind of cave, or the right kind of 

 climate for wintering out-doors, I should be glad to be rid of 

 the trouble of hauling back and forth. 



I should have been glad to have met you in Lincoln, and 

 it was a real pleasure to meet some there whom I had pre- 

 viously known only through their questions, but so long as. 

 the publisher of the American Bee Journal is large-minded 

 enough to pay me for answering questions, I'm sure I ought 

 not to complain at the number. 



Poor Season — Crooked Combs. 



The honey season in this locality was very poor, and bee- 

 keepers hardly got any surplus honey. I have only three col- 

 onies of hybrids, in frame hives. From one colony I suc- 

 ceeded in getting a fair swarm, but no honey ; from the other 

 colony, which did not swarm, I got about two gallons, and 

 from the third, or new swarm, about one gallon. Our chief 

 honey-plant, horsemint, failed entirely. 



1. I have a hive 18 inches long and 14 inches wide, in- 

 side measure, which should hold 10 frames, but there are only 

 7 in it. I bought the hive and bees from a "will-be-good" 

 bee-keeper. Now the 7 old combs are so crooked, and built 

 together, that I cannot remove them separately, therefore, it 

 is impossible for me to find the queen, or to examine the 

 brood or stores. Can you not tell me how I can get rid of 

 these crooked combs in the fall ? How would it do, if I would 

 put a full frame of straight brood foundation in the middle of 

 the combs, by moving the old brood-combs on the sides, and 

 placing the new, straight comb foundation in the middle — 

 would not the queen lay eggs in this new foundation, and the 

 bees hatch out the brood on the outside combs? As 

 these bees are hatched, can I not remove the crooked outside 

 combs, and put another frame of straight foundation next on 

 the side of the first frame of straight foundation, and so on 

 until all crooked combs are removed ? 



2. I hived a swarm in a large hive 22 inches long, 14 

 inches wide, and 12 inches deep, inside measure ; I find now 

 that this box is much too big for a colony, and I think of put- 

 ting two colonies in the same hive. As this large hive has 10 

 frames, each frame having about 21x10 inches, inside meas- 

 ure, if I would put a division-board in the middle of the hive, 

 leaving each colony five frames, would it do to put the hybrid 

 queen with one-half of the brood on one side, and the other 

 part of the brood on the other side, with a new Italian queen ? 

 Would not the bees kill the new Italian queen? 



Southern Texas. A. L. K. 



Answers. — 1. I don't believe you would better meddle 

 with that colony with crooked combs till next spring, in fruit- 

 bloom, for bees will not make very good work building comb 

 so late in the season, and they will probably winter better 

 just as they are than to make any change. I'm a little afraid 

 your plan of gradually changing won't work. The bees would 

 bo slow about accepting the foundation as long as they had 

 plenty of old comb, and the old comb would be kept filled with 

 brood on both sides of the foundation, so there never could be 

 any time when you could take out old comb without brood in 

 it. It is quite possible that by a little cutting the old comb 

 can be straightened in the frames, but if not you'll perhaps 

 do as well to let all alone till bees swarm next time, and then 

 three weeks later treat the hive as a box-hive. 



2. If your division-board is bee-tight, the queenless bees 

 on one side the division-board would be just the same as in a 

 separate hive. Then you could introduce a queen the same as 

 in any hive, letting them be without a queen a reasonable 

 time, of course. 



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