Jan. 25, 1900. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



53 



it warm, and do not like to leave it for fear the cold will 

 kill it. 



Mr. CoUingwood — The cushion over the hive -should be 

 three inches thick, made of two thicknesses of burlap on 

 each side. 



Mr. Van Tassel — I have kept bees four years. I use 

 chaff hives, and winter them outdoors. Bees will keep warm 

 in the fall without trouble. The first winter I lost one col- 

 ony out of eiffht. Last winter I lost IS. I throw snow 

 around the hives when it is cold, and keep the entrances 

 clear. Last winter a neig-hbor lost every colony he had in 

 a buildinff on top of the ground. 



Mr. Van Amburg — A neighbor banks up his hives with 

 snow. He uses chaff hives. 



Mr. Hilton — I use chaff hives, and have wintered bees 

 with snow around them. I do not dig- them out until 

 towards spring, and keep the snow away from the entrances. 



Mr. Hatch — I like to shade the hives when the bees be- 

 gin to fly. 



Mr. Beecham — I have had bees 18 years, and wintered 

 them outdoors in chaff hives until the last two winters, 

 then I used single-walled hives in a cellar. I think the 

 chaff hives are too much bother, the principal trouble being 

 to spring them. 



BEST MBTHOD TO PREVENT SWARMING. 



Mr. Hilton — Bees swarm for two reasons — for increase 

 and for lack of room. I can prevent swarming to a great 

 extent by extracting^ and adding supers. I always put the 

 empty super under the one that is partly filled. I have not 

 had over one-third of my bees swarm by using the tiering- 

 up process. Watch them closely, and see if they have 

 plenty of room. If two supers should be one-half filled, 

 place an empty super between them. In 1896 I bought bees 

 from various persons, and several colonies had lost their 

 queens. One queen swarmed out when two frames were 

 filled with brood. There was no more space for brood, as 

 the rest of the frames were filled with honey. They will 

 not swarm so much if they have plenty of room. I do not 

 use unfinisht sections the following season, but use founda- 

 tion, which I think is better than old comb ; the latter I do 

 not consider valuable to use in sections. 



Mr. Calvert — I reduce the comb with a comb-leveler. 



Mr. Gifford — I take imperfect sections that are nicely 

 drawn out, extracted the honey from them, and use them 

 again. These sections do not have any fish-bone in them. 



Question — Is there a non-swarming hive? 



Mr. Hilton — I do not think that there are any non- 

 swarming hives. 



Mr. Coveyou — The trouble is, that the colonies do not 

 receive the attention at the time that they should have it. 



GETTING BEES TO WORK IN SUPERS. 



Mr. Hilton — When the bees cap over the upper surface of 

 the frames, they will not work in the supers. Bees that get 

 their brood-nest clogged with honey will not use supers. 

 Use the extractor when the frames get capt over; that will 

 force the bees into the supers. You must uncap the brood- 

 combs. You could use foundation in frames instead of 

 combs. 



Mr. Beecham — I have used the Heddon hive, and reverst 

 the hive to prevent swarming-, but they swarmed 10 days 

 after it was done. 



Mr. Hilton — I do not use the queen-excluder in my 

 hives, but a thick top-bar. 



Mr. Chapman — I use the queen-excluder. My bees do 

 not swarm, as I do not produce comb honey. My locality 

 is not suited for it. I liave young queens e.very year. My 

 colonies are strong in the spring, and at the beginning of 

 the basswood flow I kill all my queens. When I want in- 

 crease I divide at the close of the season. Young queens 

 will not swarm if given plenty of room. By keeping the 

 swarm ing-fever down I keep the queen in the lower story. 

 I take two frames from the lower story that are filled with 

 brood, and place those over the brood-nest, and add frames 

 from time to time as needed. I never use a queen more 

 than one year. I get better queens in this way than I can 

 buy. I have bought some queens — got them by mail ; the 

 trouble seems to be that they get injured in the mails. 



Mr. Calvert — I think that queens that come by mail are 

 not in as good condition as those reared at home. 



Mr. Kauffman — I kill all my queens at the beginning of 

 the basswood flow, and I get one-third more honey when I 

 kill the queens. 



Mr. Hilton — The plan of Mr. Chapman and Mr. Kauff- 

 man is to get honey instead of brood. As the young queen 

 does not lay as soon the hive is not so full of brood for the 



bees to take care of, so all the bees can gather honey. By 

 letting the old queen live the family of brood eat the 

 honey. 



Mr. Chapman — I winter my bees in one-story hives ; 

 after the honey-flow the bees increase enough to make a 

 good colony for winter. 



(Concluded iil-xI week.] 



CONDUCTED BY 



DR. C. C. MILLER, Marengo, 111. 



(The Questions may be mailed to the Bee Journal office, or to Dr. Miller 



direct, when he will answer them here. Please do not ask the 



Doctor to send answers by mail.— Editor. 1 



The Clovers as Honey-Yielders. 



What clovers and flowers are the best for the production 

 of honey, in your opinion ? Do they produce light or dark 

 honey ? I have noted somewhere that alfalfa and alsike 

 clovers are good. Is that the case ? If so, are there any 

 others of the clovers ? Sweet clover, I believe, is good, but 

 it spreads so. Is there a law prohibiting the raising of this 

 plant ? IniNOiS. 



Answer. — In your region, central Illinois, you will find 

 any of the plants mentioned good, except alfalfa. Alfalfa 

 is one of the very best honey-plants in some parts of the 

 West, and it has been successfully raised as a forage-plant 

 in Illinois, but for some reason it does not seem to be of any 

 special value as a honey-plant as far east as Illinois. Alsike 

 is an excellent honey-plant, and no doubt a valuable forage- 

 plant where you live ; the honey from it is light and of 

 finest flavor. Sweet clover is one of the best honey-plants, 

 the honey being light in color. Some say the flavor is ob- 

 jectionable ; some say it is the very best. It is possible that 

 the objectionable flavor only comes when the honey is poor- 

 ly ripened. There is no law against sowing sweet clover, 

 and altho it spreads along the roadside, in cultivated fields, 

 it is no worse to spread than red clover. 



Several Young ttaeens in a Hive. 



Generally the books for beginners say that when there 

 are two or more queens in a colony, to decide which shall 

 rule the hive, the queens have a battle and the victorious 

 one is the accepted mother. 



Now, I have not had as much experience as some, and 

 not any with a glass hive, but all my observance has been 

 that the queen question is decided some way, then after it is 

 settliJd, the doomed queen, or queens, are destroyed by the 

 bees in about the same manner as drones, and the accepted 

 one is going about her own affairs just as tho nothing was 

 going on. 



What I wish to know is this : Are my ob.servations 

 misleading me, or has there been a change of opinion since 

 these books were first written, or are these statements in 

 the books true generall3' ? If I am going astray in this cir- 

 cumstance I may be going wrong from other observations 

 which I might be accepting that I might believe true ones. 



Subscriber. 



Answer. — It is the general belief that the workers de- 

 cide whether any of the young queens are to be slaughtered 

 or not. If they decide that for the present all are to be 

 spared — which is equivalent to deciding that there shall be 

 one or more after-swarms — then the workers protect the 

 young queens in their cells from the attacks of the young 

 queens at large, and no others are allowed to emerge from 

 their cells. When the workers decide that there shall be no 

 more swarming, then none of the young queens in the cells 

 are protected, and all are allowed to emerge from their cells 

 that are sufficiently matured. • When more than one is at 

 large, there is a fight to the finish whenever two of them 

 meet. Those in the cells too young to emerge have their 

 cells torn open and their lives taken by their older sister. 



