54 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



Jan. 25, 1900. 



the workers afterward concluding the work by carrying out 

 the dead bodies and tearing down the cells. 



If there are j-oung queens in their cells when a young 

 queen "is going about her own affairs," you will probably 

 find, if you observe closely, that one of her important affairs 

 is murdering her royal sisters in their cradles, or trying to 

 do so if the workers keep her off. It will be an easy thing 

 in many cases for you to see a royal battle, if you allow to 

 come together two young queens. They do not make very 

 slow work about it, either. One time I cut out of a frame 

 a piece of comb on which were two mature queen-cells, 

 neither of the queens having yet emerged. I laid down the 

 two cells and closed the hive, then turned to take care of my 

 two queen-cells. In that short time both queens had 

 emerged and one of them was stung to death by the other. 



Superseding Queens Rearing Queens in Upper Stories. 



1. When bees start queen-cells for the purpose of su- 

 perseding their queen, are they apt to, or do they ever, let 

 more than one cell mature, and then swarm ? 



2. When cells are placed in an upper story to be cared 

 for, with an excluder between the upper and lower storj', 

 will the bees allow a cell to hatch and the queen to live in 

 the upper story ? New York. 



Answers. — 1. As a rule they do not. Most of the su- 

 perseding is done near the close of the honey-harvest or 

 after its close, and sometimes in the early part of the sea- 

 son before the honey harvest. In neither case will there be 

 any swarming, and only one young queen will hold the 

 field. But if superseding should occur during a full flow of 

 honey, the chances are in favor of swarming. 



2. A young queen will be reared in the second story, 



but will in some way disappear before she gets to laying. 



At least it has been so in a number of cases that I have 



tried. But the case is different if the young queen is reared 



in the third or fourth story. In more than one instance I 



have had a queen reared in the fourth story and continue 



laying there thruout the season, the old queen being in the 



first story with an excluder over it but no excluder between 



the other stories. There was an entrance to the fourth 



storv. 



.*-»-*^ 



Starting Poul Brood. 



A friend of mine who has been keeping bees for a long 

 time says his bees have foul brood, and doesn't have any 

 idea how it started. He has run mostly for extracted honey. 

 Now to the question : 



1. If one should extract honey out of combs that con- 

 tain brood, and kill considerable brood at the close of a 

 honey-flow, and the bees allow the brood to remain in the 

 combs until it becomes decayed, is it possible foul brood 

 would start ? 



2. At this time of year is there any way to stamp it out, 

 except by burning hives, bees, and everything that may be 

 infected ? 



I am very much interested for fear the disease may 

 spread, as it is onl)' about 10 miles from me. I have 10 col- 

 onies in prime condition. Texas. 



Answers. — 1. If there is no foul brood anywhere in 

 your region, I don't believe you can start it by any treat- 

 ment of the brood. If it is in the neighborhood, bad treat- 

 ment of the brood might favor its rapid development. 



2. You will hardly be able to make a thoro cure of a 

 genuine case of foul brood at this time of the year in any 

 other way than bj' the utter destruction of the colony. 



Domesticating Wild Bumble-Bees. 



Has any one ever tried to domesticate the wild bumble- 

 bee that builds its nest in the meadows ? If so, what were 

 the results ? Did he get them domesticated ? How did he 

 try to domesticate them ? Dr. Miller, this is a pretty hard 

 question to answer, and I hope you will only do the best 

 you can. I will try to domesticate them next summer, but 

 if you know that they cannot be domesticated, and will 

 please tell me, it will save me both time and labor. 



My reasons for wanting them domesticated are these : 

 1. Because they are larger than honey-bees, and can 

 therefore carry more honey at a single time. I suppose 

 somebody will tell me they will also eat more than a honey- 

 bee ; but I explain it thus : If you have a large pig, and 



bring it to market, you will get just as much for it as you 

 would for two that were each only half as big ; and the 

 profit is, the large pig would not have eaten as much food 

 as the two small ones. Altho pigs and bees differ greatly, 

 in this respect they are the same. 



2. They have a longer tongue, and can therefore gather 

 honey from any kind of flowers. 



3. They will gather more surplus than others. 



4. Their honey tastes better than that of other bees. 



5. They will take the place of Apis dorsata. Iowa. 



Answer. — Yes, I tried it long before I knew a queen 

 from a drone. No doubt a good many others have tried it. 

 Bumble-bees can be domesticated as well as hive-bees ; that 

 is, they can be got to stay in a box, and only a small box is 

 needed, but there can never be got honey enough to pay for 

 the trouble. You never find any considerable amount of 

 honey in a bumble-bee's nest. They don't get any serious 

 surplus ahead like hive-bees. Bumble-bees' honey tasted to 

 me, I think, as it did to you, the best of any honey I ever 

 tasted. I suspect, however, that if some one had filled one 

 of the pockets in a bumble-bee's nest with honey from a 

 section, I would not have known the difference. A bare- 

 footed small boy chasing thru the meadows till he had a 

 ravenous appetite would be delighted with any sweet he 

 might find, and the less of it the sweeter it would taste. It 

 will cost very little, however, for you to try the experiment, 

 and j'ou can get some good honey ; but there is no great 

 danger that the market will ever be overstockt with honey 

 gathered by bumble-bees. 



Open-End or Closed-End Frames. 



As I am a beginner in bee-keeping I want to start in 

 with the best kind of hive for comb honey. The winters 

 here (northern Maine) are severe, and I intend to winter my 

 bees in a good, dry cellar. Which hive would you advise 

 me to start with — one with hanging frames, or closed-end 

 frames ? It seems to me a hive with the latter style of 

 frames in this climate might be better than the open-end 

 frame. Maine. 



Answer. — Your question is not so easy to answer. For 

 the bees it is probably better to have close-end frames. 

 That makes practically a double wall at each end. For the 

 convenience of the bee-keeper it is better to have the frames 

 spaced with staples or nails. I think the ideal spacer would 

 be a nail with a head ,'4^ -inch thick, so that it would auto- 

 matically be driven the exact depth ; but you can't get such 

 nails. For my own use, I have decided that the advantage 

 of the closed-end frames to the bees would not be enough to 

 overbalance the inconvenience of handling such frames. If 

 there is no bee-glue where you are, and if you don't mind 

 going slow enough to avoid killing bees between end-bars, 

 then you might do well to have closed-end frames. So long 

 as you winter bees in the cellar, northern Maine is no worse 

 than northern Illinois. Indeed, even for out-door wintering 

 it is possible you have the best of it, for you hardly have 

 the savage winds that sweep over the prairies of Illinois. 

 If I were to be set down on the next farm to you, I should 

 prefer open-end frames ; but all would not agree with me. 



Why Comb Honey " Works." 



If this is not too old a conundrum, please answer it in 

 the American Bee Journal : 



Quite a number of my sections of honey seem to "work" 

 after being stored away. The combs look foamy and a good 

 part of the honey runs out. Some were in a very warm 

 place — others where it was cool — but all acted alike, i.e., all 

 that workt at all. Do you know what caused this, and what 

 will prevent it ? ' Chucklehead. 



Answer. — No conundrum is too old for this depart- 

 ment. The only ones ruled out are those whose answers 

 are plainly given in the text-books ; so yours is in order. 



The only reason for your honey working and foaming 

 was because it — that is— well, it workt. " Why did it work ?" 

 Well, honey attracts moisture from the air, and when it be- 

 comes thin enough it may ferment. Now, that's enough to 

 satisfy any reasonable person, but it will be just like you to 

 say, " But what special reason was there why my section- 

 honey should act so, more than other honey ? All honey 

 doesn't behave in that way." Well, since you insist, I must 

 answer that I don't know. You may rely upon it, however, 

 that unless^there was some special characteristic about your 



