170 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



March 15. 1900 



CONDUCTED BY 



DR, O. O. MILI.ER, Afareng-o. Ill, 



(The Questioas 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 maj^l. — Editor. 1 



wiring Brood-Frames— Sweet Clover. 



I have just boug-ht the dovetailed hive with foundation 

 starters one inch wide in the brood-frames, the frames 

 being pierced ready for wire, but no wire in them. 



1. Will it be necessary for me to wire these frames be- 

 fore putting bees in the hives ? 



2. What is the color of the bloom, and what is the shape 

 of the stalk of the sweet clover ? 



3. Does the sweet clover grow and produce honey on 

 the east slope of the Blue Ridge mountains ? Va. 



Answers. — 1. If you use full sheets of foundation, un- 

 less the foundation be unnecessarily heavy it will be likely 

 to stretch and sag if you have no wires. 



2. There are two kinds, one with white and the other 

 ■with yellow blossoms. The stalk is round. 



3. I have no positive knowledge as to that particular 

 spot ; but I doubt that there's a place in the State of Vir- 

 ginia where sweet clover will fail to grow and yield honey. 



Wooden Sticks Instead of Wiring Foundation. 



The more I manipulate frames, the more I realize the 

 importance of having the comb come to the bottom of the 

 frame. 



1. Do you put all of the five foundation-sticks on one 

 side of the sheet of foundation, or alternate them on both 

 sides ? 



2. What detrimental results may I expect if sticks 1-12 

 or 1-10 inch square are used, in place of 1-16 inch, as you 

 say yours are ? Michigan. 



Answers. — 1. All on one side. Much easier done, and 

 just as good. 



2. It would probably make no great difference. The 

 only thing would be just so much unnecessary wood, and a 

 little more perceptible ridge over the sticks when brood was 

 sealed. It would probably be easier to make the larger 

 sticks if you make them by hand. Manufacturers who have 

 slicing machines with which they slice separators can slice 

 the sticks quite cheaply. 



Prevention of Swarming. 



The bee-fever again demonstrated its supremacy over 

 environments, when in my case, June 10, 1899, I bought a 

 strong colony of Italian bees and placed them in an attic 

 room of a house in the middle of a busy city, with electric 

 cars passing every 15 minutes during the day. 



I placed the hive beneath a sky-light partly open. The 

 room is plastered and that with ventilation from a femall 

 end window prevents undue heat. 



This colony was ruined in moving — smothered, queen 

 lost, and all but about a pint of bees which I carefully nurst 

 ard furnisht with a new queen. 



During this time I consulted my A B C of Bee-Culture 

 with great assiduity, and thereby saved the colony from 

 being robbed out by another, which I bought meanwhile. 



Colony No. 2, by the way, must have contracted the 

 swarming-fever prior to my taking them, for no sooner had 

 I gotten them home than they swarmed (June 24) in my ab- 

 sence. Of course, this swarming of bees in a city is very 

 embarrassing to the owner, to say the least, not to mention 

 the opinions of neighbors ; so, since then, my main object 

 in the study of bee-literature has been with the view to dis- 



covering some means of checking swarming, and to the get- 

 ting of the rtiost honey (increase not desired.) 



I subscribed for the American Bee Journal thru whose 

 guidance I have so far safely wintered the two colonies, al- 

 tho I had to feed sugar last fall. 



At present the bees are quiet and healthy in the attic 

 room, from which light is excluded bj' curtains. 



I should have stated before that the hives are the 8- 

 frame Langstroth. After conning the Bee Journal dili- 

 gently, I had about decided to try theDanzenbaker 10-frame 

 hive, putting two bodies together and extract the honey; 

 give plenty of ventilation below, with the entrances at each 

 hive-body, and kill the old queen before time for swarming, 

 according to the discussion on that point as given in the 

 Bee Journal of Jan. 25. This was seemingly contradicted 

 in the edition of Feb. 8, which says, " Probably no surer 

 plan for causing swarming could be adopted." 



If I use two hive-bodies and two entrances, do I need a 

 separator or excluder between ? and what plan better than 

 the one contemplated would you advise for the coming 

 season ? Massachusetts. 



Answer. — If you kill the old queen just before swarm- 

 ing season, you may be pretty sure of swarming, no matter 

 how much room or ventilation, unless you kill all queen- 

 cells but one nine days after swarming, in which case you 

 would not be likely to have swarming. Or, listen for piping 

 each evening after the eighth day, and when you hear 

 piping destroy a// cells. 



Whether you use excluder between stories depends. (It 

 may be mentioned in passing that in any case a large en- 

 trance to each story will do no little to keep down swarm- 

 ing.) You may allow the queen full range of the two 

 stories, better still three stories if the colony is strong, and 

 there will likely be no swarming. You may confine the 

 queen to the lower story with an excluder, doing this just 

 before the swarming season, leaving all the brood in the 

 two upper stories and empty combs with the queen below, 

 and you are pretty safe from swarming. 



Treatment of a Laying-Worker Colony and a Colony 

 with Drone-Laying Queen. 



I think I know what you would do with a colony of bees 

 having a laying worker, but if you had one colony with a 

 laying worker and another with a drone-laying queen, I 

 would like to know whether there would be any difference 

 in yovtr treatment of the two colonies. This is a point 

 never toucht upon in any bee-literature that I remember 

 reading, hence the question. Iowa. 



Answer. — Your evident belief that there is a difference 

 as to treatment is correct. If the colony with the drone- 

 laying queen has been in that condition a long time and is 

 weak, then there should be no difference ; break up. A col- 

 ony with laying workers is generally rather weak, if not 

 verj' weak, and what bees there are have past their prime ; 

 whereas the presence of a drone-laying queen may be dis- 

 covered while the colony is still strong with a fair quota of 

 young bees. In such case, kill the drone-layer and give an- 

 other queen. Such a colony, you no doubt know, will accept 

 a queen more readily than a colony with laying workers. 



Sulphuring Mothy Brood-Frames. 



How much sulphur should I burn in a house 6 feet 

 square and the same height, to kill moths in brood-frames ? 

 What is the proper way to burn it to get the best results ? 



New Jersey. 



Answer. — To kill worms in comb honey, when as yet 

 they are tiny things, is quite a different matter from killing 

 worms of full size in brood-combs. My experience has been 

 that the latter is a very difficult matter, and I don't know 

 how much sulphur would make it a success. I would try 

 about two pounds as a starter, closing up everything as 

 tight as possible, and leaving it closed for 24 hours after 

 starting the fire. If that should not prove successful, you 

 might try a stiffer dose. Take a dish of almost any kind, 

 and put ashes in it. In this set another dish to contain the 

 sulphur, and lay a hot iron or live coals on it. Unless the 

 number of combs is considerable, it may be well to go over 

 them by hand and pick out the biggest worms. But I 

 wouldn't fool with sulphur in cold weather ; put the combs 

 where they'll freeze, and that will end the worms. 



