198 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



March 29, 1900. 



CONDUCTED BV 



DR. C. C. MILLER, Alarengo, III. 



[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 



Feeding Sugar Syrup in Spring. 



What would be the result to feed with syrup before the 

 spring honey-flow commenced, so that the brood-chamber 

 would become filled and the bees would be forced to carry 

 all new honey into the upper chamber ? Would it produce 

 an inferior quality of bees being fed on anything but lioney 

 while maturing ? Massachusetts. 



Answers. — Some have claimed that bees reared on 

 sugar syrup would lack stamina, but the fact is not estab- 

 lisht with entire certainty, and many have had bees reared 

 on syrup without mentioning any difl'erence in the quality 

 of the bees. Caution is needed, however, in feeding syrup 

 largely in early spring. If the weather is objectionable, 

 the feeding may induce bees to fly out and be lost, making 

 more loss than gain. If there is too much syrup in the 

 brood-chamber, there is some danger that some of it may 

 be carried into supers after they are put on. 



Plan for Avoiding Swarming. 



I have 25 colonies of bees in good condition. I expect 

 to be away this summer and would like to avoid their 

 swarming, and would like to know if this plan will work : 



I have 15 hives, each holding 17 frames with a division- 

 board in the center, and a queen and two bees on each side 

 of the division-board, but isolated thoroly. Now suppose I 

 go to the hives filled as above, and between fruit-bloom and 

 white clover, or about the first of June, and pull out the di- 

 vision-board and put on the supers at the same time, and 

 close the hive. Will they swarm with two queens present, 

 or will one queen be killed, if they would swarm ? 



I expect to give this a trial, and then about the first of 

 August take off honej-, and put in the division-board as be- 

 fore, and give a good ripe queen-cell to the side having no 

 queen. By this waj' I could have a new queen in the hive 

 this year, that is, if the old' one was always killed. I have 

 never read of a plan of this kind, and have thought it out 

 myself. Pennsylvania. 



Answer. — One of the queens would most likely be 

 killed, but the entire plan may not give as much satisfac- 

 tion as you expect, and it will be well to try it on part only. 



Late Feeding— Italianizing. 



Last winter I kept my 5 colonies in our cellar which has 

 brick walls, cement floor bottom, with lath and plaster ceil- 

 ing, and did not lose a colonj-, and the winter was the 

 severest we have seen for many years. Last fall I had 14 

 colonies, and the fall and early winter being so nice, I left 

 them on the summer stands until to-day (March 3), when on 

 examining I found only 4 alive. Thinking they would need 

 some feeding soon, I put them into the cellar, and gave two 

 colonies sugar candy made from a recipe taken from the 

 "ABC of Bee-Culture." The other two colonies are in 

 box-hives, but judging from the weight of them they are 

 better fixt for stores ; the)- were ray first ones, or the first 

 hives I had ; for the others I used the 8-frame Langstroth. 



Most of those that I lost were rather small colonies, and 

 nearly all had plenty, or some, honey. I am under the im- 

 pression that they froze out, as the temperature got 14 de- 

 grees below zero about Feb. IS to the 20th. I had them in 

 an orchard on a southwest slope with a good north and west 

 windbreak. 



As last season was a poor one here in northwest Ne- 

 braska, the late swarms did not store enough to winter on, 

 so I fed them until it got too cold. I have the Champion or 

 Miller and the tin feeders. 



1. Do you think feeding until it got too cold would be 

 injurious to them ? I used a syrup made of granulated 

 sugar. 



2. One of ray surviving colonies are blacks or hybrids, 

 that I captured from a Cottonwood tree near by. Which 

 will be best to give them, the first queen-cell from one of 

 my Italians, or give them a queen ? There are not any bees 

 within 15 miles of me, and as I like to work with them I 

 would like to do better than I have this winter. 



There are not much of any clovers or buckwheat raised 

 here, and no basswood, but lots of heartsease and wild flow- 

 ers. I have 5 or 6 acres of alfalfa, and have sown and got a 

 good start of white clover. About June 1, 1898, I had a 

 swarm issue (while at dinner), and go into a box-hive with 

 the brood-chamber nearlj- filled with old, empty comb. 

 They filled the brood-chamber and stored 54 pounds of sur- 

 plus honey, which I thought was doing pretty well. The 

 alfalfa was about all they workt on. W. H. R. 



Answer. — 1. Feeding too late might certainly help 

 toward destruction. Better get feeding done in August and 

 September. Too much swarming was probably a chief 

 trouble. If your five had increast to 10 instead of 14, you 

 would probably have had more this spring. 



2. So far as Italianizing is concerned, it will make little 

 difference whether you give a queen-cell or a queen, pro- 

 viding you get them to use the queen-cell. But of course 

 they vein be farther on with a queen. A good way would be 

 this : When an Italian colony swarms, set the old hive in 

 place of the black colony, setting the blacks in a new place. 

 Then the Italians will swarm again, giving you a strong 

 swarm with a good queen. 



A Beginner's Questions. 



1. When is the earliest in the morning bees will swarm 

 out? 



2. I have heard bee-men say they could tell the night 

 before they swarmed. How could they ? 



3. How can I prevent a swarm from going away ? 



4. If you go to a hive in the morning how can you tell 

 whether it will swarm before night ? 



5. Will a swarm that runs away ever come back if it 

 can find no place to suit it ? 



6. When a swarm is going to alight on a high branch, 

 how can you prevent it. and make it alight on a low one ? 



7. Do bees ever come out of a hive after you hive them ? 



8. How can I prevent them ? 



9. Will bees swarm on a cloudy or windy day ? 



Ontario. 

 Answers. — 1. Generally you need not look for swarms 

 before 9 o'clock, but in rare instances they may swarm as 

 early as 6. 



2. They probably referred to afterswarms, not prime 

 swarms. About 8 days after the prime swarm, if you go to 

 the hive at night, put your ear against it and listen, you 

 may hear the queen piping, saying in long, drawn-out and 

 rather shrill tones, "peep, peep, peep." If you hear that, 

 you may look out for a swarm the next day. If there is no 

 piping you need expect no swarm the next day. 



3. Let the hive be well shaded and well ventilated, hav- 

 ing it raised up from the bottom, and for the first day or 

 two it may be well to have the cover raised half an inch or 

 so. Some practice giving to a swarm a frame of brood to 

 hold them. 



4. You can't. If other colonies are working hard, and 

 a strong colony seems idly hanging out, you may suspect 

 an intention to swarm, but j-ou cannot be certain. If you 

 find sealed queen-cells in the hive at the usual season of 

 swarming, a swarm may issue within 24 hours, but not pos- 

 itively. 



5. No. It will fly around in the air some yards or rods 

 from the hive, and finally settle on a tree or some other ob- 

 ject. After being thus settled, if it starts to sail away, 

 you may take your last, long, lingering look at it — you'll 

 never see it again. Better hive it before it starts off ; but 

 you needn't fear its going for some little time ; generally it 

 will wait your motion a quarter or half an hour. 



6. Pretty hard job, after it has fairly made up its mind 

 to settle on any given spot. If you " shin up " the tree 

 lively with a well-loaded smoker, and smoke heavily^ and 

 continuously on the spot selected, they may change their 

 minds about settling there. Some induce them to settle on 

 an accessible limb by hanging on it a lot of dead bees 

 strung like beads on a string. 



7. Alas, j-es. Set the hive out in the blazing sun, hav- 



