April 26, 1900 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



263 



swarm when there is nothing in the hive from whicli :i 

 queen can be reared, but I have had it happen. The opi-ia 

 tion of putting down is very simple. I lift the hive oil the 

 top, place it on the ground, remove the supers, take the hivr 

 off the stand, place it on one side, put the hive containing 

 the queen on- the stand, and replace the supers. At tlie 

 time I put up the queen I changed the number-tag, so as to 

 keep the number always on the hive containing the queen. 



" You will see that this leaves the queen full chance to 

 lay from the minute she is vxncaged, and at the time of put- 

 ting down there will be as much brood as if the queen had 

 remained in her usual place. Most of the bees, of course, 

 adhered to the lower hive when the queen was put up. but 

 by the time she is put down quite a force has hatcht out, 

 and these have markt the upper hive as their location. 

 Upon this being taken away, the bees, as thej' return from 

 the field, will settle upon the cover, where their hive was, 

 and form a cluster there ; finalU' an explorer will crawl 

 down to the entrance of the hive below, and a line of march 

 in that direction will be establisht immediately. In a day 

 or two they will go straight to the proper entrance. 



"We left, standing on the ground, the hive with its 

 two combs, which had been taken from the stand. These 

 two combs, when the queen was put up, probably had a good 

 quantity of eggs, and brood in all stages. They now con- 

 tain none but sealed brood, some queen-cells and a pretty 

 heavy supply of pollen. Or, it may be that eggs from an 

 imported queen were given, and the queen-cells are to be 

 saved. A goodly number of bees adhere to the two combs 

 and I know of no nicer way to start a new colony, than 

 simply to place the hive in a new^ location. Or, the bees 

 may be shaken off at the old stand and the combs used 

 again to do duty as they have done during the last 10 days, 

 or given to a nucleus which needs them. 



" It may be objected that this keeping bees queenless 

 for 10 days makes them work with less vigor. I am not 

 sure but it ought, but I must confess I have had no strong 

 proof of it come directly under my own observation. So far 

 as I could tell, these bees seemed to work just as hard when 

 their queen was taken away as before. In the spring of 

 1885 one colony was, by some means, left entirely awaj' 

 from the proper rows — some 3 rods from anj- other colony. 

 I took it away, put it in proper line, and left to catch the re- 

 turning stragglers a hive containing one comb, this comb 

 having no brood and very little if any honey. This colony 

 having been a very weak one, verj' few bees returned to the 

 old spot, but these few surprised me by filling a good stock 

 of honey in empty comb, before they were put with the rest 

 of the colony. 



"Swarms treated on this 'putting up' plan often 

 swarmed again, but if they did they were put up again. An 

 objection to the plan was that these ' put-ups ' were in the 

 way and had to be lifted down when anj'thiug was done 

 with supers. Still, for any one who allows the bees to 

 swarm, and who does not object to the lifting, the plan is a 

 good one." 



Bee-Paralysis. 



Can a colony of bees contract the disease known as par- 

 alysis from a comb taken from a diseased colony and given 

 to a healthy colony ? Wisconsin. 



Answer. — I don't know. We seem to know very little 



about bee-paralysis. But it's a good plan to be on the safe 



side. 



*-•-» 



Alfalfa and Cottonwood. 



1. Does alfalfa fail to yield nectar where it is irrigated ? 



2. What would be a fair average when three crops per 

 year are cut ? 



3. Is Cottonwood a good honey-producing tree ? 



New York. 



Answer. — 1. I think no one has reported a failure 

 wherever irrigation has been practiced, as is the case in the 

 West. The reports of failure seem to come from places 

 farther east, but whether irrigation or the lack of irriga- 

 tion has anything to do with failure is a question. 



2. I don't know how much honey can be obtained from 

 a given area of alfalfa. That's a hard thing to tell about 

 any honey-plant. Alfalfa is counted a great yielder, but 

 there is no close agreement as to the amount yielded. It 

 has even been estimated that two or three acres are needed 

 for each colony. With three crops of hay taken in a season, 

 much would depend upon the time of the cutting. If cut 



each time just before the bloom was far enough advanced 

 for the bees to work on it, not much nectar could be ex- 

 pected. 



3. I don't know. The fact that little or nothing has 

 been said about it as a honey-tree makes it doubtful whether 

 it has much value. Who can tell us ? 



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" A Qood Feeder. — An ordinary frame partlj' enclosed 

 with a board on each side, so as to hold the syrup used in 

 feeding, with a slip of wood floating on the syrup so bees 

 need not drown." — Australian Bee Bulletin. — That's the 

 Doolittle frame-feeder, with a float added, the float not 

 being needed in the least, and sometimes a damage. 



Clipping Queens had some discussion in the Ontario 

 convention, as reported in the Canadian Bee Journal. Mr. 

 McKnight said the only advantage of clipping that he 

 could see was to prevent the queen flj'ing away ; it did not 

 prevent her being lost. Mr. Hall thought he would have 

 his work greatly increast with unclipt queens. Clipping 

 helps to tell the age of a queen. While working in his 

 shop he may see a swarm out, and he is in no haste to drop 

 his tools and run. He knows the queen is dipt, and some- 

 times several swarms are out at a time. 



Reformed Spelling is a tabooed subject in Gleanings in 

 Bee-Culture, but Dr. Miller gives this parting shot in a 

 stray straw : 



" ' It cost me several years of close application to spell 

 the old way,' " says Rambler. That's about as strong an 

 argument as I ever saw against the old way. A man with 

 Rambler's heart ought to be willing to suft'er a little incon- 

 venience rather than have all future generations work as 

 he and I did to learn to spell. We may just as well own up 

 that the objection to Bro. York's spelling is prejudice pure 

 and simple. His way of spelling ' through ' sends a chill 

 thm me. But an Englishman has the same chill when he 

 meets ' honor' without a 'u' in it, and will not read a book, 

 much less buy it, if that 'u' is omitted, according to a writer 

 in the Sunday School Times." 



QIadiolus and Dahlia are highly recommended in one 

 of the foreign journals as honey-plants. It is somewhat 

 noticeable that these and many other flo%vering plants are 

 prominently mentioned in bee-journals in other languages, 

 but not mentioned in American bee-papers. Some of these 

 plants are so rich in nectar that it may be seen falling in 

 drops. But there is a good reason for silence regarding 

 them. Take the abutilon, highly valued as a house-plant. 

 Drops of nectar may be seen falling from it so rich that it 

 might be called honey rather than nectar. If one could 

 have an acre of such plants it would mean quite a crop of 

 honey. But the honey obtained would probably not go very 

 far toward purchasing plants for an acre, to say nothing 

 about planting and cultivating. The only wonder is that 

 foreign journals give so much space to such plants. 



Starved Brood. — A Canadian bee-keeper had trouble 

 with some kind of dead brood in his colonies. He tried the 

 starvation plan, as for foul brood, and melted up scores of 

 combs, but the trouble still continued. Wm. McEvoy re- 

 plies to him in the Canadian Bee Journal, urging that it is 

 not always enough to have plenty of honey in the hive, 

 there must be unsealed honey. He says : 



" Your colonies ran out of unsealed honey when they 

 had a large quantitv of brood on hand to feed, and then 

 your bees did not uncap the sealed stores fast enough to 

 keep pace with the amount of brood that required feeding, 

 the result being that considerable brood had to die thru not 

 being fed. And for some time after that the brood would 

 suffer in proportion to the length of time that the brood- 

 nest was out of unsealed stores, and end in an increase of 

 starved brood, which the bees would allow to remain in the 

 combs for some time after the honey-flow commenced. You 

 never would have found one cell of dead brood in any of 

 your colonies if you had kept them well supplied with un- 

 sealed stores." 



