326 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



May 24, 1900. 



casion ; therefore, I must refer j'ou to Doolittle's " Scientific 

 Queen-Rearing'" for this information. 



In order to improve our stock for honey-g^athering we 

 must keep a record each season of our best colonies, and 

 rear queens from the stock g-iving the best results. Have 

 them crost as far as possible with drones not akin, of other 

 good stock. This is accomplish! by stocking our apiarj- 

 with drones not related to our breeding-queens. This is 

 very important, and must not be overlookt if we desire to 

 improve our stock. — Pendletonian (Ky.). 



[Doolittle's "Scientific Queen-Rearing," referred to by 

 Mr. Moore, is a cloth-bound book which we send postpaid 

 for 31.00 : or will club it with the American Bee Journal for 

 one year — both for 31.60, provided all arrearages on sub- 

 scriptions are paid. — Editor.] 



CONDUCTED BY 



DR. C. O. 



MILLER, Mareng-o, HI. 



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



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



Doctor to send answers by mail. — Editor. 1 



Management with Little Attention. 



"We are going to move some of our bees about 25 miles 

 from here, and can not visit them oftener than once every 

 week or 10 daj's. We thought of putting on an extracting- 

 super, and a comb-honey super on that. Then cage the 

 queen and put on entrance-guards. Is this as good a plan 

 as we can adopt ? Missouri. 



Answer. — Trj' some of them this waj' : Give abundant 

 room for the queen to lay, abundance of surplus room, and 

 abundant ventilation by having full entrance to each story, 

 and omit caging and entrance-guard. 



Feeder Flows Too Fast. 



I have two Boardman feeders. I use three parts water 

 and four parts sugar (best granulated) by measure. The 

 syrup flows out too fast even for a strong colony of bees to 

 take it. What is the cause and how is it inanaged ? 



Iow.\. 



Answer. — Without seeing your feeders in place it is 

 hard to say just what is the trouble. With a Boardman 

 feeder there ought to be no trouble about the syrup flowing 

 out too fast, even if it stood a year without any bees to take 

 it. It is just possible that the glass jar is not down in its 

 proper place in its receptacle. It maj' be that the hive is 

 not level, for if too much out of level the syrup would flow 

 till the can is emptied, even with no bees to take it. 



Bees Under a Bathroom Floor. 



I was taken with the bee-fever several months ago, and 

 being ignorant on the subject of bees, I purchast " Lang- 

 stroth on the Honey-Bee." which I read with much delight. 

 What I want to know is. Why do the bees continue using a 

 home under a floor, as shown in the enclosed clipping, 

 when there is very much noise created above them ? The 

 books and bee-papers tell me that to make the bees go down 

 from the supers when they are storing, beat a stick on top 

 of the hive. Which is it that drives them down, the noise 

 or the smoke ? If it is the noise, then why is not this col- 

 ony always disturbed ? Maryl.^nd. 



Answer. — The clipping tells about a colony of bees 

 that were lodged under the floor of Mr. Godman's bath- 

 room, entering thru a hole in the wall, the bees furnishing 

 a large amount of honey. The clipping continues 



" The ' robbing ' took place in the fall. A small amount 

 was left for the bees to subsist upon. Mr. Godman thought 



that it would be better to transfer the bees to a hive and 

 take them out of the house. There were some disadvan- 

 tages connected with their presence in the bathroom now, 

 especially since the hole had been bored in the floor to get 

 at them. The children could enter the room and take the 

 bees up from their place by the double handful, and smooth 

 them along their laps with their hands, but the workers of 

 the colony were opposed to certain members of the family, 

 and stung them whenever they got a chance. That was 

 why Mr. Godman desired to put them in a hive in the j'ard. 



" The hive was prepared, and an effort was made to in- 

 duce the bees to enter it, but the eflort was not a success. 

 It brought about a schism in the colony, however, and 

 nearly all the bees went away. During the blizzard last 

 February the colony that remained beneath the bathroom 

 perisht." 



Bee-keepers will be somewhat skeptical as to accepting 

 all this as entirely reliable. Replying to your question, the 

 smoke alone, or the noise and jarring alone, is enough to 

 drive bees out of a hive. The jarring probably has more to 

 do with it than the noise. But a little bit of smoke, or a 

 little bit of jarring, would not dislodge them. The jarring 

 must be heavy and continuous. You might walk all day 

 over the top of a hive, and it would irritate the bees, but 

 would not drive them out of the hive. 



Old Queen with the First Swarm. 



When a colony of bees casts the first swarm, is it the 

 old queen or the young one that goes out ? Some tell me it 

 is the old one, some say the new. California. 



Answer. — The old queen goes with the prime swarm, 

 and young queens with after-swarms. 



Queen-Excluders from Foul-Broody Colonies. 



In reply to an inquirer I said such excluders should be 

 boiled before being used on healthy colonies. Wm. McEvoy 

 is much better authoritj' upon foul brood than I, and he 

 says in the Canadian Bee Journal : 



" Queen-excluders that have been used on foul-broody 

 colonies are perfectly safe to use on any hive of bees with- 

 out any disinfecting. The larvs to become diseased must 

 be fed in a corrupt cell or with diseased honey, and as queen- 

 excluders have nothing on them for the bees to feed to the 

 brood thev can not disease anv colony of bees." 



Perhaps a Peculiarity of the Queen. 



1. On April 24 I changed an outside empty frame to the 

 center of the brood-nest of a colony, placing it between two 

 frames of brood. May 1, I found upon examination that 

 many of the cells contained two eggs, laid sometimes on 

 one side and sometimes on the bottom of the cell ; the colony 

 was of fair strength and the brood apparently in good 

 shape. The queen was two years old, and possibly three. I 

 also found some cells uncapt containing larva; in the pupa 

 state. These conditions were peculiar to this one comb 

 only. I saw no others in a similar condition in the hive, 

 and none in the apiarj'. Can you tell me the cause ? 



Michigan. 



Answer. — No, I don't know enough to give the cause. 

 I have had two cases a little on the same line. An imported 

 queen laid eggs on one side of the cell for a few days, and 

 afterward laid normally. It is not impossible that a queen 

 may have some temporary derangement that makes her do 

 irregular work. 



* • » 



Transferring— Bees in a Brick House. 



1. I have one colony in a box-hive from which I wish as 

 much increase as possible. I also wish to transfer into a 

 movable-frame hive. When should I transfer them ? 



2. I have a colony of bees in a brick house. Their en- 

 trance is under the window-sill on the second floor between 

 the two walls. Would it pay to try to get thera into a hive ? 

 If so, how could I get them, and when would be the best 

 time ? Would they swarm if left alone ? Subscriber. 



Answers. — Wait till they swarm, and hive the swarm 

 in a new place, leaving the old hive on the old stand. After 

 they swarm the second time (if they do swarm again), set 

 the second swarm in a new place.'and then transfer what is 



