358 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



June 7, 1900. 



CONDTJCTED BY 



OR. O. O. MILLER, Afareng-o, HI. 



[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 



Extracting Unsealed Honey. 



Can I extract honey that has not been sealed ? I have 

 reference to iincapt honey. Will it be just as good ? 



Ohio. 



Answer. — You can extract it with less trouble than to 

 wait for it to be sealed, but it is not so good. One of the 

 things that has badly damaged the reputation of extracted 

 honey is putting such unripe honey on the market. Some 

 say that with the proper appliances they can ripen such 

 honey artificially, but nothing can be better than honey 

 ripened perfectly oti the hives. 



Probably Short of Stores. 



My bees have wintered well. Altho I have but 3 colo- 

 nies I cannot get along without the American Bee Journal. 

 Two of my colonies did not have a pound of honey left, and 

 I have to feed them as the weather is bad, and there are no 

 flowers for honey yet. Last year was not a very good one 

 here for honey. 



I noticed this morning that one colony had carried out 

 some dead bees which were young and not yet colored, but 

 had wings and legs formed. Do you think this anything 

 serious ? J. F. B. 



Buena Vista, Co., Iowa, April 17. 



Answer. — If only a small number of such immature 

 bees are carried out, it means nothing serious, and may re- 

 sult from the work of the wax-worm. If the number is 

 large, it is likely the bees are short of provisions, and the 

 first sign of starvation is their sucking out the juices of 

 the brood. Sometimes bees thus starve even after clover is 

 in bloom, and when remains of young bees are thus found 

 in front of a hive, it is well to look after the stores. 



Swarming Indications Fears In-Breeding. 



1. I procured two colonies of bees and think I have fully 

 my money's worth. After feeding them a little daily for 9 

 days, I opened the hives to see what I had. I found some 

 sealed brood, some sealed honey, some unsealed honey, and 

 a good many empty cells. The hives are so filled with 

 young and old bees that I was glad to get the combs back 

 without crushing a lot of bees. I transferred them to larger 

 chaff hives and put a new frame with full foundation be- 

 tween the middle combs. The bees commenced working 

 with vigor on this new comb. To-day some bees carried 

 pollen while hundreds of them kept flying in front of the 

 entrance. Also, some drones past in and out. Does this 

 indicate that they are about to swarm ? or, is this excite- 

 ment caused by the transferring to new hives and moving 

 a little from the old place ? 



2. Where a person has but two colonies, and when there 

 are no other bees around, would you deem it advisable to 

 buy and introduce a tested queen for the mother colony ? Or 

 wouldn't it be better not to let them swarm, and increase by 

 dividing, and give a tested queen to such newly-made 

 colony ? 



My idea is to prevent in-breeding, for where there are 

 but two colonies, the chances are one out of the two that 

 the young queen in the mother hive (after the old one leaves 

 with the swarm) will be mated with her brother. Am I 

 right, or am I wrong ? South Dakota. 



Answer. — 1. Any change in the appearance of the 

 front of the hive would make bees hesitate about promptly 

 entering, and a change in position would have the same ef- 



fect, the bees hovering on the wing some time before enter- 

 ing. This flying at the entrance would in no case be an in- 

 dication of approaching swarming, for there are times when 

 every colony will have its play-spell, the young bees having 

 a jolly time sailing about with their heads toward the hive. 

 Neither is the presence of drones to be understood as indi- 

 cating swarming. 



2. Other things being equal, you will have more of the 

 new stock if you get the new queen before dividing or let- 

 ting the bees swarm. There probably is no great danger of 

 in-breeding, for in all probability other bees are within two 

 miles of you. 



* ■ » 



Doolittle Cell-Cups in Queen-Rearing. 



How do you manage to have the Doolittle cell-cups ac- 

 cepted by the bees when transferring larvae into the cups ? 

 Do you give them to queenless bees, or are they given to 

 bees in an upper story as given in Doolittle's "Scientific 

 Queen-Rearing ?" 



I have tried both of the above-mentioned plans, and 

 failed with both. If you will kindly give me your plan per- 

 haps I can succeed easier than by trying to follow that 

 cracker-jack, of New York. Ii,linois. 



Answer. — That "cracker-jack" is all right. I half 

 suspect that you didn't notice carefully what he says on 

 page 99 of his book on queen-rearing. " It is essential, if 

 we would produce good queens, to feed the queen-rearing 

 colonies when honey is not coming in from the fields." 

 Even with all the feeding you can do, if the weather is too 

 cold you cannot get cells accepted and completed. With 

 reasonable weather and feeding, I have no trouble in follow- 

 ing Doolittle's plans, but it's a good deal better to have a 

 good flow coming from the fields. Stick to it, and you'll 



come out all right. 



^-^-^^ 



Killing Bumble-Bees -fiill as a Honey-Plant. 



My bees are in fine shape — no winter loss. I can today 

 take nicely finisht sections from my 6-frame hives, but none 

 from my 10-frame. 



We have the greatest amount of bumble-bees this year 

 than we ever had ; they are so thick that they drive the 

 honey-bees ofl^ of the best honey-producing plants or flow- 

 ers. So my wife, myself and children made war on them. 

 We each took a small paddle and killed 614 in two days. 

 They are all queens, or last year's bees, so each one this 

 season would have been a colony or nest. 



I enclose you a few branches of probably one of the 

 finest honey-producing flowers in the world. Can you tell 

 me what it is ? It grows some like a vine, but not long. It 

 blooms as soon as the snow is off, and continues until mid- 

 summer. Bumble-bees, and honey-bees, too, will fill them- 

 selves so full of nectar from this plant that they cannot fly. 

 It grows best in moist places, but not in wet ones. Ohio. 



Answer. — The plant sent is gill, or gill-over-the- 

 ground, or ground ivy (Nepeta Glechoma), a near relative 

 of catnip. It is of great value as coming at a time when it 

 keeps up brood-rearing. "ABC of Bee-Culture," which 

 gives a picture of it, saj's the honey from it is a little dark 

 and strong, but passes very well when perfectly ripened. 



Irregular laying— Cross Bees— Sawdust Packing. 



1. What is wrong when from two to six eggs are found 

 in one cell ? 



2. What causes an occasional egg left on the side of the 

 cells about half way down ? 



3. Is dry cottonwood good fuel for the smoker ? It holds 

 fire the best of anything I can get. 



4. What will prevent bees from being cross ? I have SO 

 colonies of my own, and they are kind and gentle ; but one 

 of my neighbors hired me to take care of his, and they are 

 as cross as can be. 



5. Bees wintered well last winter. The way I prepared 

 mine for winter is this : I built a box about six inches 

 wider than the hives, and 18 feet long ; placed the hives 

 about 6 inches apart, put a board in front of the hives, 

 placed blocks between the hives to hold the front board 

 about one inch above the alighting-board of the hive ; 

 pulled the hives close to the front board, and filled in be- 

 tween the hives and at their back with sawdust. Thus the 

 hives are protected on three sides with about 6 inches of 



