June 28, 1900. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



407 



the practical radius at less than a mile and a lialf. Some of 

 the experiences given are remarkable. An apiary only a 

 quarter of a mile nearer to the fall crop on the river bottom 

 ahvay's showing in pounds of honey the advantage of that 

 quarter mile. One failure to find, in a bad famine season, 

 a good harvest less than two miles off. And in an e.xtra- 

 good season two of their own apiaries, only a moderate 

 number of miles apart yielded 140 and 50 pounds, respec- 

 tively, as averages. Page 323. 



CONDUCTED BY 



DR. V. C MILLER. Afareng-o, 111. 



CThe Questions may be mailed to the Bee Journal ofBce, or to Dr. Miller 



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



Doctor to send answers by mail.— Editor. 1 



Queenless Colony. 



I have a queenless colony that I have been trying to 

 build up. I have given them brood three times, as recom- 

 mended in " A B C of Bee-Culture," but they have no queen- 

 cell yet. They started one, but for some reason tore it 

 down after about six days, and since, tho they take good 

 care of brood given them, the3' build no more. What can I 

 do with them ? Northern Iowa. 



Answer. — It is just possible that they have a played- 

 out queen, which the^' hold on to, altho she does not lay. It 

 is also possible that the colony has been longqueenless, and 

 the bees very old, and old bees are not good at rearing a 

 queen. But the brood you have given them will be hatch- 

 ing out, and the young bees will rear a queen if you give 

 them young brood or eggs. If you keep right on giving 

 them all the brood thej' can cover, there is little doubt they 

 will rear a queen. But, as a rule, a colony that has been 

 queenless a long time might about as well be broken up. A 

 queen reared by them is not likely to be satisfactory. 



Symptoms Point to Bee-Paralysis. 



I wish to ask advice about a disease that seems to be 

 establisht in my apiary. I can not find in the standard 

 bee-books, or in back journals, an explanation of it. It 

 originated in a colony of bees whose queen I received from 

 a well-known firm in Ontario last summer. The bees turn 

 a shiny black about one-third up of their abdomens, which 

 are small and pointed. They literally die by the thousands. 

 The queen is very prolific, the frames being always full of 

 brood. When it was confined to one colony I did not care 

 so much, but now I find another of my best colonies going 

 the same way, and I do not know what to do for them. 



British Columbia. 



Answer. — The shinj- black appearance points to bee- 

 paralysis, but in that disease the abdomen is not small and 

 pointed, but swollen, and you say nothing about the tremb- 

 ling that accompanies paralysis. It would be well to send 

 a sample of the bees to Dr. Wm. R. Howard, Fort Worth, 



Tex. 



'*-•-#• 



Queenless Colony— Queens Failed to Hatch. 



1. About March 1 I bought of a neighbor two box-hives 

 of bees, one very heavy and apparently all right with bees, 

 of course. When I went to bring them home I remarkt to 

 my neighbor on picking up the hive that " I got every bee," 

 and I could not help noticing the absence of roaring in this 

 hive in hauling them home. After getting them home I 

 noticed they were troubled with robbers, and in a day or 

 two, when I transferred them, I found some 50 or 100 old 

 bees with no queen, with plenty of comb and old honey, all 

 the comb containing honey. What was the matter ? 



2. My favorite old 3-baijd queen swarmed about May 1. 

 and I divided into nuclei, leaving of course one ripe cell in 



the old hive, but not one hatcht a queen. What do you 

 think of that .' SoiTH Carolina. 



Answers.— 1. It was in all probability a case of queen- 

 lessness of long standing, nearly all the bees having died 

 off from old age. 



2. Ouite likely the cells were chilled. The bees gen- 

 erally build cells toward the outer or lower edges of the 

 combs, which are kept warm enough in a strong colony, 

 but when divided into nuclei there are not enough bees to 

 cover them, and they are chilled. It is well to see that each 

 nucleus has one or more cells in the center of the cluster of 

 the bees. Cut the cells off the edges, and fasten on the sur- 

 face of the comb where they will be kept warm. A good 

 way to fasten the cell on the comb is to use a tobacco-staple, 

 such as bee-keepers use for fastening bottoms to hives. Let 

 one leg of the staple be over the queen-cell, and thrust the 

 other into the comb. 



Hive to Check Swarming. 



What size hive would you advise for a honey-flow of 

 from 2 to 4 pounds per day from the last of March to the 

 last of May ? I am using 8-frame, some with two stories. 

 My first swarms came from the two-story ones. I want to 

 check swarming all I can. South Alabama. 



Answer. — Seeing you already have the 8-frame hives, 

 it is quite likely they will suit you as well as any. Other 

 things being equal, two stories will give you less swarming 

 than one-story hives. It is likely that your two-story colo- 

 nies swarmed more because they were so much stronger. 

 If you had made two of the colonies change places, it would 

 be prett}' sure that the one you changed into the smaller 

 hive would have swarmed first. If you are runtiing for ex- 

 tracted honey, you will find two stories all right, but for 

 some reason I have not been able to make two stories work 

 so well for comb honey. To make more sure against 

 swarming, raise the hive three-fourths of an inch or so on 

 four blocks, and make sure that there is a large entrance 

 between the first and second stories. This last is a great 

 help to prevent swarming. 



■*-•-* 



Carbolic Acid vs. Smoke-Flour in Syrup for Pollen- 

 Feeding to Stimulate Brood-Rearing. 



1. How shall I proceed to use carbolic acid instead of 

 smoke among bees ? 



2. {a.) — Can wheat flour be put into sugar syrup in 

 spring feeding, to ans%ver purposes of pollen ? (b.) If so, in 

 what proportion ? 



3. (it.) — Is it advisable to feed in spring to promote 

 brood-rearing where there is plenty of stores in the hive? 

 {b.) What danger is there in feeding, if not begun too early ? 

 (f.) What would be the safe time to begin in latitude 42 de- 

 grees, 30 miles west of Boston ? Massachusetts. 



Answers. — 1. The use of carbolic acid in place of 

 smoke does not seem to meet with much favor in this coun- 

 try, altho some bee-keepers in England are partial to it. 

 Wet a cloth with a solution of the acid, lay the cloth over 

 the frames, and the fumes will drive the bees out of the 

 way in a very short time. You will wonder why I don't 

 tell you how strong to make the solution, and I would gladly 

 tell you, only I don't know. At a guess I should say one 

 part acid to SO parts water, but that guess may be wild. 



2. {a.) — Someuse it that way. (b.) I don't know of any 

 fixt proportion, possibly 1 to 20. 



3. (a.) — Doubtful. If everything is managed just right, 

 and //'the weather is just right, it may be a good thing, (b.) 

 If begun /«/<■ enough there may be no danger. The chief 

 danger is in stirring up the bees to fly when it is too cold. 

 But if begun late it does little good, for the bees will be 

 then sufficiently stimulated by gathering natural stores, (c.) 

 A skillful and prudent bee-keeper might begin any time 

 when bees fly freely. One who is not very careful better 

 not begin at all, and many of the veterans, perhaps the 

 great majority of them, do not practice it at all. 



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