Aug. 16, 1900. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



519 



evidence that the queen was received all right, providing 

 this was three days or more after the bees and brood had 

 been taken from the mother colony. The only trouble in 

 the case was that the nucleus was overpowered by robbers, 

 and I'm afraid that a certain woman was a wee bit to blame 

 in the matter, altho that may be an unwarranted suspicion 

 on my part. What I am afraid of is that the hive was 

 opened to see what was going on, and a frame left standing 

 out of the hive for a time let the robbers have a taste that 

 aroused them. At a time when robbers are likely to be 

 troublesome, the greatest care should be exercised about 

 opening a hive with a weak colony, not to expose anything 

 to robbers, and there is some advantage in doing the work 

 rather late in the day, for in that case if robbers do attempt 

 to enter, the coming on of night will stop them and give 

 the weakling a chance to rally. The entrance should be 

 only large enough for one or two bees to pass at a time. 



Queenless Colony Gathering Honey and Pollen. 



Do bees gather honey and pollen when they are queen- 

 less ? Michigan. 



Answer. — Yes, as you can easily tell by watching a 

 queenless colony. If you look inside when a colony has 

 been queenless for some time, you may think they gather 

 more pollen than others, but that's because they store with- 

 out using what they gather, which is really less than others 



gather. 



*-»-^ 



Observatory Hive. 



1. Please give directions for making an observatory 

 hive. 



2. If I put frames of brood and honey in, with a sealed 

 queen-cell, how many bees will it take to make a fair colony 

 in an observatory hive ? 



3. What is the best way to get a colony in the observa- 

 tory hive ? I have no extra queens. Mass. 



Answers. — 1. An observatory hive may contain only one 

 frame, or it may contain 10 frames. It is built on the same 

 general principles as another hive, only the two side-walls 

 should contain a pane of glass, with a shutter to cover the 

 glass. 



2. Just the same as in any other hive, depending on the 

 number of frames, each frame being well covered with bees. 



3. One way is to pen them in for 24 hours, taking care 

 that they do not smother. 



■*-—P' 



Honey Granulated in Brood-Combs. 



About one-half of my surplus honey, also the same per- 

 cent of honey stored in brood-frames, that which was gath- 

 ered thru the month of June, is candied. The sources from 

 which the honey was gathered thru the month of June are 

 as follows : White clover, poplar, black-gum, and the larg- 

 est percent 9f the total is honey-dew. From all these sources 

 my bees have gathered honey year after year, but never 

 have I seen a drop of candied honey in combs. Why did 

 this honey granulate ? Will the candied honey in the brood- 

 frames be all right for wintering bees, since some of it is 

 quite hard and dry ? If not, what would I better do ? 



West Virginia. 



Answer. — I cannot tell why your honey should act so 

 differently this year. It might be well for you to feed to 

 each colony five pounds of sugar with the same weight of 

 water, removing some of the honey for that purpose. A 

 larger amount of sugar might be still safer. 



The American Fruit and Vegetable Journal is just 

 what its name indicates. Tells all about growing fruits 

 and vegetables. It is a fine monthly, at SO cents a year. 

 We can mail you a free sample copy of it, if you ask for it. 

 We club it with the American Bee Ji urnal — both papers one 

 year for fl. 10. 



The "Old Reliable" seen thru New and Unreliable Qlasses. 

 By E. E. HASTY, Richards, Ohio. 



QUEEN-REARING IMPROVEMENTS. 



I am rather " the day after the fair " in commenting on 

 Mr. Pridgen's splendid article on queen-rearing, as copied 

 from the Bee-Keepers' Review on pages 401 to 405. It has 

 already been commented on by those who know something 

 about rearing queens for market, which I do not. I know 

 that in the opening picture those cell-cups give a singularly 

 vivid impression of the delicate waxiness of wax. I should 

 guess that a very great labor-saver was that queen-nursery 

 to slip over 18 cells at once— and give each princess a bou- 

 doir of her own — and release her thru a hole with a wooden 

 peg. I wonder how many readers blunderingly thought 

 from looks that the transfer-stick and a dipping-stick were 

 all the same thing. And many of the little paragraphs 

 might be profitably enlarged to a considerable article— just 

 to get the thing more effectively thru a dull fellow's wool. 



When A. I. Root called for a sheet of foundation a mile 

 long he didn't think how soon some one would distance him 

 by grinding out a peck of young queen-cells with a few 

 turns of a crank ! (And some might say that W. H. P. is 

 the more significant crank.) 



And it seems it isn't worth while to try off-hand intro- 

 duction with virgin queens which have reacht that ex- 

 tremely active state characteristic of them when many 

 hours old. I judge that one of the test general directions 

 is : Observe at eventide all colonies from which queens are 

 likely to mate— and if one has failed to return from flight 

 there will be panic and distress manifest at the door. 



ROBBER-BEES AND THEIR WAYS. 



And so Mr. Davenport also " got left" by SOO pounds of 

 honey which was once in a barrel. And I will admit that 

 sometimes— many times— anything and everything can be 

 given to bees to clean up without putting any dangerous 

 mischief into their heads ; still I incline to maintain that 

 the robber-bee is not altogether a figment of the imagina- 

 tion, like grave-yard ghosts. It's perfectly true tHat rob- 

 bers will form squirming bunches, and act as if in a frenzy 

 of desire to get into that hive, when they are taking good 

 care to keep away from the entrance, for fear of conse- 

 quences. It is a helpful suggestion that an apiary often 

 gets in a roar when there are not many robbers— mainly 

 the roar of bees trying to find out what's going on. Page 405. 



FASTENING FOUNDATION IN SECTIONS. 



As to fastening foundation in sections, Charles Small, 

 page 410, evidently does it, and in an unusual way— still I 

 think he might profitably meditate on the way Dr. Miller 

 does it, and on the methods of some of the other brethren. 

 You see if a type-setting youth should entirely ignore the 

 efforts of others in the same line, he would be pretty sure 

 to think that 30 cents' worth of type-setting was a rousing 

 day's work. 



SHOWY AND FRAGRANT FLOWERS AS HONEY'-YIELDERS. 



Thanks to Prof. Cook for his general principles (page 

 411) that all showy flowers and all fragrant ones are nectar- 

 bearing. I think, however, there is room for warning 

 against riding these principles too hard. The " nigger- 

 head " and the ox-eye daisy and the mayweed are showy, 

 but they hardly count much to our profit. The flowers of 

 basswood are not showy, yet they count heavily. Our 

 heaviest yielder, white clover, is but very faintly fragrant, 

 and no more showy than the mayweed is. So we can not 

 judge conclusively offhand by either beauty or fragrance. 

 I wonder if it wouldn't do to make another general rule, to 

 the effect that flowers of ill odor are mostly of no account 

 for honey. 



SUNSHINE TO MOVE WORMS OUT OF COMBS. 



Yes, Mr. Ridley, your accidental discovery is likely to 

 be of some use. Instead of the tedious work (seldom fully 

 complete) of picking worms out of combs, set the combs up 

 in the hot sunshine and makethe worms crawl out. Page 430. 



