568 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Sept. 6 lyiio 



But I can not allovr that these unscrupulous ones " who sell 

 the lowest establish the price," for all of ray experience, 

 covering- a period of 23 years, tells me that there are many 

 commission men in the cities of Boston, New York and 

 Philadelphia who do not even so much as " wink "' at the 

 prices made bj- these unscrupulous ones. Therefore. Bro. 

 Marks' assertion that "the honest commission man— the 

 one who would give full value, is not in it," is verv far from 

 the truth. 



I could name parties handling honey in each of the 

 cities above mentioned, who have sold my honey each year 

 for the past 12 years at from one to three cents per pound 

 above the prices quoted in the " Producers' Price Current," 

 and from the same price to one and two cents above the 

 prices quoted in our bee-papers for those same cities. Bro. 

 Marks must have had in mind the poorest specimen of a 

 commission man, and compared him with the best dealer 

 when he penned those words, very much as the world takes 

 the poorest specimen of a Christian and holds him up beside 

 the best worldling, when Christianity is to be scoft at. 

 Don't do it Bro. Marks ; it isn't nice. 



i ftyestioos and Answers. | 



CONDUCTED BY 



DR. C C. MILLHR, A/areng^o. Ill, 



[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.] 



Bees Overheated in Handling. 



What is the best thing to do with bees that have brood 

 that has been overcome by heat in moving ? 



I moved my bees 80 miles in June, hauling them on a 

 spring wagon. I started with 19 colonies, and 3 smothered 

 on the way, and the brood of the others died, and also two 

 queens. Now the bees either have the old brood, or the 

 later brood, in the cells, and do not carry it out as I sup- 

 posed they would ; and I also saw a few small, white worms 

 in the combs about a half inch long. Nebraska. 



Answer. — The trouble was lack of ventilation, and per- 

 haps lack of water. The colonies were weakened that were 

 not killed outright, and the reason they do not carry out 

 the dead brood as promptly as you desire is because they 

 have too big a contract on hand for their numbers. lii 

 course of time they may g-et all straightened up, but you 

 may help matters by taking from a weak colony one of its 

 outside combs that is left uncovered and giving- it to a 

 stronger colonj-. 



If in the whole there are more bad combs than can be 

 covered by the bees, it may bebest to remove enough so that 

 all will be well covered, selecting the worst combs for re- 

 moval, and melting them up. If the bees are gathering 

 nothing, feeding will be a help to them in cleaning house. 



A Queen Experience. 



The queen sent me as a premium was a failure as a 

 queen. She has laid a little here and there, not enough to 

 fill a comb. She filled a small piece of drone-comb, some 

 cells having two and three eggs to the cell ; and now the 

 bees are preparing to supersede her. They have built and 

 have eggs in two queen-cells. I have kept bees for 20 years, 

 and never knew them to stop superseding when matters had 

 gone thus far. I believe if Dr. Miller knew the facts he 

 would like to send me another one ; which I will pay for if 

 matters right themselves here. If not, I think he would 

 not want me to. If you send me another queen send me a 

 good one, as I would rather pay for a good one than have a 

 poor one otherwise. Ixdi.ana. 



Answer.- Your letter is a fair illustration of the mis- 

 understandings and misconceptions often entertained. You 

 ask that if another queen be sent you she shall be a good 

 one. No one can really tell how good a queen is until she 

 is old enough for her force of bees to have past thru at least 

 one honey harvest, thus generally making her a year old. 

 The premium queens sent out lay no claim to being tested 



queens, but are all untested. All that is promist is that 

 they are the daughters of choice queens, that they are all 

 right as far as can be told from appearance, and that they 

 are laying all right before being taken from the hive for 

 mailing. Such a queen may have mated with a very poor 

 drone, and in spite of her ancestry may be a poor queen. 

 The purchaser receiving her as an untested queen takes his 

 chances. 



The queen is sometimes blamed when she is not at all 

 at fault. From your description it is morally certain that 

 the trouble in your colony is not with the queen. You do 

 not say whether you have seen the queen since introducing 

 her, but according to the testimony she never laid in the 

 hive at all. The small piece of drone-comb filled with eggs, 

 some cells two and three eggs to a cell, points clearly to 

 the presence of laying workers, and you will find that all 

 the bees produced will be drones, and no queen will ever 

 come from either of the queen-cells. The queen was a good 

 one so far as any one could judge from appearance, was lay- 

 ing vs-ell before being- mailed, and even if injured in pass- 

 ing thru the mails so that her progeny would afterward be 

 only drones (a thing which might possibly occur) her eggs 

 would still be laid by preference in worker-cells and not in 

 drone-cells. According to the testimony, however, she was 

 killed in introducing, and laying workers are responsible 

 for what is going on in the hive, and not the dead queen. 



Colony Rearing Drones in August. 



The honey crop is very poor around here this year. 

 There is barely enough for the bees for wintering. What 

 causes bees to rear drones at this time of the year, when 

 there is no honey coming in ? Wisconsin. 



Answer. — It is not always easy to give a. reason for all 

 the things that bees do. As a rule, when the honey-flow 

 stops, drone-rearing stops. A queenless colony will con- 

 tinue the drones it has. If a colony has a drone-layer or 

 laying workers, it will rear only drones. Every queen is 

 superseded in the ordinary course of nature, the supersed- 

 ing generally taking place well on in the season, and a su- 

 perseding colony needs drones. Sometimes, however, _a 

 normal colony rears queens when according to all rules it 



ought not to do so. 



< « » 



Wire-Fence for Bee-Yard. 



Can you giv;e an3' information as to the best kind of 

 portable fence for inclosing a bee-yard — something that 

 will turn chickens, rabbits (if necessary,) and that a hog 

 can not get under, thru or over, and that will also turn cat- 

 tle, if possible ? New JersEV. 



Answer. — It's asking a good deal to ask for a fence that 

 will do all that and still be portable, and I'm not sure 

 whether the want can be supplied. You might trj' the Page 

 woven wire fence recently advertised in these columns. 



A Bunch of Beginners' Questions. 



1. Are separators or fences necessary and generally 

 used in supers when, working for extracted honey ? c:" czi 



2. Will bees build thin comb straight with only a comb 

 or wooden guide where no starters are used ? 11" -■ 



3. Do bee-keepers ever use a full frame of foundation 

 in either top or bottom chamber, or do they use only start- 

 ers, say one or two inches wide clear across the entire length 

 of the frame ? 



4. Is it best to wire the brood and extracting frames ? 



5. Does it pay to buy one's entire foundation for an 

 apiary of the size of mine (40 colonies), where they have no 

 mill of their own, and would also have to buy wax to make 

 it. where either starters or full sheets are used ? 



6. Do you recommend the double brood-case used in the 

 Heddon hive ? 



7. What is the difl:'erence between the Simplicity and 

 the Langstroth hives? 



8. Do you prefer the dovetail pattern ? 



9. Would it pay me next spring to use the combs novf in 

 my home-made box-hives, when I transfer the bees into 

 some other movable-frame hives? 



10. I have a style of hive of my own make, somewhat 

 on the Langstroth pattern. I can move the frames in the 

 supers but can't move those in the brood-chamber. My 

 hives are 12 inches square in the clear, 10-inch deep brood- 



