Sept. 27, 1900. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL- 



SI? 



I thitik before asking: some questions about hives and 

 sections I ought to say that I have only three or four hives, 

 and wish to run for comb honey. 



1. Which would you advise me to get, the Danzenbaker 

 hive or the 8-frame dovetailed, for comb honey ? 



2. Which sections would you advise me to use, the plain 

 section and fence, the Danzenbaker tall sections, or the old- 

 style 4 '4 x4'4 ? 



3. I took a comb of '4 sealed honey from a hive, and 

 finding- moths in it I sulphured it. I let the vapor settle, 

 and it has a slightly greenish tinge. Will that honey be 

 bad for the bees to winter on ? I did not kill the moths, 

 and, as I do not wish to put it back in the hive until the 

 middle of October, and as by that time the moths will have 

 ruined the comb, do you thitik I would better set it by the 

 hive and let the bees clean it ? This hive is a long way dis- 

 tant from the others, so I do not fear robber-bees. 



Minnesota. 

 Answers. — 1. My preference is for the dovetailed, but 

 you might think differently. 



2. That's a very hard question to answer. Something 

 depends upon your own tastes and something upon your 

 markets. Either one well managed will bring goad results, 

 and perhaps your safe plan would be to use that which is 

 already on your market, trying anything else on a small 

 scale. 



3. The sulphur on the comb will not hurt the bees. Un- 

 less the hive is half a mile or more distant from othei colo- 

 nies, there would be danger of robbing if you set a comb of 

 honey outside the hive. What's the harm of putting the 

 comb in the hive now ? You might kill the worms with bi- 

 sulphide of carbon, or even with a heavier dose of sulphur. 

 You can take a wire nail and pick out the large worms, for 

 it is only large worms that would fail to be killed by sul- 

 phuring heavy enough to make the combs green. 



Introducing Queens- 



Laying Workers- 

 Apology. 



A Reverent 



honor to keep her out and pay me for damages, but the law 

 compels him to do what his sense of honor might or might 

 not enforce. Should he not likewise be compelled by law 

 in the matter of the much greater damage done me as a 

 bee-keeper ?" 



With your view of the case you would probably say that 

 one man has as good right to the location as another, and I 

 should reply that we will not quarrel about that, but start 

 upon a platform upon which we both stand. One of the 

 drawbacks to bee-keeping is its uncertainty as a business, 

 and it is made doubly uncertain by the fact that I have no 

 sure tenure of a location. If a man had no stronger hold 

 upon his farm, he would hesitate a little about putting in a 

 crop. Farm lands were all public property, but it was for 

 the public good that a man should have a certain right to a 

 certain portion of land, and laws were framed accordingly. 

 What I believe would be for the general good wouM be to 

 have by purchase or some other way the same right to a 

 crop of honey as to a crop of corn. That's the whole thing 



in a nutshell. 



*•-*. 



Hives and Sections Sulphuring Honey. 



1. Whenever one has bees working above a queen-es- 

 cluder has he not the means for introducing a queen speed- 

 ily and with absolute safety by placing the hive on a bot- 

 tom-board prepared to shut the bees in, and at the same 

 time give ventilation ? It seems to me that this is better 

 than the Doolittle caged-bees plan, as one can have bees 

 ready to receive a queen at any and all times with very 

 little trouble. 



2. Here I wish to say that I have written some things 

 about laying workers that I should not write with my pres- 

 ent knowledge and experience. My practice now is to 

 unite the laying-worker colony with a colony having a laj'- 

 ing queen. The frames when cleared of brood can be used 

 where they will be of most advantage. The plan I once 

 recommended, of making a nucleus with laying queen and 

 then build up the nucleus with frames from the hive having 

 the laying-workers, is liable at times to start robbing, and 

 so I abandoned it. 



3. And now I wish to apologize to you. Dr. Miller, and 

 to others, for the rough and seemingly irreverent way in 

 which I have sometimes alluded to them, and to some of the 

 things they have written. I am not irreverent or unkind, 

 and as I am nearing the 70th milestone in my journey of 



life, and have not long to live at most, I wish to leave the 

 world feeling that there are none in it who entertain any 

 but kindly sentiments towards me. Edwin Bevins. 



Answers. — 1. Many things look all right in theory, but 

 the miserable bees don't always understand just what is ex- 

 pected of them, and deliberately upset one's best plans. At 

 least that's the way my bees have treated me. I'm afraid 

 that actual trial of your plan would result in a dead queen 

 oftener than the caging plan. But it might be worth trying. 



2. You have come to the same place at which every one 

 will land who has had sufficient experience with laying 

 workers, that the best thing is to break up the colony in the 

 great majority of cases. If you have plenty of brood and 

 bees that you can use just as well as not, it may sometimes 

 pay to give to such a colony several frames of brood with 

 adhering- bees, and then treat it as a queenless colony, but 

 generally that is not as well as to break up the whole busi- 

 ness. If you have a young queen that has just emerged 

 from her cell, she may be accepted in a colony of laying 

 workers, and she may not. It's hard for one to give up the 

 idea of trying first one plan and then another for continu- 

 ing a colony with laying workers, and one will fight hard 

 against breaking up all such colonies, but he'll get to that 

 practice if he lives long enough. 



3. Bless your heart, Mr. Bevins, I don't believe any of 

 us feel sour toward you at all. There's always a streak of 

 good nature underlying all you say, and for one I'm always 

 glad to see anything from your pen. 



Apicultural Jurisprudence— Straining Honey 

 Eastern Oklahoma. 



Feeding— 



1. In Mr. Newman's report in the American Bee Jour- 

 nal for Jan. 2Sth, he tells about the case of Mr. Buchheim. 

 Do you know anything about the case ? Were city ordi- 

 nances, prohibiting the keeping of bees within city limits, 

 declared unconstitutional ? If so, was the decision based 

 on principles of the common law which would apply in any 

 State, or on principles peculiar to the laws and constitution 

 of this State? 



2. Where can I get literature on apicultural jurispru- 

 dence in general ? 



3. What do you think about the necessity of straining 

 honey thru cheese-cloth ? Do you know of any convenient 

 method or device for doing it without expending too much 

 time and patience ? 



4. Can you tell us, approximately, how much honey it 

 would take to duplicate a colony by feeding when other col- 

 onies are just gathering enough to hold their own — taking 

 a colony of given strength and amount of comb, of course ? 



5. How is eastern Oklahoma for bees ? Is alfalfa raised 

 there ? If so, does it yield much nectar in that locality ? 



Subscriber. 

 Answers.— 1. I only know what has been in print on 

 the subject. I don't know upon what the decision was 

 based, but I think the same decision would obtain in any 

 State. But I may be mistaken, and am ready for cor- 

 rection. 



2. Can any one tell ? 



3. It is decidedly important that there should be noth- 

 ing but the honey itself present, and some means should be 

 used to remove all other matters. For small quantities per- 

 haps nothing is better than to strain thru cheese-cloth, 

 making sure that the strainer be not too small. For large 

 quantities it is better to have the honey go from the extrac- 

 tor into a tank, with an arrangement for drawing off the 

 honey from the bottom after the impurities have had time 

 to rise to the top. 



4. I'm not sure whether I understand the question. If 

 it means how much honey must be fed a colony in order to 

 make two colonies out of it at a time when other colonies 

 gather only enough for their daily needs, I should guess SO 

 or 60 pounds. But the guess may be wild. 



5. Will some one tell us ? 



'< The Hum of the Bees in the Apple-Tree Bloom " is 

 the name of the finest bee-keeper's song — words by Hon. 

 Eugene Secor and music by Dr. C. C. Miller. This is 

 thought by some to be the best bee-song yet written by Mr. 

 Secor and Dr. Miller. It is, indeed, a " hummer." We can 

 furnish a single copy of it postpaid, for 10 cents, or 3 copies 

 for 25 cents. Or, we will mail a half-dozen copies of it for 

 sending us one new yearly subscription to the American 

 Bee Journal at $1.00.' 



