Oct. 4, 1900. 



AMERICAN KEE JOURNAL. 



633 



Questions and Answers. ^ 



CONDUCTED BY 



DR. C. O. MJl.J.ETt, Afarenero, lU. 



(The Questions may be mailed to the Bee Journal office, or to Dr. Miller 



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



Doctor to send answers by mail.— Editor. 1 



Feed for Winter Stores. 



If a colony requires 10 pounds more feed than it has to 

 winter on, and we feed granulated sug^ar, equal parts by 

 weig-ht, should we take S or 10 pounds of sugar to make up 

 the necessary 10 pounds weight ? or will 10 pounds of sugar 

 go as far as 10 pounds of honey, when mixt as above, sugar 

 mixt with water ? New York. 



Answer. — Ten pounds of sugar goes farther than 10 

 pounds of honey. About 5 pounds of sugar to 2 pounds of 

 water is considered a feed equal in strength to honey, so if 

 your bees need 10 pounds of feed that is to be half-and-half, 

 they should have about 7 pounds of sugar and the same of 

 water. But it will not do to feed so much water late in the 

 season. The bees will not have time to evaporate it, and a 

 thicker feed will be better. 



A^Beginner's auestions. 



I suppose you must grow tired of beginner's questions, 

 as the things they ask about are so old and stale to you. 

 I never ask what I can gain from the bee-books ; but the 

 trouble is they describe things in such a way that we can't 

 grasp the idea. Besides, there are some things we can't 

 learn from the books, and here I come again to ask you : 



1. From the best information you have, what would be 

 the best honey-plant (flowers, shrubs) I could plant for the 

 benefit of my bees nest year in my two-acre orchard lot 

 fenced to itself, and set out in all the different kinds of or- 

 chard fruits, supposing such plants to be planted among 

 the fruit-trees ? 



2. Why do bees fill up when smoked or disturbed ? I 

 know they do it, but why do they do it ? and do they retain 

 it permanentlj' ? 



3. What could cause some of my bees (just a few, say a 

 pint) to swarm out and cluster on a nearby bush ? I .have 

 had two different occasions of this kind lately. If the en- 

 tire swarm had came out I would better understand it, but 

 these few came out, clustered, and never pretended to leave, 

 only to change their bush from one to another, and never 

 returned to the mother colony. Last fall I had this same 

 thing to occur Nov. 1, but they left for the woods. 



4. If I were to transfer my bees, would it be safe to do 

 so next spring before they begin to gather and store honey ? 

 and if I did, would it not be absolutely necessary to feed 

 them until they did begin to store ? 



5. When would be the best time to move my entire 

 apiary to a distance of 100 or 200 yards, after, or before, I 

 transfer them ? ' 



6. Would my orchard be a good locality for them, plac- 

 ing the hives along on the fruit-tree rows ? or would their 

 alighting on the fruit-trees in swarming-time cause dam- 

 age to the trees in having to saw off so many limbs to hive 

 them ? 



7. Can the Manum swarm-catcher be used successfully 

 enough to prevent sawing off these limbs ? 



8. Is an orchard generally considered a good locality 

 for an apiary, all these things considered ? 



9. In using old comb, does it require that the comb 

 should be placed so as to stand as it did in the hive where it 

 was made by the bees ? I've heard one could not invert the 

 comb for the reason the bees could not refill it unless it had 

 the same angle (incline) it had at first, that it would not 

 hold the honey. Mississippi. 



Answers. — 1. No, I do not weary of beginners' ques- 

 tions, but am always interested in them, unless the question 

 be one that is fully answered in every text-book on bee- 

 culture, and then it is onlj' a waste of space to answer it 

 here. You must not be too hard on the books. It is utterly 

 impracticable for them to answer all questions that may 

 arise. If it were possible for them to do so, there would be 

 no excuse for this department. If they give general prin- 



ciples in such way as not to be misleading, they do well. 

 But they are indispensable, and the man who depends upon 

 a bee-journal without having a text-book is unwise. After 

 carefully studying his text-book, however, he will still have 

 plenty of questions to ask, and tlic intelligent questions of 

 the beginner are always of interest. It may, however, be 

 no easy matter to answer some of them, as for example 

 your first question. The book that should attempt to give 

 point-blank instructions on such a matter would need to oc- 

 cupy much room, and the instruction that would be all right 

 for one locality might illy fit another. But I will make 

 some attempt to answer. 



1. If the prosperity of the orchard is the main thing to 

 be considered, a good plow might be better than any kind 

 of honey-plant. And yet there might be something planted 

 among the trees who.se product, together with the nectar 

 gathered therefrom, would more than repay the damage 

 done to the trees of the orchard. Your wise plan would be 

 to consult an experienced orchardist as to the things that 

 might be judiciously planted in an orchard, and then select 

 among them such as would be best for the bees. And his 

 experience should be in Mississippi, not in Massachusetts. 

 Sweet clover or alsike clover would be fine for the bees, but 

 not so good for the trees. One of the best things might be 

 the raspberry. It succeeds well in partial shade, and yields 

 a large amount of nectar, and its presence will do the trees 

 no harm if kept properly cultivated. The different vines, 

 such as cucumbers, squashes and pumpkins are also honey- 

 plants, and would not be very bad for the orchard. 



2. I don't know. The supposition is that bees reason 

 something like this, allowing that they reason : " It looks 

 a good bit as tho we were to be turned out of house and 

 home, and if we're to migrate to some other place it's high 

 time we were loading up our knapsacks with provisions to- 

 take with us." When the excitement subsides, and they 

 conclude they're not going to move after all, they unload 

 most of the honey they have taken, but no doubt every such 

 disturbance costs at least a little in the way of stores. 



3. It might be bees accompar;ying a superseding queen 

 on her wedding-flight, or a small after-swarm, more likely 

 the latter, which is very freaky with its virgin queen. 



4. It might not be unsafe to transfer so early, but the 

 disarrangement of the brood-nest would be more easily 

 overcome at a time the bees were storing. It would not be 

 absolutely necessary to feed unless there was danger of 

 starving, and either to transfer or feed when too cold for 

 bees to fly would be unadvisable. Better transfer in fruit- 

 bloom, or, perhaps still better, wait till they swarm. 



5. The transferring need not be considered, but it will 

 be well to move them early ; if convenient, just before their 

 cleansing flight in spring. 



6. An orchard is one of the very best places to put hives. 

 The trees would trouble little more about swarms alighting- 

 on them than if they were near by outside the orchard. 



7. Yes, generally. 



8. Yes. 



9. Practically it makes little difference. The bees are 

 able to straighten up matters. 



No Swarming and a Remarkable Yield. 



I would like to inquire the probable reason of bees not 

 swarming. I have S colonies but did not get a swarm this 

 season. The colonies were very strong in the spring. I 

 put on supers early, and have taken off 650 pounds of comb 

 honey. Is it more than the usual yield ? IniNOis. 



Answer. — It is hard to say with any degree of positive- 

 ness just why your bees did not swarm. You say you put 

 on supers early, and the bees thus feeling that there was 

 plenty of room at home were less inclined to look for quar- 

 ters elsewhere. You say nothing about the size of your 

 hives, and it may be that large hives had something to do 

 with it. It may be, too, that the strain of bees had more 

 to do with it than anything else, for some bees are much 

 less inclined to swarm than others. If you have bees not 

 inclined to swarm, you are much to be congratulated. Your 

 average of 130 pounds per colony is a remarkable one for 

 northern Illinois this year. If your bees had swarmed, the 

 chances are that your crop would have been less. 



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 Arherican Bee Journal — both for $1.10. 



