Oct. 11, 1900. 



/d^ylERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



647 



induce brood-rearinp. Too young- bees are apt to winter 

 poorly. 



For each 14 pound.s of feed wanted, weig-h out 4', 

 pounds of water, the '4 pound to allow for evaporation. 

 Heat the water to the boiling point, then stir in slowly lo 

 pounds of the best granulated sugar for each 4 pounds <>( 

 water, and let all commence boiling again ; then rcniove 

 from the tire. While waiting for the syruj) to boil, dissolve 

 ,in a cup of warm water one-half teaspoonful of pure tar- 

 taric acid for each li> pounds of sugar, and stir it into the 

 syrup. This is iini)ortant. Unless some preventive meas- 

 ure is taken, the syrup will harden in the combs, and the 

 bees .starve. I once lost SO colonies of bees in that way. 

 One-fourth or one-third pound of good extracted honey to 

 each pound of syrup, well mixt while the syrup is warm, 

 will also prevent granulation. 



While the feed is yet quite warm, feed it to the bees, 

 giving at one time all a colony needs, if possible. 



I have used many different kinds of feeders, but like 

 best one invented by James Heddon. This is a wooden box 

 which holds about 2,S pounds of honey or syrup, and covers 

 the entire top of a hive. It is so arranged that bees won't 

 drown in it, and can be filled without coming in contact 

 with the bees. With 30 of these feeders I once made the 

 syrup and fed five barrels of sugar in five days, to over 100 

 colonies of bees, for winter stores. If the weather is not 

 too cool, an average colony will carry 25 pounds of syrup 

 in one night. 



A tin pan makes a fair feeder, if placed in the hive cap 

 filled with warm syrup, and covered with cheese-cloth, thru 

 which the bees will draw the feed and not get drowned. 



I have wintered bees successfully in a cellar, but in this 

 country, where we usually have cold, backward springs, 

 bees need protection about as much in the spring as in win- 

 ter, often until late in May, and we prefer protecting them 

 on the summer stands. 



My hives set in groups of four, two facing- east and two 

 west. In summer the hives in each group are about one 

 foot apart, and the groups eight feet. With this arrange- 

 ment bees or queens seldom get into the wrong hive. For 

 wintering, the hives in each group are placed close together, 

 and a bottomless box is used large enough to allow five 

 inches of packing around the hive, and six inches on top. 

 This box is made in four sections of shiplap stuff, and can 

 be easily taken apart and packt away in small compass in 

 summer. One side of the box is 8 inches hig^her than the 

 other, which gives a slope to the roof. The roof is made of 

 6-inch re-sawed sound lumber. Two layers of these thin 

 strips, loosely laid on, and breaking joints over the cracks, 

 keep all dry. They are held in place by a loose crosspiece 

 at the top and bottom, weighted with stones. If nailed to- 

 gether they swell and shrink and crack. For packing ma- 

 terial I prefer dry sawdust, but planer-shavings, dry leaves, 

 or chaff, does very well. 



The hive-covers are removed, and the slat honey-boards 

 turned over. This gives an open space of about Jii of an 

 inch over the frames, and permits the bees to pass freely in 

 a body over them. A piece of burlap or other cloth is placed 

 over the honey-board, and the packing placed on it. An 

 opening is arranged thru the box, and packing to the en- 

 trance of the hive, which permits the bees to pass out and 

 in, in fair weather. The packing material is placed directly 

 on the ground, and never absorbs enough moisture from it 

 to wet it for more than an inch. Of course, the hives set 

 where water never stands. 



The hives have loo.se, reversible bottoms, and as placed 

 for winter allow two inches of space under the frames, 

 which I, find a great advantage in wintering. It permits 

 the dead bees to drop below the combs, and insures good 

 ventilation. A strip of wood, with a notch on one edge ;+ 

 by 3 inches, fills the front end of this open space. In win- 

 ter this strip is placed notch-side up, and gives an entrance- 

 way for the bees, which never gets clogged with dead bees, 

 and is too small to permit mice to enter. In the spring the 

 strip is easily removed, and the dead bees raked out, and 

 then the strip is replaced notch-side down, for the better 

 convenience of the bees in their spring work. In winter, a 

 slanting board is leaned against the packing-case before 

 the hive entrances, which keeps out wind, snow, and sun- 

 shine. The sun shining into the entrance of a hive will 

 often coax bees out when it is so cold they will not get back. 

 My bees are left in winter quarters until all danger of 

 cold weather is past, often until June. I much prefer the 

 method of out-of-door wintering to using double-walled 

 hives. They are expensive and cumbersome. 



. I have been almost uniformly scccessful with this 



method of wintering bees, and have never met with very 

 serious winter losses since I adopted it, even in hard win- 

 ters when neighbor bee-keepers l<jst all, or nearly all, their 

 bees. Van Buren Co., Mich. 



Questions Answered -Sections Carrying Foul Brood 



HV C. M. DOOI.ITTI.K. 



QUKSTION.- Would there be danger of communicating 

 foul brood to a healthy colony of bee.s by using over it 

 sections and section-holders which had been used the 

 previous season on foul-broody colonies (the combs in them 

 containing no honey), provided the sections and holders 

 were .scraped and sandpapered ? 



ANSWBK.—This is something I do not remember ever 

 hearing about being tried, nor did I try it wlien my bees 

 had foul brood in the early 70'-. From the experience I 

 had with the disease at that time, and knowing what foul 

 brood in the apiary means, I would say that I should not 

 want to try such an experiment, for the risk would be too 

 great. However, if I had many such sections and holders I 

 think I would do this : I would locate two or three colonies 

 of bees four or five miles from all other bees, and use these 

 sections on them, keeping the remainder where no bees could 

 gather propolis from them, and, after one or two years' test, 

 if no harm resulted to these colonies, I should consider it 

 safe to use the rest anywhere. 



I'OUI, BKOOI) SI'KKADING. 



Question.— If a colony is attackt with foul brood, how 

 long^a time will it retpiire for the combs to become one-half 

 or more affected ? 



Answer. That depends very much upon the time of 

 the year, and upon how much foul-broody honey was taken 

 into the hive when the disease was started. If one of my 

 colonies was to rob out a diseased colony, bringing from 10 

 to IS pounds of honey from it during the month of April, I 

 should expect that said colony would have cells of diseased 

 and dead larv;e thruout all of the brood by the middle of 

 July to the amount of one-half or more of the cells contain- 

 ing brood ; but of course the dead and live brood would be 

 all mixt together to a greater or less extent. If only a few 

 bee-loads of honey were taken, and this during the month 

 of September, I should not expect the brood to present the 

 above appearance before the next August, and possibly not 

 till the spring of the second year. But, as I have had no 

 foul brood to deal with since the year 1873, I feel that my 

 ideas in the matter may be like the backslidden professor's 

 prayers, "a little rusty." 



SUPKKSEr)lNC. yUEKNS. 



OuESTiON.— In your "Scientific Queen-Rearing " you 

 speak of finding a colony about to supersede their queen, 

 and then keeping them building cjueen-cells and rearing 

 queens for you as long as the queen, about to be superseded, 

 lived. Now, what I wish to know is this; How do you 

 know, or how can you tell, when a colony is about to super- 

 sede its queen ? 



Answek.— From an experience covering a period of 

 more than 30 years, I think that I can safely say that bees 

 never build queen-cells to a state of perfection great enough 

 to be supplied with eggs or larva' unless they expect to 

 swarm or supersede their queen. To be sure, they will start 

 embryo queen-cells or " acorn-cups," as some call them, all 

 along during the season of the year when they can lly from 

 the hive, but none of these are carried or built out further 

 toward perfect queen-cells by way of lengthening out and 

 drawing the mouth of them down to the size in which we 

 find eggs and larva- in them, unless the bees are cither in- 

 tending to swarm or supersede their queen. So, when you 

 find lengthened-out queen-cells, you can rest assured you 

 will find either eggs or larva- in thera. And when you find 

 queen-cells having eggs or larva; in them at any other time 

 save the swarming sea.son; you may know that the bees 

 are about to supersede their queen. 



Now, when finding such lengthened-out cells contain- 

 ing eggs or larv;e, you may always know that such a colony 

 will save and rear all of the larva- (unless injured in trans- 

 ferring) into fine queens you may give them in prepared 

 cells, as I give in my book, and all queens so reared will 

 prove to be the very best queens that you can possibly rear 

 under any condition, or by any of the known plans, no mat- 

 ter whether the colony intends to swarm or supersede its 

 queen. There is this difference, however : If the colony 



