THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



165 



PuoF. A. J. Cook says : " Honey 

 kept ill a warm room in open vessels 

 (the more sliallow the better), witli a 

 cloth over them to protect from dust, 

 for 2 or 3 months, will be ripened .just 

 as well as in the hive. At least I can 

 find no one who can tell which is 

 which. Our bee-house is single-walled, 

 and gets very warm in June, July and 

 August. We tind that in our dry at- 

 mosphere, the honey evaporates thor- 

 oughly ill this house with no extra 

 heat. 1 would never let the honey re- 

 main to be capped, but I would al- 

 ways keep such honey in a dry, warm 

 room, and never sell it until it was 

 thick." 



Reversing Brood-Frames. 



Query, IVo. 36 — Are the advaiitafjos to be 

 gained by reversing- brood frames with brood, 

 sufficient to encourage a8:enerai adoption of 

 the practice ?— I'inc Grove, Pa. 



Dadant & Son say : " Ko." 



G. W. Dbmaree answers : " No." 



W. Z. Hutchinson replies thus : 

 "I have never used them, but they 

 are growing in public favor, which 

 shows merit." 



Prof. A. J. Cook says that " it may 

 be a little early to speak ex cathedra ; 

 but it certainly looks that way de- 

 cidedly." 



James Heddon remarks thus : " I 

 think tliat all the advantages derived 

 from the reversal of brood frames, 

 more than pay for having that style 

 of frame, if such style is not too ex- 

 pensive or complicated. There is a 

 wide future before this problem, and 

 one mostly unexplored." 



J. E. Pond, Jr., answers as follows: 

 " Much will depend upon surrounding 

 circumstances and conditions. If cheap 

 and practical frames can be devised, 

 they will probably be found of great 

 advantage in large apiaries. In my 

 own, I tried them one season and 

 made up my mind that they were in- 

 dispensable. The next season the 

 yield of honey was far dift'eient, and I 

 found I could accomplish the same re- 

 sults by the use of an extractor. When 

 a really practical reversing frame is 

 devised, that can be furnished at a 

 slight advance in cost over the com- 

 mon frame, my advice will be to those 

 who are stocking up anew, to procure 

 them ; then they can take advantage 

 of them (if there is any to take), or 

 run them without reversing, as they 

 choose." 



1^" We often get a number of 

 notices and advertisements on AIoii- 

 days, intended for the next Bee 

 Journal. As we close the forms on 

 Saturdays, all such notices must be here 

 on Saturday morning, or cannot ap- 

 pear until the following week. 



Kxplaiialory.— The flgiu'es BEFoitE the 

 names iniiieute tlie number of years ttuit the 

 person has kept bc(^s. Those afteh, show 

 the number of colonies the writer had in tlie 

 previous spring- and fall, or fall and spring, 

 as the time of the year may require. 



This marli © indicates tlnit the apiarist is 

 located near tlie centres of the State named: 

 5 north of tlie centre ; ? south ; O east ; 

 *Owest; and this 6 northeast; X3 northwest; 

 o~ southeast; and P southwest of the centre 

 of the State mentioned. 



For the American Bee Journal 



' The Use of Drone-Traps." 



CHAS. DADANT A SON. 



®" To give away a copy of " Honey 

 as Food and Medicine " to evei-y oiie who 

 tniys a package of honey, will sell almost 

 any quantity of it. 



There are ''many men of many 

 minds," indeed, and if we all agreed 

 about every thing it would be hardly 

 worth while to write. As a matter of 

 course, in reply to Mr. Alley's article 

 on page 10.5, we will '' back up " what 

 we said in regard to drone-traps, al- 

 though we were not thinking about 

 Mr. i\.. when we answered Query No. 

 ■5, and do not wish to displease any 

 one. 



To begin with, let us state, that in 

 bee-keeping as in every business, the 

 aim ought to be to secure the largest 

 result with the least labor and ex- 

 pense. Mr. Alley does not seem to 

 be in the habit of replacing, in his 

 hives, the drone-comb by worker- 

 comb, for he writes : " Would it not 

 be a pretty job to go over 100, or even 

 50 colonies of bees and cut out the 

 drone-comb and fill the places with 

 comb foundation y" Yes, this is a 

 small job ; but after experiments, we 

 consider this one of the most impor- 

 tant in the bee-business, and have 

 had it done on more than .500 colonies. 

 As a matter of course, it cannot all be 

 done in one day, and it can be done 

 more easily with worker-comb than 

 with foundation, if comb can be had. 

 Our instructions to our men are, as 

 soon as they detect some drone-comb 

 in a hive, to put it at the outside of 

 the other combs, so as to have it on 

 hand when preparing bees for winter, 

 or at the spring visit. Of course when 

 this comb is once detroyed in a hive 

 and replaced by worker-comb, it is 

 done for ever ; for bees do not change 

 worker-comb to drone-comb. We 

 have some colonies in Quinby hives, 

 which, in 10 years, have not reared 

 •500 drones. Sometimes, when a queen 

 is old or sick, or wheii she lays her 

 first eggs, she lays drones in worker- 

 cells ; but the small drones reared 

 would pass through the holes of a 

 drone-trap. 



The removal of drone-comb is worth 

 many dollars to the bee-keeper, for 32 

 drone-cells occupy as much space as 

 •50 worker-cells and one whole comb, 

 or 1.50 square inches, would produce 

 •5,(X)0 drones instead of 7,.500 workers. 

 When we consider that such a change, 

 the rearing of workers instead of 



drones, can be effected in a few min- 

 utes, at a trifiiiig expense, we can but 

 wonder that such an experienced bee- 

 keeper as Mr. Alley seems to be re- 

 luctant about it. 



Indeed, his drone-trap catches the 

 drones ; but when it removes them, 

 they are full grown ; the honey which 

 they have absorbed is gone ; the num- 

 ber of workers in the hive is not so 

 large as if the combs had all been 

 worker-combs ; and the honey-crop is 

 from () to 10 pounds smaller each year 

 than it should have been, had all the 

 drone-comb been removed. Besides 

 this loss, it is less work to replace, 

 once for all, in a hive the drone-combs 

 by worker-combs, than to keep a 

 drone-trap in front of the hive, and 

 clean it out once or more every week 

 during the summer. But, Mr. Alley 

 says that the bees will rear drones In 

 the surplus boxes. No ! not if you 

 fill the surplus frames with worker- 

 combs. 



Mr. Alley, who rears four kinds of 

 bees in tlie same apiary, finds profit 

 in using drone-traps or drone-ex- 

 cluders, but who besides him or a 

 queen-dealer, makes such a business V 

 Such traps for honey-producing bee- 

 keepers would be a nuisance ; for in 

 summer they prevent the easy venti- 

 lation of the hive, for with them it is 

 impossible to ventilate sufficiently to 

 keep the bees from laying out. Thus 

 the bees are more inclined to remain 

 idle or to swarm on account of the in- 

 crease of heat of the inside. To pre- 

 vent this excess of heat, we not only 

 raise the hives from the bottom- 

 boards, but we often put the surplus 

 boxes back half an inch or so to allow 

 a draft through the brood-chamber 

 during the hottest weather. Of course 

 such an arrangement prevents the use 

 of the drone-trap. 



If one's neighbor is careless and 

 has impure bees, he will rear drones 

 by the thousands. What profit will 

 be derived from the drone-trap in 

 such circumstances Y A few years 

 ago we had all pure bees ; one of our 

 neighbors brought, in May, -15 colonies 

 of black bees to within 1}4 miles from 

 our apiary. Some of his hundred 

 thousands of drones met with our 

 young queens. Where would have 

 been, to us, the use of drone-traps in 

 our apiary ? 



There is an easy way of improving 

 an apiary without the use of drone- 

 traps. If we have 2 or 3 good queens 

 we can rear lots of queen-cells ; Mr. 

 Alley, in his book, gives us an ex- 

 cellent method for this. By giving a 

 sheet of drone-comb to one of these 

 queens, and removing the drone-comb 

 from other hives, we will in a short 

 time replace all worthless queens and 

 attain the same result as by the use of 

 drone-traps, at the same time saving 

 a great deal of waste, as we said before. 



To sum up : A careful bee-keeper 

 can rear only the drones he needs 

 without the use of drone-traps in his 

 own apiary, and a careless bee-keeper 

 will not succeed with drone-traps be- 

 cause he will neglect them like every- 

 thing else. 



Drone-traps are a nuisance : 



1. Because they do not prevent the 

 rearing of drones. 



