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i'HE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



REPLIES by Prominent Apiarists. 



Brood and Young Bees Dying. 



Query, No. la.S— What is the cause of the 

 brood dying, some before it is capped, and some 

 afterward ? It turns blacb and dries up, and the 

 bees pull it out and drag It out of the hive. Young 

 bees that have matured, crawl out of the hive and 

 die outside. The dead brood smells much like 

 foul brood, but it is not that. This is the case 

 with strong colonies as well as weak ones, and 

 those that have a great plenty of honey, too. 

 This state of aB.iirs has e-xisted for only about ten 

 days. I have many, very many colonies affected^ 

 —Subscriber, Sept. -5. 1885. 



If the trouble is not foul brood it is 

 sometliiiig closely allied to it, and is 

 probably contagious. Phenol miglit 

 be fed to these colonies to advantage. 

 I have never seen anything like it. — 



G. L. TlNKEK. 



I have never seen a ease like this. 

 Is there any possibility that the bees 

 have been poisoned V— W. Z. Hutch- 

 inson. 



You describe the effects of what is 

 called " chilled brood " to a dot. If 

 this is not the trouble, your state- 

 ments give no clue to what it is. In 

 1S84 it was believed by many apiarists 

 that the iron-weed bloom, in the JNIid- 

 dle States, killed a large number of 

 bees.— G. W. Demakee. 



Many such cases are reported to me 

 this year. Can it be possible that 

 these cold days, which come even in 

 August, foHiui more brood than the 

 bees could protect, and so laid their 

 icy hands upon it V Once dead, putre- 

 faction would begin, and then it al- 

 ways smells bad,— A. J. Cook. 



I have had no experience like it. It 

 looks just a little as if cold days had 

 contracted ttie cluster so the brood 

 was left unprotected.— C. C. Miller. 



Recent investigations show, or 

 prove, that there are several phases 

 of the disease " foul brood," and this 

 is probably one of them. I should 

 suppose in this case that the disease 

 was hereditary, and should at once 

 put the colony into a new hive, on 

 fresh comb, and give them a new 

 queen. This question, however, like 

 many others, can only be answered 

 theoretically.— J. ¥.. Pond, Jr. 



I have never seen anything like it. 

 Perhaps it is what has been termed 

 " dry foul brood." From what you 

 say.I suppose it cannot be chilled or 

 smothered brood.— James Heddon. 



Planting for Honey. 



Query. No. 130.— I wish to sow or plant 

 something that will bloom about the time white 

 clover fails. What is likely to pay best for honey 

 alone, or combined with its crop of fruit or seeds ? 

 —Mercer, Co., Ky. 



Try melilot.— C. C. Miller. 

 Alsike cut so as to delay its bloom. 

 Rocky Mountain bee-plant is a little 



late. Rape and the mustards are 

 good.— A. J. Cook. 



Melilot or sweet clover. It will 

 enrich the land and will grow in the 

 poorest soil. It is the very best 

 honey-plant.- Dadant & Son. ■ 



The very best thing I know of is 

 the pleurisy-root, or butterfly-weed. 

 Melilot clover is good, if it will bloom 

 soon enough, arid is planted on strong 

 soil.— James IIeddon. 



Sweet clover is the best of any 

 honey-plant coming afterwhite clover 

 and before buckwheat,— G, M. Doo- 



LITTLE. 



For honey alone, I think I should 

 try sweet clover. Alsike clover and 

 buckwheat are the only plants that I 

 have ever profitably raised for honey. 

 — W. Z. Hutchinson. 



I would advise all bee-keepers to 

 plant basswood. In the list of honey- 

 producing plants and trees it stands 

 first in bountiful yields and in the 

 fine flavor and t)eautiful quality of the 

 honey produced. Alsike clover and 

 buckwheat pay well as crops, but it 

 will not pay to cultivate any plant for 

 the honey alone when tlie value of 

 staple crops is considered.— G. L 

 Tinker. 



Why not try a crop of Alsike cloverV 

 Tlie evidence so far goes to prove it 

 to be one of the best crops for honey, 

 and certainly there can be no better 

 crop to feed to stock. I do not be 

 lieve that it will pay to sow or plant 

 any crop for honey alone.— J. E. 

 Pond, Jr. 



My location is practically the same 

 as yours. I partake very much of 

 your state of mind concerning some 

 profitable plant that will bloom just 

 after the white clover fails. But all 

 my efforts to procure such a plant 

 have been a failure. All the clovers, 

 Alsike and the several varieties of 

 red clover and melilot or sweet clover, 

 bloom at the same time that white 

 clover does. If you could so manage 

 Alsike clover as to get a second crop 

 of bloom, it seems to me that it njight 

 be utilized in that way. But tlie 

 Alsike clover is not a success in this 

 climate. It seeds and dies after once 

 blooming.— G. W. Demakee. 



Rearing Drones. 



Query. No, IST.— Early in the spring I thus 

 prepared a colony to build queen-cells: I added 

 frames of hatching lirood in colony No. 1, until it 

 was quite strong. I then removed all the frames 

 and the queen, shaking off all the bees in front of 

 the hive, and giving them one frame tilled with 

 comb with newly laid eggs, and four frames filled 

 with foundation. Three days afterward I ex- 

 amined them and found they had drawn out all 

 the foundation, except one frame, and a part of 

 this they had cut out and built dn)necombin its 

 place, and had it filled with egKS. Where did these 

 eggs come from 'I Why did they want to rear 

 more drones when they had l,ix)0 or more ?— W. C. 



The eggs were probably taken from 

 the comb of eggs given them. It is 

 possible, but not probable, that some 

 of the workers laid the eggs in the 

 drone comb. I cannot say what 

 motive induces the bees to do thus.— 



W. Z. IIUTCUIN.SON. I 



Doubtless laying workers deposited 

 the eggs. Qneenless bees are prone 

 to build drone comb, and it is hard 

 to satisfy their propensity for drone- 

 rearing.— (i. W. Dejiaree. 



In these extraordinary cases there 

 are always some things that are over- 

 looked that would explain the matter 

 if known.— Dadant & Son. 



I should guess that by some "hook 

 or crook " a fertile worker or drone- 

 laying queen joined the colony at the 

 time you prepared it. — James Hed- 

 don. 



In such conditions bees always de- 

 sire to start more drone brood. Either 

 laying workers or else a queen came 

 to them from some other hive, as they 

 occasionally do. If this latter were 

 the case, they did not start queen-cells. 

 It is not common for laying workers to 

 commence so promptly. — A. J. Cook. 



The fact that eggs were found in 

 newly-built drone comb proves them 

 to have been laid by worker bees. 

 This case will explain the many where 

 all worker eggs were given to a colony 

 in a similar manner, when afterwards 

 among the queen-cells would appear 

 many drone-cells, leading some to 

 suppose that the bees had removed 

 the vivifying principle of the eggs 

 when the fact was the bees had eaten 

 the eggs in question and laid others 

 in place of them. In rearing drones, 

 bees go liy instinct, not by reason. 

 One hundred drones are enough for 

 any colony where needed, but the 

 bees prefer to rear hundreds.— G. L. 

 Tinker. 



It is impossible to tell why drone 

 comb is built. We only know that at 

 times there is a great mania for so 

 doing. Probably the eggs in the 

 drone-cells were inserted by laying 

 workers, unless, as is possible, there 

 were two queens in the hive origi- 

 nally, and only one removed. It is 

 easy to ask questions ; but how to an- 

 swer correctly without a personal ex- 

 amination, is very different. — J, E. 

 Pond, Jr, 



Wind-Breaks for Apiaries. 



Query, No. l:l8.— My bees are located on 

 land sloping to the southeast, with woodland of a 

 few years' growth on the north side. Would there 

 be any more chance for them to get through the 

 winter safely if 1 should build a board fence along 

 the north side of them, and put some boards on 

 top of it for a temporary shed to break the winds 

 and beep off the storms ? Or is it best to let them 

 stand witiiout any protection ? They are all in 

 double-walled hives.— Blackstono. Mass. 



The extra protection would proba- 

 bly be an advantage.— C. C. Miller. 



I think that it would be an advan- 

 tage to build such a wind-break, but 

 I would pack the hives just as care- 

 fully with dry forest leaves or very 

 dry sawdust. — G. L. Tinker. 



The fence would do no harm, and 

 would probably be of some value 

 when the bees begin flying in the 

 spring.— W. Z. Hutchinson, 



In my location I would dread the 

 accumulated heat in the summer 

 months, on account of a high fence, 

 more that I would fear the winds in 



