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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Jan. 19, 19C5. 



little trouble with swarming. Yet cutting out cells, even twice a 

 week, will not make an entirely sure thing as to swarms. Sometimes 

 a colony, after being thwarted a number of times, will swarm with 

 not a queen-cell in the hire. Even if the plan were always sure, it 

 would be a lot of work to cut out cells twice a week. Shaking swarms 

 as soon as each colony showed queen-cells would probably be as re- 

 liable, requiring a visit to the apiary once every seven to nine days. 

 Another way would be still less trouble, and although not entirely 

 successful with all, it is with some, and might be with you. As soon 

 as you find queen-cells in a hive, take the hive off its stand, put on 

 the stand a hive with empty combs, foundation, or starters, find the 

 queen and put her in the empty hive together with the bees that are on 

 the comb with her, and shake into the hive the bees from the other 

 combs, or most of them ; cut out all queen-cells, put a queen-excluder 

 over the hive on the stand, and set over that the hive with the brood- 

 combs. The bees will gradually fill the lower story, and at the same 

 time the brood will hatch out above the excluder, and those upper 

 combs will become extracting combs. Another thing that will help 

 to keep down swarming is to allow an entrance to each story ; move 

 forward the second story until there is a J^'-inch space at the back end 

 between the stories, and if you have three or four stories allow a space 

 of the same kind over each one. 



T Tins— Economizing on Hives— Wintering Bees- 

 in the Bee-Yard. 



-Sheep 



1. What are T tins, and what are their advantages ? 



2. I have a plan to prevent buying more new hives after securing 

 a desired amount. One usual'y has a few empty hives in the spring, 

 and I put the first swarms that issue into these, putting the parent 

 colonies on other stands some distance away. When the empty hives 

 are all filled I run the other swarms into the old hives, and continue 

 so during the swarming season. I also take a couple of frames filled 

 with honey from each of these old hives, putting frames of foundation 

 in their places before running in the new swarm. I save the frames of 

 honey for fall use. Please tell me what you think of this plan. 



3. A recent number of the American Bee Journal advises bee- 

 keepers to put their colonies into winter quarters having a large num- 

 ber of young bees. How is this done? 



4. Some one speaks of having sheep keep down the grass in the 

 bee-yard. Is there not danger that they will tip over some of the 

 hives? Wisconsin. 



Answers. — 1. A T tin is a support of tin which has aflat bottom 

 with an upright central part to give it rigidly ; so called because a 

 transverse section is the shape of the capital letter T upside down. Its 

 advantages are that it takes up very little room, and is of great 

 strength. 



2. The plan is old, and properly managed may work all right. At 

 any rate, the first part, running swarms into the hives with old combs 

 will work well. 



3. If you have none but strong colonies in the fall, you are likely 

 to have plenty of young bees; so double up weaklings. Sometimes 

 it happens that the honey harvest closes quite early, and there is no 

 fall flow to keep the queen laying, so the bees may all be pretty old ; 

 in that case steady feeding may make the queen lay. 



4. I don't know whether it works the same with others ; but in 

 my own experience neither cows nor horses are so bad as sheep about 

 pushing hives off their stands. I suppose they do it by rubbing. 



Yes, there's a lot for any of us to learn, and I should feel well 

 satisfied if I could learn how to get 75 pounds of honey per colony 

 each year and increase 50 percent, as you have done. 



Detecting Adulterated Beeswax. 



I extract wax, sometimes doing it for other people. Now, suppose 

 I had a lot of comb that originally was of the adulterated brand. The 

 question is, " Has the adulteration been removed by the bees?" If it 

 is still there will a Ferris or any other wax-extractor remove it in 

 part, or, if not, can it be detected by analysis? I pride myself on 

 pure, absolutely pure wax, and hope some time to handle more of it. 

 When I extract a lot of wax, I use a piece of that lot for a gauge, and 

 lest other lots as per instructions found in the " A B C of Bee-Cul- 

 ture ". I am innocent of any intention to cheat, but I am cheated 

 myself, not by those from whom I receive comb, but from the original 

 makers of the comb. You will see, if I use a piece of that lot, my 

 gauge will test all other lots as pure when they are not. Is there any 

 other way to make myself absolutely sure, outside the alcohol and 

 water test? Massachusetts. 



Answer. — My good friend, you are evidently troubled with a con- 

 science, but in the present case I think the trouble need not be very 

 great. Some years ago the number of those who manufactured comb 

 foundation in this country was very much larger than it is now, those 

 who at that time made it merely for their own use, having found that 

 it was in the long run cheaper to buy it from those who made a spe- 

 cial business of foundation-making. This would not be the ease un- 

 less the purchasers were confident they were buying straight goods. I 

 have bought foundation ever since there was foundation to buy — 

 never made an inch of it myself— and I have no more thought as to 

 its being adulterated than I do of the milk that comes from my own 

 cow. The great bulk of foundation in this country being made by a 

 few establishments that are above suspicion, there is little chance on 

 the face of it for there coming into your hands old combs to be melted 

 up, which combs have been made from adulterated foundation, simply 

 because in the nature of the case there can not be much of such stuff 

 in the country. 



Now let us turn aside a minute and consider conditions in Europe. 

 Thousands of Rietsche foundation presses (I think more than 15,000) 

 are in use there, largely because the only way bee-keepers can be en- 

 tirely sure they are getting pure foundation is to make it themselves; 

 some of the foundation on the market being reported as being com- 

 posed of only one-fourth beeswax. Now, did you ever stop to think 

 why they object to buying the adulterated article ! If it worked all 

 right when given to the bees, they wouldn't know it was adulterated. 

 Indeed, if comb foundation could be made of pure paraffin, and it 

 work just as well as that made of beeswax, 1 am inclined to think 1 

 should use paraflJn foundation because of less cost. The reason they 

 object to it is that such foundation can not be used by the bees, being 

 so much out of shape that no bee-keeper would allow it in his hives. 

 So if it were possible that such comb could be used by the bees till old 

 and black, you would probably detect it at first glance as having cells 

 out of shape. I think no one has yet reported that adulterated foun- 

 dation was worked out into perfect comb. 



Answering specifically your question as to your gauge, and the 

 danger of your using an impure article to gauge by, there's no need 

 of your running any risk in the matter. Don't use anything to test 

 by that you are not absolutely sure is pure wax, just as it came from 

 the bees. That's an easy thing ; for you can in a very few hours' 

 time, without using any foundation in it, get the bees to build you a 

 piece of comb sufficiently large for your purpose. 



Feeding Bees In an Observatory Hive. 



I have a 1-frame observatory hive which I kept in a bedroom win- 

 dow last spring and summer. During a cool and rainy spell in the 

 late summer it was necessary to feed the bees, and I did so very nicely 

 from a saucer on the window-sill for a week or more, when the bees 

 from hives in the garden — perhaps 100 feet from the house — began rob- 

 bing, and I was obliged to give up the hive entirely, much to my 

 regret. 



Can you give me a plan for feeding bees in an observatory hive, 

 and can I keep such a hive in the house through the winter? 



New Jersey. 



Answer. — The best thing is to take a frame of sealed honey, even 

 if you have to take it from some full colony, lift the frame out of the 

 observatory hive, put in thci frame of honey, and carefully brush the 

 bees onto it. It such a comb is not available, perhaps Scholz or Good 

 candy can be used. Take a very little best extracted honey, heat it (be 

 sure not to burn it), stir in all the pulverized sugar it will take, then 

 put it on a board and knead in what more sugar you can, making a 

 very stiff dough. Put this candy on top of the frame, or anywhere in 

 the hive where the bees can get at it. 



Rearing aueens— Manipulating Supers and Covers- 

 Queenless Colony— Shaken Swarms- 

 Entrance In Winter. 



1. If a colony of black bees that are queenless are given a frame 

 of brood from a colony of Italians, will the blacks rear an Italian 

 queen? 



2. How do you manipulate supers and covers to avoid killing 

 bees? 



3. How can one tell when a colony is queenless, or is going to 

 swarm, without examining the frames? 



4. Do you wait until a colony starts queen-cells before making 

 shaken swarms? 



5. How wide an entrance should bees have during cold weather 

 if wintered on summer stands, well protected from north and west 

 winds? Virginia. 



Answers.— 1. Yes, you can't tell any difference between a queen 

 reared by a black colony and one reared by an Italian colony, provided 

 the egg is laid by the same queen. 



2. About the only thing I can tell you is not to set squarely down 

 a cover or super, but to " play " it down, if I may use the expression. 

 Whether it be a cover or a super, set one end on the hive, then play 

 on the other end, first letting it go down within 3 or 3 inches of its 

 resting-place, then raise it an inch or so, then lower it till it is an inch 

 or so above the hive, raise it an inch or so again, then let it go closer 

 down than before, and keep on letting it go closer each time till you 

 let it down entirely. Each time you let it down a little it will squeeze 

 some of the bees enough so they will get out of the way, and when 

 you finally let it down there will be no bees in the way. It sounds 

 long in the telling; but it is really done very quickly. 



3. I can't. 



4. Yes, I always do ; because, all things considered, that suits best 

 in my case: but in some cases it might be advisable to make a whole- 

 sale business of it and shake all as soon as the first make preparations 

 for swarming. 



5. Depends somewhat on strength of colony and depth of en- 

 trance. A strong colony may have an entrance the whole width of 

 the hive if it is -V deep; and in general the entrance may amount to 

 :i or 4 square inches, with half that for a weak colony. 



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 subscriptions, for which work we offer valuable premiums 

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