522 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



July 27, 190S 



ing them up, there's no particular profit in 

 that; and in addition it's unpleasant to one's 

 feelings. Doubling up saves the unpleasant- 

 ness, and gets the problem off one's hands. I 

 also will plead guilty to the soft impeach- 

 ment of being willing often to save a colony 

 by doing for them much more than they are 

 worth. We are not, I trust, mere two-legged 

 bears with certain mental improvements. But 

 if he had asked me I should have guessed that 

 four weeks with a hot-water can every day 

 would have netted more harm than good — for- 

 gotten once in awhile, and also making cold 

 mornings worse by contrast. All's well that 

 ends well. I suspect that particular colony 

 was a little abnormal in devoting so large a 

 share of its energies to house-cleaning. With 

 me the somewhat weak colony is apt to be pro- 

 vokingly remiss about cleaning up, except 

 just as far as it needs the combs. That 

 nurse-bees using much flour instead of pollen 

 are apt to find defecation difficult, is a rather 

 important item, strong reason for waiting till 

 natural pollen comes. Page 438. 



THINGS WE don't KNOW — AND DO KNOW. 



So H. V. Poore thinks it would make a 

 longer article to tell what he has yet to learn. 

 Alas, we can not tell what we have not found 

 out yet! And there is one circumstance still 

 worse than that. We tell what we have 

 learned wrongly with much greater facility 

 than we do what we have learned rightly. 

 The latter seems so commonplace and unin- 

 spiring that we give it the go-by. Page 439. 



A WOMAN'S BEES AND POULTRY. 



Prayer-meeting. Small boys intent on fun 

 ranging around outside. Colony of bees in 

 buggy waiting to be driven home after devo- 

 tions are over. These are not collocations to 

 be recommended — too much like pin-wheel in 

 powder magazine. But never mind; Mrs. 

 Wingate has tried both a flock of poultry and 



an apiary of bees as home money-getters, and 

 Hnds the latter to succeed much the better. 

 Her testimony is valuable; testimony on such 

 points being much more valuable than theory. 

 Of course it goes without saying that poultry 

 is confining in its every day demands, while 

 bees allow lots of vacation time. Page 439. 



THE MISTAKES OF THE PRINTER. 



For champion idiocy the printer's " out " 

 is quite in the habit of taking the cake. For 

 example see in the next to the last caption of 

 my department on page 441. According to 

 that bees feed young queens through gauze 

 presumably with sting poison. I can only 

 hope that the reader may conjecture that the 

 doings of two different sets of bees have got 

 condensed into one. Still I do much prefer 

 to say things myself rather than burden the 

 reader with slinging his own English — and, 

 eke, untangling mine if possible. 



[The following is the paragraph referred to 

 in the above, with the omitted part in italics : 

 — Editor. 



queens and baby nuclei. 



It a queen is put in a baby nucleus only in 

 warm weather, and only when ready to mate, 

 the harm the new device does would seem to 

 be reduced to a minimum. Quite curious if 

 queenless bees are less tolerant of super- 

 numery young virgins than bees of a colony 

 with a laying queen are. According to John 

 W. Pharr, page 346, the latter will feed them 

 through the wires, while the former aacreed in 

 killiny them through the wires — presumably by 

 the amount of sting-poison which they evap- 

 orate. Yet possibly this last may be wrong. 

 All queens soon die from nerve causes if en- 

 tirely bereft of company. Perhaps with only 

 enemies for company death would be about 

 as speedy, and the cause about the same. 



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X)octor IHiller 5 Qncstion^^ox 



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Send Questions either to the office of the American Bee Journal, 

 or to Dr. C. C. Miller, Marengo, 111. 

 Dr. Miller does 7wt answer Questions by mail. 



J' 



Use of the Drone-Trap- 

 Swarms 



-Second 



1. Is there not danger of suffocating the 

 bees with a drone-trap! 



2. After the first swarm issues, how soon 

 can I look for another? Missouri. 



Answers. — 1. There is little danger of 

 doing any harm with the trap, although it 

 seems to annoy the bees somewhat, and there 

 is a bare possibility of an extreme case with 

 such a multitude of drones that the trap 

 would become entirely filled and suffocate the 

 bees. But such a case has never been re- 

 ported yet that I know of. 



3. A second swarm usually issues about 8 

 days after the first, but the time may be less, 

 and it may be more. The 2 swarms you men- 

 tion in your letter were three days apart. If 

 the first one was a prime swarm, then the first 

 one had been delayed about five days. The 

 issuing ot a prime swarm is sometimes de- 

 layed by bad weather, and it may be delayed 

 by the queen failing for some reason to go 

 with the swarm. It is quite possible, how- 

 ever, that both your swarms were afterswarms. 

 You may have failed to see the prime swarm, 

 or it may have issued and the queen may have 

 been lost or killed, the swarm returning. 

 Then the 2 swarms would each have virgin 

 queens, and it is nothing unusual for 2 after- 

 swarms to be three days apart. 



Handllns Bees Without Being Stung— 

 Clipping Queens 



1. We occasionally have men pointed out to 

 UB who, it is said, "can do anything with 

 bees;" that bees will not sting them as they 



do other people. Is it because they are coo 

 and self-possessed, ignoring a sting or two 

 and by avoiding quick, rapid movements bees 

 are less likely to sting them? or is there really 

 a class of people protected by electrical in- 

 fluence, or otherwise, against bee-stings? 



2. A young man in this vicinity handles 

 wasps freely. He claims that by holding his 

 breath they do not sting him. Others who 

 tried it were promptly stung before they could 

 catch their breath. Can you explain the 

 trick? 



3. I had a man manipulate my hives, which 

 he did with bare hands, and yet the bees did 

 not sting him, while they persisted in trying 

 to sting me, although I stood 10 feet distant 

 in the rear. Why was this? 



4 How do those queens that have their 

 wings clipped, and are unable to fly, become 

 fertilized, as I understand that this occurs 

 during the flight of swarming? 



5 Is there not danger or rendering queens 

 sterile by clipping their wings so they can not 

 fly? 



G. Is it customary to clip both wings, or one 

 only? 

 7. When is the proper time to do it? 



New York. 



Answers.— 1. It is doubtful that there is 

 any one whom bees will not sting when they 

 . are in the right mood for stinging. But it 

 must be remembered that comparatively few 

 bees ever sting, or try to sting. It .50 bees 

 should be flying about you atone time, trying 

 to sting you, it would be a big lot, but there 

 are thousands of other bees flying about that 

 show no hostilily. The person who is nervous 

 and makes quick movements is likely to find 

 it resented by the few irascible bees, while one 

 who is slow and deliberate in movement will 

 be unharmed. There may be a difference in 

 the odor ot different persons that the bees 



detect, and that may make some difference as 

 to the bees stinging. 



2. Some time ago it was claimed that a bee 

 could not sting one so long as one held his 

 breath. It's all bosh, as any one can easily 

 prove. Quiet deportment is probably the 

 secret ot immunity from stings of wasps. 



3. Often bees will sting one more readily 

 at a little distance from the hive than when 

 close up; I hardly know why. I work among 

 bees with bare hands, and there are thousands 

 upon thousands of them that never sting me; 

 others, however, don't seem to have the 

 proper respect tor me, so I get a good many 

 stings. As already said, difference in the 

 quickness ot motion, and difference in the 

 odor of the body, may make bees sting one 

 person more than another. Clothing may 

 also make a difference. Woolen or soft cot- 

 ton goods are not so good tor bee-keepers as 

 cotton or other goods with a hard surface. 

 Dark clothing is also more offensive to the 

 bees than light colored. 



4 and 5. Clipping the wings ot a queen be- 

 fore she is fertilized would ruin her. When 

 a prime swarm issues, the queen is a laying 

 one, and does not need fertilization. In after- 

 swarms the queen may or may not be fertil- 

 ized during the act ot swarming; but no 

 queen should ever be clipped till it is known 

 that she is laying. 



6. I do not know that any one ever clips 

 all four ot a queen's wings. Some clip the 

 larger wing on one side; others clip the two 

 wings on one side. Clipping only one wing 

 leaves the looks of a queen less impaired ; 

 but some, myself among the number, prefer 

 to clip both wings on one side because it 

 makes it a little easier to see at a glance, 

 when a queen is moving over the combs, 

 whether she is clipped or not. 



". Any time at the convenience of the 

 operator after she begins to lay. A common 

 custom is to look through the hives as soon 

 as convenient after the bees get to work in 

 the spring, so as to clip any new queens that 

 have come upon the stage through super- 

 sedure the preceding fall. 



Methods of Increase Other Than 

 Swarming 



I have 8 strong colonies of bees, and I also 

 have 4 Danzenbaker hives with full sheets of 

 foundation, desiring to have them drawn out 

 in worker-comb. Being a beginner I don't 

 know how to proceed to increase to 4 more 

 colonies in the Danzenbaker hives, but here 

 is my plan : 



To order 4 queens, and on their arrival — 

 before going any further I wish to say that 



7 of my colonies are in Langstrotb hives, and 

 the remainingoneis in a 2-story Danzenbaker, 

 with 10 frames ot honey above and quite 

 a little in the brood-chamber — take two 

 frames, or one frame, ot honey, placing same 

 in a Danzenbaker hive with 8 or 9 frames with 

 full sheets of foundation, and then go to 

 another strong colony and shake half ot the 

 bees in this hive, placing a piece at screen 

 over the entrance, then place the caged queen 

 over the frames to be released by the bees. 

 Then set all in a new place. After 4 days 

 take the screen off the entrance. Look at 

 them about September, and if in poor condi- 

 tion feed them. 



My point is to increase to 4 more colonies, 

 using the Danzenbaker hive, taking frames 

 ot honey from another Danzenbaker hive, so 

 the bees would not starve until they get 

 started. 



I bought 6 queens, and not receiving any 

 instructions with them, I introduced them to 

 the best of my knowledge, after reading in the 

 "ABC of Bee Culture " how to introduce. 

 With the first 2 colonies I was successful in 

 finding the queen, and after killing her I 

 looked tor queen-cells; not finding any I 

 placed the caged queen over the frames, and 

 after about 5 days I noticed them carrying in 

 pollen and working. 



In colony No. 3 I found noqueen, but about 



8 queen-cells, so I placed an empty hive-body 

 on the ground, and after putting a piece of 

 perforated zinc over the entrance, I brushed 

 all of the bees in front of the hive and let 

 them run in, then placed the frames back in 

 the hive again. I put a queen-excluder over 



