Oct, 26, 1905 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



747 



thing stimulative to egg-production. Perhaps 

 also digestive efforts in the queen's behalf 

 exhausts the bees so that they die sooner than 

 old ones would ; and when they are gone the 

 queen soon dies also. Page 647. 



Pdttino Weak Colonies Over Strong 

 Ones. 



W. T. Gary seems to add a new wrinkle to 

 the new plan ol putting weak coloiiies over 

 strong ones without entire uniting. Gives 

 the upper colony a separate entrance so they 

 do not have to go below unless they want to. 

 Worked tolerably well in one case. The ap- 

 pearance was that a few old bees from below 

 came up and got killed; lots of young ones 

 came up and were adopted; and the upper 

 bees generally refrained from going below. 

 We seem to be getting a great variety of per- 

 formances on the part of the bees. Page 647. 



Prices of Bee-Supplies. 



High prices of supplies to keep Tom, Dick 

 and Harry out of apiculture, eh? Might not 

 T. D. H. and Co. revert to box-hives and mar- 

 ket chunk honey, instead of ''clearing the 

 coop?" But when J. E. Johnson advises 

 amateur hive-makers not to cut their pieces 

 " pretty near square," but exactly square, he 

 is getting in good didactic work. Nice store- 

 boxes of pine to be had almost gratis— I fear 

 their day is declining, if it has not already 

 passed. Try literature, Mr. .J. Your phrase, 

 " All raise at once, just like the curtain of a 

 stage," shows budding talent in that direc- 

 tion. Page 648. 



Wax-Wokms, Wasps, Spiders and Combs. 



According to page 651 (which agrees in a 

 measure with my experience also), there was 

 trouble with worms in section-honey years 

 ago, but not enough now to call for any 

 remedial measures. Why? Don't believe it's 

 wholly, or even mainly, owing to Italian 

 bees. I suspect some other and deeper rea- 

 son. Why was the supposedly endless pest 

 of flies much milder than usual this year? 

 Bad enough yet — but one woula like to know 

 why the mitigation. Same thing even more 

 pronounced appears with another race of in- 

 sects—the wasps. I do not remember a year 

 before when available root-crannies were not 

 greatly populated — mud- wasps and paper- 

 wasps in great abundance, several species of 

 each. This year they are actually scarce. 

 Don't know as I am exactly rejoicing about 

 this last. I think wasps on the whole do us 

 more good thau harm, devouring the wax- 

 larvie which eome where they can get at 

 them. Combs widely spaced in clean, empty 

 hives often get through the hot weather all 

 right. I would like to know whether we 

 should apportion the greater credit of this to 

 the wasps or to the spiders. It isn't nice to 

 be thanking the wrong people even among 

 our small neighbors. Mice will sometimes 

 devour and clean out larvse when they have 

 gotten so fortified with webs that no insects 

 could do much with them. If mice make a 

 regular business of going over all well-spaced 

 combs they have access to, possibly more 

 credit belongs to them than to either spiders 

 I or wasps. Wish I knew more about it. 



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

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

 Dr. Miller does iu>t answer Questions by mail. 



Good Locations for Bee- Keepinjr— 

 Shipping a Carload of Bees 



The summer is past, anJ the harvest is 

 ended, and I have a large crop of blasted 

 hopes, but I don't think they will bring me in 

 much cash. It just rained the bees out in 

 this part of the country. It was so cold and 

 wet during clover bloom that the bees could 

 not do much, and not a pound of white honey 

 was harvested, but the bees built up strong, 

 and we looked for a good crop of yellow 

 honey, but just as the fall flowers began to 

 bloom it commenced to rain, and kept at it 

 every few days until about 2 weeks ago, and 

 my crop is s pounds of finished honey and 30 

 or 40 pounds of unlinished. from 74 colonies; 

 and I will have to feed 100 pounds of sugar 

 for winter stores. 



Well, such is the life of a bee-keeper in 

 Missouri. I am thinking now of making a 

 change, and I want to ask some questions: 



1. Is Jasper Co., Nebr , a good place for 

 bees? I am told there is lots of alfalfa there. 

 It not, what part of Nebraska is the best tor 

 beekeeping! 



2. Can bees be wintered there on the sum- 

 mer stands in single-walled hives? 



3. How many colonies can be shipped in a 

 car? Please give instructions as to how to 

 prepare t)ees for shipping, and how to load 

 them in a car. Can the hives be placed on 

 top of each other in the car? 



4. How is Illinois tor bee-keeping, say in 

 Montgomery County? MissotiKi. 



Answers. — 1. Minute information as to 

 particular localities is hard lo be obtained ex- 

 cept by personal visitation or information 

 from some one on the spot. I don't know 

 what are the best localities in Nebraska, and 

 if I could name the very best localiiy in the 

 State, it would be of no use to you if that 

 locality is already fully occupied. If Jasper 

 County has much alfalfa, that points toward 

 a good place for honey. 



a. Yes, if properly protected. 



3. Perhaps 500. The hives must of course 



be fastened bee-tight, but with plenty of ven- 

 tilation. The hives must be placed so the 

 frames will run parallel with the track, so 

 the bumping will strike the combs lengthwise 

 and not sidewise. If there are no more than 

 will stand on the bottom of the car— say 90 

 to 100 hives— the only fastening needed will 

 be strips nailed to the floor so the hives can 

 not move in any direction, the strips being 1 

 or 3 inches thick. If the hives are piled on 

 top of one another, then they must be 

 strongly fastened by braces running from 

 side to side, or else from top to bottom ; per- 

 haps both. 



4. I don't know, but it probably averages 

 fairly with the rest of the State. 



Pertiltzatlon of Queens 



Does a queen become fertilized after 15 

 days? Does she stay in the hive, or what be- 

 comes of her? Kansas. 



Answer. — A queen may be fertilized after 

 she is 15 days old, but the chances for it are 

 not the best. A queen that is not fertilized 

 before that age trenerally disappears; I don't 

 know for sure just what becomes of her. If, 

 however, she remains in the hive, and is not 

 fertilized, she will begin laying, her eggs pro- 

 ducing only drones. 



Swarmins Methods and Surplus 

 Honey 



1. When we practice artificial swarming by 

 the " shook swarm " method, why is it neces- 

 sary, if at all. to shake the queen on the old 

 staud and intu the new hive? Is it because a 

 swarm woulil bo likely to issue if she should 

 be left with the uiother colony on the new lo- 

 cation (even though all queen-cells were re- 

 moved) '. 



3. If there is a. reason why the queen should 

 be left on the old stand with the "shook" 



swarm, then why, in the Sibbald plan of arti- 

 ficial swarming, is the queen left with the 

 mother colony and placed on the new stand, 

 reversing her location 1 



3. If bees will build drone-comb when no 

 queen is present, are they not likely to do so 

 in the Sibbald plan of artiflcial swarming un- 

 til the first young queen hatches (wnen 

 frames with only foundation are put in the 

 hive on the old stand) ? 



4. I began bee-culture last May with 8 col- 

 onies of hybrids in 3-8tory 8-frame Langstroth 

 hives, and not being able to stay at home to 

 watch, I " shook-swarmed " them. None of 

 the bees of the mother colonies went into the 

 supers (extracting-supers). The "shook" 

 swarms hardly filled the super, so I got no 

 surplus. My neighbor who lives a halt mile 

 from me, in a location no better than mine, 

 and with colonies no stronger, and hardly as 

 strong, got 210 pounds of surplus honey from 

 3 colonies of the same kind of bees. He tiered 

 up and got no swarms. Of course I, being a 

 beginner, disturbed the bees quite a little in 

 looking for queen cells, to determine when to 

 shake, and was probably somewhat awkward 

 and nervous in doing the shaking, which 

 made them so cross that it was almost danger- 

 ous to go near them for awhile. But why 

 should I get so little honey compared with 

 what my neighbor got from fewer colonies! 

 1 might add that we had plenty of clover 

 bloom, but it rained so much that old bee- 

 keepers got only half a crop. In other words, 

 I suppose, the honey harvest was cut short by 

 the rains, and would not that work against 

 me more than against one who did not let his 

 bees swarm, or did not divide them ? 



I have just bought and read with pleasure 

 your elegant book, " Forty Years Among the 

 Bees." Wisconsin. 



Answers. — 1. If the queen were left with 

 the mother colony on the new location, and 

 all queen-cells removed, there would be no 

 likelihood of any swarm. No more would 

 there be if all cells were left, for feeling their 

 destitute condition, and with no field-bees 

 bringing in any stores, the workers would 

 themselves destroy the cells. So that's not 

 the reason. The old colony would be the bet- 

 ter for having the queen. But the swarm 

 would suffer for want of it. A swarm with- 

 out a queen — natural or artificial — would be 

 in pretty bad shape. No brood would be 

 reared, and the numbers would rapidly dimin- 

 ish, making the swarm in poor condition 

 for storing; and the swarm is the part de- 

 pended upon for the harvest, not the mother 

 colony. 



2. In the Sibbald plan the shifting of the 

 old colony from side to side is intended each 

 time to throw all its field-bees into the swarm, 

 thus keeping up its strength till a young 

 queen is reared from the queen-cells that in 

 the first place were left in the swarm. 



3. Queenless bees are little inclined to build 

 comb of any kind. With 2 frames filled with 

 comb they are not likely to build any at all, 

 in the Sibbald plan, until the young queen 

 emerges, and then they are ready to do a good 

 business at comb-building, and all of it 

 worker-comb. 



4. Put it down as a fixed fact that in a loca- 

 tion where the main harvest is rather early, 

 and there is no heavy fall flow, any dividing 

 of forces, either by natural swarming or 

 otherwise, is sure to cut in on the crop. You 

 can.'t have your cake and eat ir, too, and if 

 you take away from the strength of a colony 

 to make another colony, that surely will take 

 away part of your crop, and the earlier the 

 closing of the harvest the worse it is to divide 



forces. 



. * -»-^*- 



Excluder Zinc and Queen-Rearing— 

 A Queen-Introducing Experience 



1. In your plan of queen-rearing, do you 

 use perforated or queen-excluding zinc to 

 keep the queen in the upper stor.v ? 



3. On Saturday, Oct. 7, I introduced a 

 queen. The bees seemed to be all right all 

 day. I was called away and my children, 16 

 and 12 years of age, watched them. On Sun- 

 day morning the bottom-board was covered 

 with dead and crippled bees running out of 

 the entrance and covering the ground all 



