94 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



I do not now remember of any 

 southern beekeepers rising and de- 

 claring that it didn't work tliat way 

 in tlie south. There have been a 

 few wlio haven't noticed that Ital- 

 ian bees are bad on this account, 

 but it has turned out that tliey were 

 not looking hard enough to see it. 

 Dotvagiac, Mich. 



EXTRACTING FROM SECTIONS. 



Query No. 18. When extracting 

 luitinished sections are they not liable 

 to break loose, and how can we best 

 avoid it? Should we extract them sep- 

 arately or by the frame full? 0. U. N. 



ANSWERS BY IRA BARBER. 



In answer to this query will say 

 that I have no trouble in extracting 

 honey from partly filled sections 

 and leave the combs as sound as 

 when put into the extractor. The 

 sections are nearly tilled with foun- 

 dation before giv«n to the bees, 

 and they seldom fail to fasten them 

 on all sides, so if they are reason- 

 ably swarm when put into the ex- 

 tractor, as they should be, there is 

 no need of handling them rough 

 enough to break a single one in the 

 extractor that I use. 



1 use the Stanley extractor and 

 have frames to put the sections in, 

 which makes the work far less than 

 it would be to extract each section 

 separately. 



If unfinished sections are not 

 allowed to stand until the weather 

 gets so cool as to crack the combs, 

 1 see no reason why any one should 

 be troubled with breaking out 

 combs when extracting honey from 

 sections. 



DeKalh Junction, N. Y. 



INVERTING BROOD-FRAMES. 



Query No. 19. When inverting 

 brood- Irames of the L. pattern or sec- 

 tion, are tliey not liable to lop over to 

 one side, especially in warm weather, 

 unless wired in, or otherwise sup- 

 ported? S. D. 



ANSWERS BY C. C. MILLER. 



I have had no experience in the 

 matter of inverting except a very 

 little with combs that could not 

 lop, but I should certainly expect 

 that such brood-combs in Lang- 

 stroth frames as were not wired, or 

 had no special pains taken to fasten 

 them in the frames at the lower 

 part, would lop over badly on being 

 inverted in warm weather (and I 

 think inverting is very little prac- 

 tised at any other time). The 

 newer the comb, the more readily 

 it would bend over. 



There would be less danger in 

 the case of sections and I have in- 

 verted them without any such re- 

 sult. In fact, I should expect no 

 lopping over of sections unless 

 they were inverted before much 

 honey was stored in them. Bees 

 can easily be induced to build comb 

 up hill, and in a space as small as 

 a section I should expect no bend- 

 ing over. 



Marengo, III. 



BEES BALLING THEIR QUEEN. 

 Query No. 20. When queens are 

 balled are they always killed unless 

 rescued? Do not the workers some- 

 times ball their queens to protect them 

 from some fancied danger and in due 

 time allow them liberty unharmed? 



S. S. C. 



ANSWER BY PROF. COOK. 



It is impossible to give a defi- 

 nite answer to Query No. 20. I 

 have known bees to ball a queen 

 repeatedly, and in a short time 

 would find the queen outside of 

 the hive dead. This has happened 

 so often in my experiments that I 

 had supposed formerly that the ball- 

 ing was a sure sign of enmity and as 

 sure destruction to the queen. But 

 within the last few years, as I have 

 reported in some of the papers, I 

 have known queens to be balled, 

 and though left undisturbed in the 



