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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



April 5, 1906 



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Doctor miller's 



Question * 23ox 



j 



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

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

 Dr. Miller does not answer Questions by mail. 



Mice as Honey-Eaters 



There seems a difference of opinion between Messrs. Doolittle and 

 Hasty as to mice eating honey. Please tell us what you think about 

 it. Illinois. 



Answer. — If I may be allowed to paraphrase, I will say that a 

 certain gentleman whom I hold in high e6teem is usually accurate, 

 but lam unreasonable enough to entertain some doubts whether he is 

 perfectly sound on mouse diet. 



I wish Mr. Hasty would try this experiment : In a place where 

 mice are wont to congregate, let him place food in abundance, but 

 nothing sweet except a new comb containing a little honey, none of it 

 sealed, and none of the cells well tilled, and then let him report to us 

 whether the mice have torn down any of the cells to get at the 

 boney, and whether they have torn down for mischief any of the cells 

 that do not contain honey. 



An Injured Finger Ripening Basswood Honey 



1. Last November I got my finger hurt so it was inflamed. I 

 worked a few days after this with the bees, and they stung my bands 

 a great deal. Before long the finger commenced to fester. The doc- 

 tor lanced it, and did so almost every other day for 40 days, as it 

 seemed to be honey-combed through and through, and each lancing 

 only opened a small pocket. By this time I got too weak to walk. 

 The doctors then cut it off above the first joint, and still the infection 

 continued, and it had to be lanced a good many times after this. I 

 still have it done up, but the inflammation is about gone, and I think 

 it is about well — only one little 6pot. Now the four finger joints 

 seem to be larger and stiff next to the hand. By getting stung on this 

 finger, or hand, will it be more apt to poison it again? 



2. I am liable to have about 2 tons of basswood honey. How 

 would it do to extract it a little green, put it into large barrels with 

 one head out, aDd leave it in the honey-house to ripen? Do you think 

 this would do about as well as to leave it on the hives? Iowa. 



Answers. — 1. I don't think the stings were the cause of the 

 trouble, but in the condition of that hand irritation from any source 

 whatever is to be avoided, and I would be to no little trouble to avoid 

 stings on it. I don't like gloves at all, but in your case I think I 

 should wear at least one glove when working with bees. 



2. Don't try it. It will be very likely to result in a lot of honey 

 not fit to put upon the market. Unless you have special facilities for 

 ripening honey, such as no one in your climate is likely to have, don't 

 extract honey till it is well ripened. You can easily spoil your market 

 by one lot of unfit honey, and it will take years to overcome the harm. 



Wax-Worms and Combs— Extracted-Honey Retail 

 Packages and for Storage 



1. How early in spring will the wax-worm begin its destructive 

 work on combs stored in the honey-house? 



2. How can I keep the frames from being injured? Last year I 

 hung some on racks in the light where I occasionally looked at them, 

 but after catching one here and one there I soon had the comb broken 

 up more or less. 



3. What would you advise me to use to store extracted honey in ? 

 I strain it right from the extractor. Last fall I put it immediately in 

 retail packages. This year I will probably get more honey. I expect 

 to put some in retail packages (pound jars) as 60on as extracted, to 

 supply my local trade. I may also 6ell some in larger packages. Now, 

 what should one have on hand in the extracting-house, where I store 

 it, to facilitate the handling of say 1500 to 2000 pounds of honey? and 

 would the method you give be all right for larger quantities? 



4. Is it necessary that honey be kept in an air-tight receptacle? 



5. Is tin objectionable as a retail package for storing? 



Pennsylvania. 



Answers. — 1. Something depends upon the character of the honey- 

 house. It needs considerable warmth for the favorable development 

 of the miscreants, and if your honey-house is a warm place you may 

 expect them to flourish by the first of May. Otherwise not till the 

 last of the month. In a cool cellar there will be little trouble before 

 the combs are needed for swarms. Of course, if the weather is warm 

 their work will be earlier than when there is a cool spring. 



2. Keep the combs in a cool place, as in a cellar, till needed for 

 swarms. Still tetter, a6 soon as colonies become strong put under 

 each strong colony a story of combs to take care of. You mny keep 

 them almost anywhere if you look them over every 10 days, and when 



you find any signs of their work take Miss Wilson's plan, and with 

 an oil-can squirt a little gasoline upon them. 



3. Nothing is better than glass or stoneware. Sixty-pound tin 

 cans would probably answer your purpose. 



4. No; although too long exposure allows escape of aroma. 



5. Not if the tin i6 of goud quality. 



Italianizing Black Bees 



1. On page 236 is a question about Italianizing black bees by 

 giving them brood from Italian bees; but how about the mating of 

 the queens — wouldn't they be mated from the black drones, and not 

 be of pure blood? 



2. If this would work all right, how early could this be done? 



3. If early in the season will the bees rear drones to mate these 

 queens? Iowa. 



Answers — 1 As the mating of queens takes place outside the 

 hive, a virgin reared from the best Italian 6tock is likely to meet a 

 black drone so long as blacks are greatly in excess. But by breeding 

 only from those which do succeed in being purely mated, and occa- 

 sionally buying a pure queen if necessary, one may hope in time to work 

 out black blood to a large extent. But it is by no means an easy thing 

 to keep pure Italian stock so long as impure blood is within 2 miles 

 of you. 



2 and 3 LTnless you are an expert you will be likely to fail in 

 securing either good queens or drones much before the time when 

 bees naturally begin to make preparations for swarmiog; and when 

 you become an expert you are not likely to try it. If you want to 

 take some steps to have Italian virgins meet only Italian drones, in- 

 stead of trying to have them earlier in the spring than other drones, 

 you might try to have them fly later in the day than black drones are 

 flying, by keeping in the cellar colonies or nuclei with the proper vir- 

 gins and drones, and bringing them out in the afternoon after black 

 drones have ceased to fly. A little thin feed will start them to flying. 



Shallow Hlves-Unltlng Weak Colonies 



1. I am making some new hives with shallow frames, h% inches. 

 I intend to use 2 shallow supers for a brood-chamber, 8 or 10 frames 

 in each. 



2. Will shallow frames cause less drone-rearing if I use full sheets 

 of worker foundation? 



3. I have some big hives with 18 frames in the brood-chamber. 

 Are they as good as 8 or 10 frame hives for extracted honey? 



4. I have some weak colonies. Would I do better to unite them, 

 making one out of two? Would I have to kill the queen in one be- 

 fore uniting! Wisconsin. 



Answers.— 1. The majority of bee-keepers seem to prefer the 

 deeper frames, but there is more in the management than in the 

 frames. 



2. The depth of the frame will make no difference as to drone- 

 rearing. With full sheets of worker-comb you ought to have little 

 trouble with drones in either case. 



3. You can probably get as much honey from one as the other. 

 The smaller hives are more convenient to move; but that may not be 

 important in your case. On the whole, while it may be well to use 

 hives with IS Langstroth frames, if you have them already on hand, 

 until you And them preferable in your hands it may not be advisable 

 to make more of them. 



4. If each colony has a good queen it may be best to try to keep 

 them separate. Neither should you judge of the value of a queen by 

 what she does in a very weak colony. The best queen in the world 

 will not do the best work with only a small number of bees. You 

 might try the plan of putting a weak colony over a strong one, with a 

 queen-excluder between. If you unite 2 colonies it is not necessary 

 to kill one of the queens. 



Pure-Blood Italians-Rearing Queens 



1. I purchased an untested queen last fall of 5-banded stock, and 

 only the workers show 3 full yellow bands. Is she a full blooded Ital- 

 ian queen? 



2. Will a full-blooded Italian queen always produce yellow queens, 

 or will some be black? 



3. Say a queen of 5-banded stock would be mated with a black 

 drone, what percent of Italian blood would her bees contain? and how 

 many yellow bands will they have? 



4. How many generations would it take, by having an Italian 

 queen mated with a black drone every time, until there would be more 

 black blood than Italian? 



5. Would fresh-laid eggs be all right for rearing queens, by put- 

 ting them in compressed cups without royal jelly? or must larvte be 

 hatched before being moved or used? Ohio. 



Answers.— 1. I don't know. It used to be the rule that if all the 

 worker-bees showed 3 yellow bands the stock was counted pure Ital- 

 ian, and I suppose that is still the test; but since the evolution of 5- 

 banded bees I'm not sure the rule will hold. Suppose we have 5- 

 bander6, and a virgin of that stock meets a hybrid drone. It is easy 

 to conceive that the result might be 3-banded workers, with some 4- 

 banded and some 5-banded, and yet there would be some black blood 

 present. The possibility, if not the probability, is that your queen is 

 not purely mated. 



2. No; some of the purely-imported Italian queens are quite dark 



