April 5, l ;06 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



309 



and the royal progeny of a pure Italian queen are likely to show no 

 little variation In color. You can not judge by the looks of an Italian 

 queen, but from her worker progeny. 



8. If the mother is pure Italian, and the father pure black, there 

 will be just half black blood in the queen or worker olTspring, but the 

 drones will be pure Italian. There will be no uniformity as to the 

 number of bands on the workers; some of them may have o, and some 

 may have none. 



■4. I suppose you mean that you would each time use a pure black 

 drone to mate with the cross already obtained. In that case, the first 

 cross would be half black, and the second cros6 three-fourths black. 



5. I don't suppose you would succeed by moving eggs. 1 don't 

 remember hearing that any one ever did. 



Buying Bees In the Spring 



1. When would you advise to buy bees? 



2. What would you call a good colony ? 



3. What would you pay for a mixed colony, but good in every 

 other way i Nebraska. 



Answers.— 1. Rather late in spring, say about the beginning of 

 fruit-bloom, is a very good time. The troubles resulting from winter- 

 ing are likely to be oyer then, with nothing to hinder a prosperous 

 career. 



2. A colony that at that time has brood in 5 frames, Langstroth 

 size (lT^xQ's), each frame being % or more filled with brood, would 

 be a fairly good colony ; with 6 or 7 brood it would be a very good 

 colony. 



3. There is no rule about prices. They may be twice as much in 

 one place as in another, varying from $4 or less to 8S or more. 



Ventilation Space Below Brood Frames When Moving 

 Bees 



You are familiar with the Holtermann portico and screen for 

 moving bees, but to attach such an apparatus to all our hive6 would 

 destroy the interchangeability of extracting supers and brood-cham- 

 bers, besides several other disadvantages. My idea is to use your deep 

 bottom-boards — say 2% inches deep instead of the usual 2 inches — 

 then when necessary to move bees iu any kind of weather, just pull 

 out the false bottom and insert a screen-covered rim, say 12x19',, , into 

 the entrance, giving then a clustering space of at least 2 inches under 

 the frames, and wire-cloth surface for ventilation about lO^xlT 1 ., — 

 greater than the ventilating surface of the screen used with Holter- 

 mann's portico. 



1. How deep do you think the bottom-board should be to be used 

 as above? 



2. As all the air must come in at the front of the entrance, and 

 mostly under the 6creen, in the J^-inoh space under the screen above 

 the floor, will the ventilation be sufficient for the strongest colonies? 



3. What do you think of the idea ! Any improvements ! 



Idaho. 

 Answers. — 1. It seems to me 2 1 ., would be enough, and possibly 

 2, but you'll have to wait and try it in red-hot weather before you can 

 be sure. 



2. Not sure about it, but it seems to me % inch under the screen 

 would be better, even at the expense of less clustering room between 

 screen and bottom-bars. 



3. If I had originated the idea I should say it was just the thing. 

 Seeing it's your baby, I'll 6ay you can't tell how it will work till you 

 try it. How would it do to have the screen within 1 { inch of the floor 

 at the back end, and within 1 inch of the floor at the entrance? Not 

 so easy to make a close fit, but it would put the bees at the back end 

 more on a par with those at the front end as to chance for pure air. In 

 fact, wouldn't less than J^j inch do at the back end if the air that 

 reached that point was fresh? I think you'll see what I'm getting at, 

 that if the space is the same thronghout, and there's any suffering for 

 lack of fresh air, the bees at the back end would be the ones to 6uffer 

 most. 



■» • > 



Old Combs for Beeswax- Making Sections at Home- 

 Changing Queens— Number or Comb-Honey 

 Supers Per Colony- Equalizing Brood 

 Among Colonies 



1. Are old combs with dead bees in them fit for beeswax? If so. 

 how is the best way to get it out of them? I have no extractor. 



2. As the price of sections is very high, and section lumber very 

 cheap in my neighborhood, do you think it would pay me to buy a 

 machine to make sections > 



3. I clip my queens and hive the swarms on the old stand. Would 

 it do to change queens when tbey swarm, by giving them a queen-cell 

 or a young queen just hatched ? Would they store as much honey by 

 changing the queen ? 



4. I run my apiary for comb honey, using the 8-frame dovetailed 

 hive with T-supers. How many supers should I have for each hive I 



5. On April 22, 1905, my colonies had 3 to 7 frames of brood each. 

 Would it pay to take from and give to until each colony had the same 

 amount of brood? Iowa. 



Answers. — 1. Yes, a large part of the wax of commerce is ob- 

 tained from hives in which bees died in winter. One way to get the 

 wax out of a small quantity of combs is to use a dripping-pan. Split 

 open one corner. Put the pan in the oven of a cook-stove, the split 



end projecting outside the oven-door, and the diagonally opposite cor- 

 ner of the pan slightly raised. Set any vessel containing a little water 

 under the outer corner to catch the dripping wax. But this will not 

 get the wax out as clean as a wax-press. 



2. No, there is probably not a man in the country that makes sec- 

 tions only for his own use. A complete outfit of section machinery 

 would cost several thousand dollars, probably. 



3. No, when a swarm is hived it doesn't take a great deal to make 

 the bees desert their new habitation, and if theirold queen were taken 

 away they would not be satisfied with a cell or a virgin, but would re- 

 turn to their old home. 



4. That depends. Decide as nearly as you can the average num- 

 ber of supers your colonies mill fill in the very best season. That's the 

 number you need, together with one extra super for each hive. For 

 instance, if in the very best season the number of filled supers averages 

 5 for each hive, then you should have 6 ready. You understand that 

 it will be a rare thing for you to need so many, but an old saw runs, 

 " It's better to be ready and not go than to go and not be ready;" and 

 the extra supers not needed will be all right for another year. 



5. It's not a bad plan. But let me give you a hint: Don't take 

 from the strongest and give to the weakest, but give to those not quite 

 strong enough. Take a frame from those having 6 or 7 frames, re- 

 ducing them to 5; that is, from a colony having 6 frames you will take 

 one frame, and from a colony having 7 frames you will take 2 frames 

 of brood. Now give one or two frames to each colony having only 4 

 frames. When these are brought up, then give 2 or 3 frames to each 

 colony having only 3. __ 



Several Eggs in a Cell-Preventing Bees Hanging Out- 

 Keeping Queens 



1 What causes a queen to lay a number of eggs in each cell? This 

 was done by the queen in the colony that died, and they had mostly 

 drone-comb. . 



2 What can be done to stop bees from hanging out • 



3 What is the best way to keep queens taken from colonies i 



Nebraska. 



Answers— 1. I don't know. It is a very rare thing ; and gen- 

 erally a queen that does that sort of thing is no good; but I have 

 known a queen to do it for a time, and then behave herself with enure 

 propriety during the rest of her life. It is, however, not such a rare 

 thing to find more than one egg in a cell ; but in nearly every case 

 such eggs are not laid by a queen, but by laying workers. Unless you 

 know positively that a queen laid the eggs in the case you mention, 1 

 should suspect laying workers. 



2 Give them abundance of room, shade and ventilation. Some- 

 times, however, they are hanging out because there is nothing to be 

 done in the field, and in that case they are not to blame for hanging 



Z In a nucleus. For a few days, however, they may be kept 

 caged in a colony that has its own queen, and some good-natured bees 

 are generally willing to feed them. To make entirely sure against 

 starvation, a provisioned queen-case may be used. 



Stretching Comb Foundation -Miller Frame 



1 How do you make 7', -inch wide brood foundation reach to the 

 saw-kerf in the top of the trame and between the two pieces of the 

 bottom-bar? The total distance 8Ji- . _. . . .. „ _ 



2 Where can I get the Miller frame? I have been using the Hoff- 

 man, but don't like it any better than you do. Kansas. 



Answers— 1. You mustn't ask such hard questions. I don't 

 know of any way to make comb foundation longer except by stretch- 

 ing it, and that isn't a good way. My foundation is made half an 

 inch more than the space between the top and the bottom-bars; that 

 makes the foundation «% inches. You probably have foundation 1%, 

 and want to know how you can use it. I'll tell you: Cut some of 

 the sheets into strips % of an inch wide. Put a full sheet into the 

 upper part of the frame, and a % strip into the lower part. It may 

 not be easy to make an exact fit where the two parts come together, 

 but it doesn't matter if they are % or } 4 of an inch apart. The bees 

 will make it all right. 



2. From theO. B. Lewis Co., Watertown, Wis., and probably any 

 manufacturer will make them to order. 



Honey as a Health-Food.— This is a 16-page honey- 

 pamphlet intended to help increase the demand for honey. 

 The first part of it contains a short article on Honey as 

 Food '" written by Dr. C. C. Miller. It tells where to keep 

 honey, how to liquefy it, etc. The last part is devoted to 

 "Honey-Cooking Recipes" and "Remedies Using Honey. 

 It should be widely circulated by those selling honey. I he 

 more the people are educated on the value and uses of 

 honey, the more honey they will buy. 



Prices prepaid— Sample copy for a two-cent stamp; Ml 

 copies for 70 cts ; 100 for $1.25; 250 for $2.25; 500 for $4.00; 

 or 1 000 for $7.50. Your business card printed free at the 

 bottom of front page on all orders for 100 or more copies. 

 Send all orders to the office of the American Bee Journal. 



See Langstroth Book Offer on another page of this 

 copy of the American Ree Journal. 



