Julv 12. 1906 



American Ttee Journal 



bives and those made by the G. B. Lewis Co.? Are they the same di- 

 mensions as the Danzenbaker or Langstroth? 



7. Is the extreme shallow brood-nest a practical success, say to 

 take two supers for early spriDg breeding tilled with frames, then at 

 harvest time introduce a queen-excluder on No. 1, and raise No. 2 

 above all the supers filled with sections? 



S. Would the bees be likely to mix pollen along with the white 

 clover and other first-class honey if the sections were thus placed be- 

 tween what had been their brood-nest? 



9. Where is that man from Canada who said in the American Bee 

 Journal that he could find either a virgin or laying queen in from 2 1 ,. 

 to 4 minutes in any colony? He failed to tell us how to do it, and as 

 yet I have failed to see the method explained. Indiana. 



Answers. — 1. Untested queens are understood to have mated and 

 begun laying, but there is no certainty whether they have mated with 

 a pure drone. Of course, if pure drones largely prevail in the neigh- 

 borhood where the queens are reared, the chances are largely in favor 

 of pure mating; but the purchaser takes the risk himself, whereas he 

 does not run the same risk if he pays the extra price for a tested 

 queen. 



2. Standard queens are pure Italians like those that come from 

 Italy, the workers having 3 yellow bands. A red clover queen, 

 whether standard Italian or what-not, is one whose worker progeny 

 work unusually well on ted clover. 



3. Queens can not be mated in the upper story of a hive either in 

 spring or at any other time. They meet the drones high in the air. 

 Some have succeeded in hav ^.ng them mate in very large tents, where 



they could fly much the same as in the open air; but there is probably 

 no authentic account of queens ever having mated in an upper story. 



4. No, it isn't worth while for you to fool away time trying it. 

 The queens are likely to disappear, and even if they succeed in mating 

 very early in the season, they are likely to turn out worthless. 



5. No, not of the first rank nor of any other rank. As before ex- 

 plained, you can not have mating in such confinement. 



6. Dovetailed hives made by different firms are all supposed to be 

 of the same dimensions, having the regular Langstroth frame, 17j5£x 

 9}£. The Danzenbaker is quite different in dimensions, having shal- 

 lower frames. 



7. Yes, quite a number have successfully used the Heddon hive, 

 which is one of the shallowest, and T. F. Bingham has successfully 

 used one still shallower. But I don't know that any one manipulates 

 in the way you describe. 



8. There is more danger of pollen in sections over a shallow brood- 

 chamber, and if brood-combs are placed over sections there is danger 

 that the sections will be darkened by the bees adding to the cappings 

 of the sections bits of comb carried down from the old combs above. 

 Whether this is always the case I don't know. 



9. I don't now recall the item to which you refer, so I can't tell 

 you anything about the whereabouts of the man. Sorry you didn't 

 give page. But there are many who will find queens in %% to 4 min- 

 utes by merely lifting out and looking over the frames. Yet there 

 will be exceptional cases in which a queen may successfully escape 

 detection for a much longer time. One way to make sure of finding 

 a queen is to run the bees through a queen-excluder; of course the 

 queen will be sifted out. 



In Sunny (?) California. 



I left 30 colonies in Iowa, but did not 

 leave my interest in the bee-business. So 

 my son and I have engaged for the season 

 with parties that own nearly 1,000 colonies. 



They have been working about 12 men, 

 making up hives, supers, foundation etc., 

 wiring frames and putting in foundation, and 

 at the same time caring for 4 apiaries, and 

 also ia*iutf about 10 tons of orange honey 

 of fine quality. They are rapidly completing 

 arrangements to begin moving to the hills 

 some 40 miles out (.of which I may send an 

 account later) . I had j ust gotten queen- 

 rearing well under way when I was taken 

 sick, and confined to the house over a week. 

 I am not able to resume work yet, but hope 

 to be in a few days. 



We are somewhat disappointed in sunny 

 California. It is surely the "land of flow- 

 ers," but not all sunshine. 



They say this has been an unusual season, 

 more continued cool and cold than common. 

 We hived a number of swarms April 3, and 

 then came home (about 1 mile), and played 

 snowball, and there was snow till nearly 

 noon the next day. 



A few days have been warm, and they 

 promise us plenty of that kind in July and 

 August, more especially out in the hills. 



T. S. Hurley. 



Los Angeles, Cal., May 14. 



Experience with Bees. 



Please do not stop the American Bee Jour- 

 nal. I can not do without it. Nearly every 

 number is worth its yearly subscription price. 



The spring here has been very backward, 

 cold and chilly nearly every day. Last Sat- 

 urday nearly one inch of snow fell, and Mon- 

 day night it froze ^-inch ice on the water in 

 my bee-watering trough. 



Here is a little kink. If I had known it 

 last fall it would have been worth quite a 

 few dollars to me. It is as follows: If you 

 use a 10-frame hive, like I do, and use an 

 oilcloth on top of the frames, remove the oil- 

 cloth when you put the bees into the cellar. 

 I had a few that had clustered on one side 

 in the hive, and they just starved with lots 

 of fine clover honey in the opposite side of 

 the hive. The frames the bees died on were 

 as dry as bark, not a drop of honey in them. 

 If I had known that last fall, I would have 

 been that much ahead. 



I send a photograph of my apiary, which 

 was taken early in the spring just as the 

 hives were put out. Right among them you 

 will find me examining the l^es. If short of 



stores, in my left hand I have a comb with 

 a little honey in for them, and in my right 

 hand a 20th Century bee-smoker. The hives 

 are all my own make, with standard Langstroth 

 frames. The hive right in front of me and 

 the second to the left are hives that I bought 

 last fall, containing botli straight and crooked 

 combs which are to be transferred as soon as 

 fruit-bloom commences. 



As you look at the picture you will see 

 3 hives at the extreme right, which are my 

 father's. Behind me is a sugar-maple which 

 is an excellent place for the bees to settle on 

 when they swarm, and I will tell you I have 

 spent a good many happy hours in the shade 

 of that maple tree, reading the "Old Reliable" 



are fastened on with a VanDeusen hive- 

 clamp. The cover is 18 inches wide, made 

 of three 6-inch boards, and covered with felt 

 roofing, first painted with a kind of cement 

 2 coats, and then 2 coats of white house- 

 paint, which I think makes a good cover. 



And then that spring I increased to 12 

 colonies, and got 500 pounds of extracted 

 honey (the bees built all the combs), and of 

 course transferred those 3 colonies into stand- 

 ard hives. Hives Nos. 1 and 2 contain 

 3-banded Italians and the rest common black 

 bees. I expect to Italianize them all this 

 summer. That extracting super under hive 

 No. 2 is for feeding purposes. Also, as you 



Apiary of Chas. O. Bergstrand. 



and watching the little, industrious bees. 

 Abcut a rod back of that maDle is a straw- 

 berry patch and a small fruit-garden with 

 such fruit as gooseberries, raspberries, cur- 

 rants and blackberries. The woods in the 

 distance are mostly basswood. 



Well, perhaps I should say something about 

 how I started with bees. About 2 years ago 

 I got a bee-paper, and, of course, bought 1 

 colony in the fall. It wintered all right, and 

 came out in fine condition. So I increased 

 to 3 that summer by natural swarming. As 

 I did not know much about bees then, I hived 

 them in box-hives, and the result was lots of 

 crooked combs. So I cellared 3 colonies the 

 fall of 1904. I soon subscribed for 4 bee- 

 papers, and got nearly all the standard books 

 on bee-culture. 



That winter was the time I gained my 

 knowledge about bees. The following spring 

 I set to work making standard Langstroth 

 10- frame hives, and put a starter in every 

 frame. The hive-bottoms are removable, and 



will see, there is a good-sized lake in the 

 distant. 1 h is. O. BBKtiSTRAND. 



Lykens, Wis., May 9. 



Prevention of Swarming. 



Appreciation and thanks for what Mr. Phil- 

 brook says on page 383; but putting the queen 

 below and the brood above with a queen- 

 excluder between the two hives will not pre- 

 vent swarming. In my locality, fully 95 per- 

 cent of the colonies so treated will swarm; 

 that is, of such colonies as would have 

 swarmed if not treated in this way. That 

 plan was described in print many years ago. 

 I tried it in a large way and could not see 

 that it had any effect whatever in prevent- 

 ing, or even checking, swarming, provided the 

 colonies treated had already contracted the 

 swarming fever. If they have not started 

 cells, that plan will always check, and many 

 times prevent, swarming. But it can not be 



