Aug. 23, 1906 



American Bee Journal 



queen, as the roaring of a swarm. «i:d the 

 roar that can be heard several rods from the 

 apiary after a hard day's work in a heavy 

 flow. Bat, as you describe it, if made by any 

 part of a colony it must have been by a single 

 bee. It would rather look as if the noise 

 came from something else than the bees. And 

 yet, if you were rather close to the hive when 

 the sound was made, and especially if the 

 noise was made after you had beeu having the 

 hive open and had closed it, it may have been 

 made by a bee that was caught fast. At any 

 rate, I have at times heard a worker make a 

 noise much as you describe — a sort of 'huck- 

 ling sound rapidly repeated, utterly different 

 from the noise made by a queen, and I think a 

 bee is always caught fast when it makes that 

 sound. 



Trouble fro:n Bee-Moth— Feeding 

 and Italianizing 



1. I am " up against it " already. I bought 

 3 colonies of bees of a neighbor, and put them 

 in new dovetailed hives. They were large 

 colonies. I moved them % of a mile in the 

 evening after they were hived. I brought 

 the last one home July ". The bees came 

 through in poor shape here, and were late in 

 swarming. 1 noticed 5 days ago about '20 

 young bees on the alighting-board, and the 

 old bees were tugging them away. I had a 

 bee-man, who claims to know a great deal 

 about bees, look at them, and he said there 

 were more young bees than the old ones could 

 feed, and they were killing them off. He 

 found 3 moth-worms in the hive, and about :; 

 or 3>j quarts of bees. The 8 frames were 

 about half full of comb, and that about ' 4 

 brood and 1-10 honey — no sealed honey. I 

 took the cover off to-day, and found a moth- 

 worm on the end of the frame. I was afraid 

 it would set them back to smoke them, and 

 they were a little cross. I find about the 

 same number of young, dead bees every morn- 

 ing. We have had lots of white clover and a 

 good honey-flow ever since I got them, unless 

 it is just at present. The clover is about 

 gone, but buckwheat is coming on now. I 

 have 5 colonies now. 



2. I understand that you do not advise a 

 greenhorn to feed, and yet it is very impor- 

 tant. I want to learn, and am willing to 

 listen to you. I would like to learn how to 

 feed bees, and get them in shape for the 

 honey-flow. 



3. I would like to requeen a colony or 60 

 with Italians. Could 1 not put an Italian 

 queen in a hive, keep swarming down as 

 much as possible, and by requeening every 

 year or so keep them pure? When is the 

 best time to requeen? and where is a good 

 and cheap place to get queens? 



I want to try to learn to get my money out 

 of the bees. I am willing to work with these 

 5 colonies, and don't expect to go any deeper 

 until I make a success with them. 



Pennsylvania. 



Answers. — 1. From what you say it is 

 quite possible that the bee-moth is responsi- 

 ble for the whole trouble. When the larv* 

 of the bee-moth spin their webs through the 

 combs, young bees nearly or altogether ready 

 to emerge from their cells are injured by these 

 larva; or their webs sufficiently to mike the 

 older bees cast them out. The best thing to 

 do is to get in a good strain of Italian blood, 

 and they will keep the moth at bay. No bet- 

 ter time in the year than now to get an Ital- 

 ian queen, and then you will have an estab- 

 lished colony of Italian stock next year from 

 which you can Italianize the rest. A weak 

 colony of common bees is likely to give up to 

 the worms, but a very small number of Ital- 

 ians will clean them out. 



:.' In the limitations of this department it 

 is not always easy to avoid misunderstand- 

 ing. It is true that I have advised a novice 

 against feeding; and it is true that I have 

 advised feeding in the strongest terms. One 

 of the worst things you can do is to leave your 

 bees short of stores in the spring, and I never 

 have advised against feeding when such a 

 thing occurs. I feel well satisfied to feed a 



colony in spring it it needs food, but I feel 

 better satisfied if every colony is 60 heavy 

 with stores that it needs no feeding in the 

 spring. From now on is the best time to 

 feed ; • not in spring. See that there is so 

 much honey in the hive that there will be no 

 possible need of feeding in the spring. I 

 know of no better advice to give you, and if 

 you will follow it you will be all right. The 

 kind of feeding I advise against is feeding a 

 little each day in bad weather in spring. But 

 I never advise against feeding to have a good 

 supply on band. 



3 As already 6aid, there is no better time 

 than now to get one or more Italian queens, 

 and by following the instructions that accom- 

 pany the queens you will stand a chance of 

 being successful, although there are likely to 

 be some failures in the matter of introduc- 

 tion. As to the best place to get queens, I 

 must refer you to the advertising columns of 

 this Journal, You are exactly right in your 

 idea of introducing Italian blood every year 

 or two, so long as there is any black blood in 

 your neighborhood. But remember that 

 merely having a colony of pure Italians in 

 your apiary is not enough. You must take 

 pains to see that most or all of your colonies 

 are headed with queens of the right sort. 

 When you've done the best you can in that 

 direction there is still chance enough for 

 black blood from black drones of your neigh- 

 bors within a mile or two. Any advice you 

 desire toward helping you will be cheerfully 

 given in this department. 



the colonies away for winter in better shape, 

 and in a fur honey-flow you are likely to get 

 a nice surplus, to boot. 



This is only for beginners who need in- 

 crease. Those who have a lot of colonies 

 would better only increase to 4 or 5 from 

 every 2 colonies. Julius Happel. 



Evansville. iDd., July 31. 



Reports a 

 experiences 



Buying op Rearing Queens 



In the first place, do you want to buy your 

 queens or rear them yourself? Watch for the 

 opening of the honey-flow; that is, the flow- 

 ers that yield the honey. Be sure they yield 

 honey. If they do not yield, you will have to 

 feed while you work my plan on your own 

 rearing of queens. You will want a hive ex- 

 actly the same 6ize as the one you want your 

 queens from, which is, of course, the best for 

 honey. Then take the empty hive, have 

 frames with full sheets of foundation wired 

 and embedded. Y T ou will need a 7 or an S 

 frame hive; then lift the hive that has the 

 colony that you want to rear from ; put the 

 uew hive on the same stand and in the same 

 place; hunt the queen out, and on whatever 

 i'rame of brood you find her put that frame 

 with the queen in the center of the new hive; 

 put a queen-excluding honey-board on top of 

 the new hive; place the old hive with the 7 

 frames on top of the new hive; close any 

 flight-hole that may be in the top hive, and in 

 about S days you will have a lot of queen- 

 cells sealed. 



Then take each frame out separately, find 

 the best cell on each frame, cut all the rest, 

 and put the longest and thickest one in a new 

 hive, with a frame with comb in it. If you 

 have no comb, use full sheets of foundation, 

 and put a division-board or dummy on the 

 side of the foundation; then as soon as the 

 queens have mated, or say before they have 

 mated, that is about 3 days after hatching, 

 treat hive No. 2 the sameasNo. 1. Just hunt 

 the queen out, stand the frame to one side, 

 take out a comb, shake the bees off, and put 

 one in each of the 1 frame nuclei; put frames 

 with full 6heets of foundation, as stated in 

 treating No. 1, but you put No. 1 on top. 



This is a good way to make increase, as you 

 can go all over the same in about 3 or 4 weeks. 

 You must also see that the colonies are always 

 supplied with frames and foundation as fa6t 

 as needed ; also, they must never get scarce 

 of feed. 



If you buy your queens from some breeder 

 you can save a lot of valuable time aod put 



Bees Carrying Water at Night— 

 Worker Reared in Queen-Cell 



An Arkansas bee-keeper wrote some time 

 ago about night-working bees, and that he 

 would rear hi6 queen6 from that particular 

 colony. Several years ago, if I mistake not, 

 it was claimed that bees, like decent girls, 

 stay at home at night. Mr. Root, however, 

 makes fun of the reports of night-working 

 bees, by saying that possibly such a man's 

 bees were crossed with lightning-bugs! I 

 sleep only 10 feet from my nearest colony of 

 bees, and I hear them on every hot night 

 going after water. I have known bee6 to go 

 more than 100 feet any night, moonlight or 

 starlight, after water, provided there are no 

 corners to be turned, or they are not wedged 

 or hedged about by any kind of undergrowth. 

 Probably this explains why so little is known 

 in some places about bees working at night. 



One curious thing about water-carrying by 

 night is, that only one bee, and no more, 

 leaves at a time ; but the very second she sets 

 her foot on the alighting-boird with water, 

 off goes another bee for more. No time is 

 wasted. While on the wing, these water- 

 cirrying bees utter that peculiar hissing 

 sound, though not nearly as high as when 

 they are ready for an attack. 



Several bees followed me 100 yards every 

 moonlight night last May clear to my house, 

 when it was necessary to feed a few nuclei, 

 provided I stood at the hive a minute or two. 

 If, however, I dropped a piece of comb honey 

 (unsealed, of course) and left at once, no bees 

 would follow me around. 



Some time last March a neighbor came after 

 me to separate some nice 5-banded Italian 

 virgin queens which were kept from swarm- 

 ing on account of cool weather. In cutting 

 out sealed queen-cells, all of which contained 

 large yellow virgin queens ready to emerge, I 

 noticed one cell at least 2 inches long. In 

 cutting it open, out cam? a perfect worker- 

 bee. I caged her promptly, carried her home 

 and clipped her wings, so I could not be de- 

 ceived, and introduced her in a glass hive. 

 She remained a perfect worker. The usual 

 amount of driedup jelly was missing in this 

 worker-bee's cell. The septum was intact, 

 so no wax-worm deprived this pirticular in- 

 mate of her proper amount of queen-food. 



Fort White, Fla. D. J. Pawletta. 



Rose Lawn Queens 



" Beauty is Sk inDeen" Results Count 



A customer in Pennsylvania writes: ;; The 

 Pure Gold queen you sent me has 9 frames 

 full of sealed brood. I would not take 5100 for 

 her. Send me another like her. " 



From an Indiana bee-keeper: ''I have 

 handled queens for 20 jears, but the Golden 

 you sent me is the largest, fiaest and most 

 prolific I ever saw. Please send me 3 more as 

 soon as possible." 



From Illinois: "I never saw bees work 

 Red Clover until to-day when I counted more 

 than 20 on Red Clover blooms in my yard. 

 They came from the hive containing the Red 

 Clover Queen bought of you." 



Plenty of these queens for you. Get good 

 stock. A request will bring cage containing 

 sample workers of any race we have. 



Requeen now and have plenty of early 

 brood next spring. 



Italians and Carniolans— Untested. ?oc; 

 for $4. Tested, $1 ; 6 foi 



Caucasians and Banats— Untested, si : for 

 $5. T> J 6 for $8, 



ROSE LAWN APIARIES, 



33A4t Sta. C. LINCOLN, NEB i 



