Sept. 27, 1906 



819 



American Ttee Journal 



and sometimes it stops early in July. 

 When it yields nothing in June or 

 July, as was the case the present sea- 

 son, there is no hope for anything 

 afterward. But you may be gratified 

 to know that for all that, there is a 

 good promise that our bees will fill up 

 for winter, and perhaps give us a stock 

 of extra combs of sealed honey for 

 spring use. About Aug. 20 the bees 



began to sit up and take notice that 

 there was something for them to do, 

 and for a few days during the ter- 

 rifically hot weather they seemed to 

 have all they could do on cucumbers, 

 heartsease, etc., and although the 

 nights have turned cool, they still seem 

 to be working. 



Please tell us how you prevent your 

 bees having access to the cider-press. 





Docfor 

 Quesfion- 



BH^HH 



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. 



Dead Brood-Uniting Bees 



1. I send some dead brood. What is the 

 disease? and what is the best treatment for it? 



2. I have read so many time6 about putting 

 a nucleus or colony by another hive, or doub- 

 ling up, as on page 485. Won't the old field- 

 bees go back to the old stand? Missouri. 



Answers.— 1. I wouldn't be certain there's 

 any disease in the ease — looks more like a 

 case of chilled or starved brood. But I'm not 

 an expert in bee-diseases, and all who have 

 any fear of serious disease should send sam- 

 ple to Mr. N. E. France, General Manager of 

 the National Bee-Keepers' Association, Platte- 

 ville. Wis. Those who are not members of 

 the Association should 6end along a dollar to 

 become members. 



2. Yes, when bee6 are moved, unless some 

 steps be taken to prevent it, the field-bees will 

 upon their first visit to the fields return to the 

 old stand. Sometimes that is desired, and 

 sometimes not. On page 4S5, " Bloomfield " 

 says : " Move the nuclei thus started to other 



locations and confine the bees for 3 



days." The 3 days' confinement helps in two 

 directions: During that time a number of 

 bees will emerge from their cells, and also the 

 old bees will give up their old attachment, 

 ami when the entrance is opened will take 

 their bearings afresh and adhere to the new 

 location. Afterward, when he moves a nu- 

 cleus beside the swarm he calls a " hummer," 

 he says nothing about confining the bees of 

 the nucleus, and of course the field-bees of 

 the nucleus will go back to the old location, 

 and probably " beg" their way into the col- 

 ony nearest that old stand. 



Winter Packing Boxes— Sugar Syrup 

 - for Winter Stores 



1. I am building packing boxes of 1 inch 

 lumber large enough to hold 2 colonies. I 

 have allowed about a 5-inch space for pack- 

 ing on top of the hives and 3 inches on sides 

 and ends. The hives will be placed close to- 

 gether. The entrance for each hive in the 

 packing box is about 5x%. If the bees are 

 put away Nov. 1, with 20 pounds of sugar- 

 syrup stores, would you expect them to win- 

 ter in good shape ! 



2. It I mix 15 pounds of sugar with 15 

 pounds of water and feed the mixture to a 

 colony of good, average strength about Sept. 

 10, how much actual food would there be 

 stored and capped, allowing for brood-rearing 

 at that time, the syrup to be fed in about 

 three days' time? Ontario. 



Answers.— 1. Packed as you describe, and 

 especially with two hives so close together, it 

 ought not to take a heavy amount of winter 

 stores; but if you mean that 20 pounds of 

 sugar syrup is their entire dependence for 

 winter, then you're running too much risk. 

 Some colonies will use no more than 20, while 

 others will use 30. and the safe plan is to give 

 all 30. Very likely, however, you mean that 

 you will give the syrup in addition to some 10 

 pounds of honey scattered through the 

 frames, in which case you are all right. In- 

 deed, for a colony wintered outdoors there 

 would be no harm in allowing 40 pounds. It's 

 not a bad thing to have some of the winter 

 stores left still in the hive when the harvest 

 begins, as it saves just so much filling up in 

 the brood-chamber before the honey goes 

 aloft. A full pantry in spring favors rapid 

 building up for the harvest. Your entrances 

 are all right if you don't let them get clogged. 



2. If you feed sugar and water, half-and- 

 half, as late as Sept. 10 (and your letter didn't 

 reach me till after that date), you'll stand a 

 fair chance of having every colony thus fed 

 die of diarrhea. For unless the weather is 

 unusually warm the bees will not be able to 

 get any important amount of such syrup re- 

 duced to the consistency of honey. The safer 

 thing will be to feed syrup about as strong as 

 honey, say 5 pounds of sugar to 2 pounds of 

 water. 



It is probably not out of the way to say that 

 5 pounds of sugar will make the equivalent 

 of 7 pounds of honey, whatever the amount 

 of water used, provided there is no waste for 

 brood-rearing, wax-building, or any other 

 purpose. The amount used for brood-rearing 

 will vary ; some colonies are done feeding 

 brood before Sept. 10, and 6ome are not; but 

 brood-rearing is not very heavy in any case 

 so late; and it may not be out of the way to 

 6ay that 5 pounds of sugar will result in 6 

 pounds of sealed stores. So your 15 pounds 

 of sugar, fed rapidly as you say, ought to 

 make something like 18 pounds of sealed 

 stores — if, if the bees ripen it as it should be 

 ripened. But that is hardly to be expected, 

 and the result will be very likely something 

 nearer 30 pounds of thin, unsealed stores. 



Queen-Rearing Experience 



I have this season been trying the Doolittle 

 plan for queen rearing, but was not very 

 successful. I grafted 5 lots of cells in June 

 and July, from 9 to 15 each time, but never 

 more than 6 were accepted. The first time 

 was in the upper story of a very strong col- 

 ony; the second, 10 days later over the same 



colony, when none were accepted; the others 

 were in queenles6 colonies. The queen hav- 

 ing been removed about an hour before, of 

 those that were accepted, except in one In- 

 stance, more than half failed to emerge, be- 

 ing dead in the cell upon examination. Some 

 of these were fully developed, others had just 

 only reached the pupa stage. I took them off 

 on the loth day and handled them very care- 

 fully; in most cases more or less comb had 

 been built around the cells. 



1. Can you account for the non-acceptance 

 and failure to emerge? 



2. I made the cells about j inch to % inch 

 deep. Were they too deep? 



3. Did I put in the cells too soon after tak- 

 ing the queens away? 



4. In 3 of the colonies a queen was fertilized 

 in the upper story ; one was lost at extracting 

 time; but the others are all right now. I am 

 thinking of letting them remain as they are 

 for the winter. I winter bees on the summer 

 stands; one has an entrance in the upper 

 story, and the other has not since I extracted. 

 Do you think it will answer to winter them 

 that way? The one with an entrance has a 

 queen reared in 1905; the other is a year 

 older, and is one of my breeding queens. 



British Columbia. 



Answers.— Please allow me in this case to 

 answer your first 3 questions without taking 

 them in order. If you will examine queen- 

 cells that contain larva? only 2 or 3 days old, 

 and of course you used larvse as young as 

 this, you will find that the cells are not half 

 as deep as % or T ^ inch; so your cells were 

 unnecessarily deep. When a queen is re- 

 moved from a colony, the colony is sometimes 

 not aware of its queenlessness for a good 

 many hours, and when you gave cells to a 

 colony whose queen had been present an hour 

 before, it was practically not a queenless col- 

 ony, and cleared out some or all of the cells 

 before discovering its queenlessness. In the 

 case of the cells in an upper story, with a 

 laying queen below, the age and vigor of the 

 queen would make a difference, the cells be- 

 ing more kindly treated if the queen was fail- 

 ing than if she was young and in full vigor. 

 After all, you did not do so very badly if you 

 got as many as 6 accepted out of 9 to 15, first 

 time trying. 



I don't know how to account for as many as 

 half the young queens dying in the cells, un- 

 less it be that they were chilled. They would 

 hardly be chilled in the full colonies in which 

 they were started; but you say you cut out 

 the cells the 10th day, and I suppose you put 

 them in nuclei then, and if not centrally 

 located with a pretty good force of bees, a 

 cool night might have been accountable for 

 the mischief. 



4 They may winter all right; although 

 there is a little danger that the bees may con- 

 clude that one queen is enough. 



No Brood or Eggs 



What is the reason my bees haven't a sin- 

 gle mite of brood, nor any sealed brood? I 

 have overhauled IS colonies out of 20, and 

 find no brood nor eggs. Maine. 



Answer.— Your letter is dated Sept 10, and 

 as no brood of any kind was to be found then, 

 that means that the queens stopped laying on 

 or before Aug. 20. The easiest answer would 

 be to say that the colonies were queenless. 

 But under ordinary circumstances it is hardly 

 likely that 18 of the 20 colonies had become 

 queeoless, and as you 6ay nothing about the 

 queens it may be taken for granted that you 

 supposed queens were present. In the ab- 

 sence of fuller information I can only guess, 

 and 1 should guess that in August there was 

 such a severe dearth that the bees concluded 

 the season was over, and so gave up rearing 

 brood. Even when the queen has not yet 

 ceased to lay, the workers sometimes cease to 

 give the eggs proper attention, and nc brood 

 is reared from them. If there was rood 

 yield of honey through August, then ;;' 

 know what the trouble was. 



