Nov. 1, 1906 



American Ttee Journal 



•A7 



those that have cast a swarm, should 

 be examined without fail 3 or 4 weeks 

 after the date of the first swarm. They, 

 in every case, have young queens, 

 which sometimes get lost on their 

 mating- flight. 



If the number of colonies is to be re- 

 duced in the fall, by all means save the 

 parent colonies which have young 

 queens, and probably plenty of honey 

 crowded into the brood-chamber dur- 

 ing the period when no queen was lay- 

 ing in the hive. The so-called " young " 

 swarm came off with the old queen, 

 and was for 3 weeks working hard 

 with no young bees hatching in the 

 hive, and is in reality now the old 

 swarm so far as age of bees goes, and, 

 having an old queen, is the poorer of 

 the two for winter. — M. P., in Mail 

 and Empire. 



Bee-Moths Destroying- Combs 



My bees are being destroyed by a 

 worm about one inch long that is eat- 

 ing away the brood-combs, and I am 

 told that later they will attack the sur- 

 plus honey. These worms are known 

 locally as " web- worms," and are the 

 larva; of a buff-colored moth about l / z 

 or ;'+ of an inch long. These same 

 worms have destroyed nearly all of the 

 bees in this locality. How can I de- 

 stroy them and preserve my bees ? 



Ans. — The worms referred to are the 

 larva? of the bee-moth, which is com- 

 mon to almost every locality where 

 bees are kept. It is not the worms 

 themselves which injure the bees, but 

 their presence in the hive indicates 

 that the colony has become weakened, 

 and as the bees have diminished, and 

 they have been unable to cover the 

 combs the moths have laid eggs in the 

 vacant combs, which hatch into the 

 worms you describe, and eat up the 

 combs, leaving only a mass of webs 

 and debris behind. It is not possible 

 for the moth to do any damage to a 

 thrifty colony. As long as the combs 

 are covered by the bees there is no 

 chance for the moth. You see, the 

 moth is really no menace to the bees, 

 but it is a very destructive agent as 

 far as honey-combs are concerned. 



The remedy in your case is to re- 

 move all the combs from the hives that 

 the bees can not care for, so that you 

 may preserve them by an occasional 

 smoking with sulphur ; then try by 

 every means to build up your colonies, 

 and as the bees increase in numbers re- 

 turn to them their combs, and you will 

 not have any more reason to complain 

 of the presence of the bee-moth. 



The reason that so many worms have 

 been seen in your locality, is that some 

 unfavorable condition has tended to 

 weaken and gradually destroy the bees, 

 and the moths, finding food for their 

 young in the vacant combs, have in- 

 creased greatly. — C. O. J., in Family 

 Herald and Weekly Star. 



The false notion is so prevalent that 

 moths destroy bees as well as combs, 

 that C. O. J.'s answer seems worth 

 copying, even though it is so well 

 known by bee-keepers of experience. 



The 



Mr. /last^s 

 fitter thou 



' Old Reliable " as 6een ttaroug-ta New and Unreliable Glasses, 

 By E. E. Hasty, Sta. B. Rural, Toledo, Ohio. 



Putting Eggs in Queen-Cells. 



And, presto, another brother claims 

 success in putting in eggs instead of 

 larvae in outfitting queen-cells — Grant 

 Anderson, of Sabinal, Tex. Page 754. 



Shipping Section Honey in a Lard- 

 Can. 

 Adrian Getaz well illustrates how 

 there are " many men of many minds " 

 when he shows us how to pack 3 dozen 

 sections for market in a lard-can. 

 Think I'll wait until I have inspected 

 one of these cans after going 10 miles 

 to market in a lumber-wagon over a 

 freshly dried clay road. Page 757. 



Heavy Extracting Combs. 



W. D. Soper turned quite a trick 

 when he got an 11-frame extracting 

 super to average 8'/i pounds of honey 

 to each comb. Page 769. 



Two Oceans on One Page. 



Two oceans on the front page of No. 

 37. Lima beans like the ocean — and 

 the real ocean like a field of Lima 

 beans. 

 Changed Vital Conditions in 1906. 



I am interested in hearing an intelli- 

 gent and professional man discourse 

 on the changed vital conditions of this 

 year of grace, 1906. Many forms of 

 life almost lacking. It's a matter 

 which not only beekeepers, but the 

 whole world, should be interested in. 

 Why should wasps in California, and 

 wasps here in Ohio, and wasps else- 

 where be scarce this year ? I have 

 been in the habit of having great mul- 

 titudes of them of many species. 

 (Hives with gable roofs in which they 

 can breed, and other special facilities 

 for them.) This year there have been 

 comparatively few, and of some species 

 almost none. The writer that moves 

 me to say this, Dr. Phil. Max Boelte, 

 seems rather inclined to let this go as 

 the result of cold, late spring and heavy 

 rains. I doubt it. Certainly that the- 

 ory won't work on the flies. Better 

 we have a theory that will run for all 

 the insects that play scarce. Flies be- 

 gan late and moderate (weather might 

 account for that nicely), grew more 

 and more plenty until quite trouble- 

 some, though not as bad as usual, and 

 then in the midst of a warm summer, 

 when precedent required them to get 

 thicker and thicker till frost, they be- 

 gan to decrease. Recently the weather 

 has been unseasonably hot most of the 

 time. But the cows do not come from 

 the pasture looking like 4-legged 

 swarms of bees as aforetime. So few 



flies around them that they look almost 

 comfortable. Never saw the like. I 

 incline to explain the scarcity of in- 

 sects, and the destruction of our poplar 

 trees, and the nearly total destruction 

 of our " pusley " weeds one recent year, 

 and many similar plant failures, to 

 quite similar causes — new develop- 

 ments of microbic life. Either a new 

 microbe or a new development of an 

 old one, making it more deadly, will 

 answer the turn. 



Pansies used to flourish in my api- 

 ary. Seeds got scattered around and 

 came up in the fall. For years people 

 came to me in spring from all the re- 

 gion round for baskets of pansy plants, 

 which I delighted in giving away. (I 

 wished in spring to clear most of the 

 ground so that I could hoe it.) But a 

 few years ago the pansy suddenly lost 

 its vim and health. I took more pains 

 than usual to help them. No use. 

 Rapidly less and less until last spring 

 not a single pansy survived. 



"What will you do when the black 

 man comes ?" Is there, mayhap, await- 

 ing a microbe to serve the human spe- 

 cies in the same way ? If the sun and 

 its planets, in their sweep towrds the 

 north side of the universe, pick up 

 floating microbes frozen but not dead — 

 if we run into one adapted to make 

 dead pusley out of we'uns — then what ? 



Mice Not Fond of Honey. 



Readers of this department may re- 

 member that not long since there was 

 a dispute between myself on one side 

 and Mr. Doolittle and Dr. Miller on the 

 other side, as to whether the common 

 mouse ate honey because he liked it (as 

 they contended), or whether he only ate 

 it in extremes of hunger or thirst (as I 

 contended). I feel like renewing the 

 fight. Think I am prepared to take, 

 not perhaps the whole match, but the 

 first round, at least. I now have sev- 

 eral captive mice. They are not tame, 

 but are coming on that way. Perhaps 

 they are better for this experimen- 

 than entirely tame mice would be, at 

 too much domestication changes appes 

 tites. I have developed the fact that 

 they are specially fond of dry crust of 

 wheat-bread. Last night I gave two 

 of them a large, long crust, one end of 

 which was spread with honey. They 

 ate a huge meal of it, for such small 

 beasts, but avoided the end where the 

 honey was. In the zeal of eating their 

 teeth got a little across the line in one 

 place, but that was all. Well, this 

 may not mean quite as much as it 

 seems to at first. May signify not 

 much more than that they prefer their 



