Nov. 8, 1906 



American Ttec Journal 



have not had any more trouble with the Car- 

 niolans than with other races. I have gotten 

 past the fear of swarming. 

 I have ju6t about finished taking off my 



honey. The crop is light — about 17,000 

 pounds from over 275 colonies, spring count. 

 I now have over 400 colonies, all in excellent 

 condition for winter. J. E. Chambers. 



^ 



ocfor MillerS 

 ^uesfkvn-Bcpr 



Send Questions either to the office of the American Bee Journal, or to 



Dr. C. C. Miller, Marengo, 111. 



ffiW Dr. Miller does >wt answer Questions by mail. 



Sugar Syrup for Winter Stores 



Will bees live on sugar syrup through the 

 winter without any bee bread? If not, what 

 can be given to them as a substitute for bee- 

 bread? My bees have no honey and no bee- 

 bread, and 1 want to save them if there is any 

 chance. Missouri. 



1-1 Answer. — Yes, bees will winter all right 

 on sugar syrup without any pollen ; and some 

 advise wintering thus. They will not rear 

 young bees in the spring, however, without 

 pollen. But the likelihood is that they have 

 enough pollen with which to make a begin- 

 ning in spring, and they begin bringing in 

 pollen very early. In case you think they 

 need a substitute for pollen in the spring, you 

 can feed ground grain of almost any kind. 

 Some springs I have fed several bushels of 

 corn and oats ground together. Set it in a 

 sunny place on days when bees are Hying. 

 But you can't get them to take it if they 

 can get natural pollen. 



Best Handling of Unfinished Sections 



The close of that portion of our honey sea- 

 son in which bees store marketable honey, 

 found in my yard quite a number of unfin- 

 ished sections. I simply put them back and 

 they are now well filled, but with honey that 

 is unfit for use. I wish to pursue that course 

 which will give my bees the greatest advan- 

 tage from this honey. Should I leave the su- 

 pers containing these sections on through the 

 winter? If not, how shall I keep the honey 

 in sections taken off? I wish to handle the 

 sections in such a way as not to lose them. 

 How shall I do this? Texas. 



Answer. — So far as the bees are concerned, 

 it might be all right to leave the sections just 

 where they are. But it would be rough on 

 the sections if you are to make any future 

 U6e of them, as 1 understand you intend. You 

 can extract the honey from the sections, let- 

 ting the bees clean them up afterward, and 

 then feed the honey back to the bees, but it is 

 a fussy job to extract from sections. An 

 easier way is to tike the sections off and let 

 the bees rob out all the honey. The danger 

 in that case is that the bees will tear to pieces 

 the combs in the sections. There are two 

 ways to avoid this. One is to give the bees 

 such full chance that they will not want to 

 tear them, spreading out the supers of sec- 

 tions so that all the bees can get at all parts 

 easily. But to do this there must be a suffi- 

 cient number of sections in proportion to the 

 number of bees. If you set out a single super 

 for 100 colonies, you will be likely to find the 

 comb chewed up into little bits. If there is 

 a super for each colony, and each super fully 

 exposed, there will be little danger. I don't 

 know just where to draw the line, but proba- 



bly if you have a super for each 2 or 3 colo- 

 nies there will be little or no tearing. 



The other way is to go to the other ex- 

 treme, and allow very few bees at a time to 

 get at the sections; and this is the better way 

 where the number of sections is small com- 

 pared with the number of bees. Farther 

 north it might not work so late as this, but 

 as you are in latitude about 31 degrees, the 

 bees will have plenty of warm days for it. 

 Pile the supers in piles, allowing an opening 

 at bottom, and also at top, so that only one 

 bee can pass at a time. If there are enough 

 supers in the pile, allow another entrance for 

 about each 5 supers, by pushing a super to 

 one side enough to make a small entrance at 

 one corner. 



Making Queen or Royal Jelly 



Row can 1 make queen jelly? If I can not 

 make it myself where can I get it? 



Massachusetts. 



Answer. — You can't make queen jelly, or 

 as it i6 generally called, royal jelly. Neither 

 can any other man, not even President Roose- 

 velt. I never knew of any being offered for 

 sale, but you can easily get the bees to make 

 it for you. Take the queen away from a col- 

 ony next summer, and the bees will start to 

 rear several young queens in queen-cells that 

 you will easily distinguish as being larger 

 than the other cells. In these queen-cells 

 they will put quite a quantity of food for the 

 young queens. In each cell there may be as 

 much as the size of a pea or more. It is of 

 the consistency of cream, varying from the 

 thinnest to the thickest of cream as time 

 advances, and when a young queen emerges 

 from the cell there is generally left at the bot- 

 tom of the cell a surplus of food that has 

 dried down to the consistency of thick jelly. 

 But the only way you can get this royal jelly 

 is to get the bees to make it. 



Wintering Bees in a Cave or Cellar- 

 Spring Introduction of Queens 



1. Is it safe or proper to put bees in a cave 

 or outdoor cellar where I have a few potatoes? 



2. Is it better to leave them on the bee- 

 bench and cover with a large box? I think 

 they have plenty of honey to winter on. I 

 would like to winter them, as there are not 

 many bees in this county. 



3. What is the best time in the spring to 

 introduce Italian queens? Nebraska. 



Answers.— 1 and 2. As you are in about 

 latitude 42 north, it will most likely be better 

 to winter your bees inside, although in a 

 sheltered place they might do very well cov- 

 ered as you mention. Potatoes in the cellar 

 would not be likely to do any harm unless a 



lot of them were rotten, and of course that 

 ought not to be allowed for other reasons. In 

 a cellar warm enough to keep potatoes with- 

 out freezing, as few as 2 colonies ought not to 

 do very badly. You speak of a cave, and if it 

 is fairly dry, and sufficiently underground so 

 that the temperature i6 fairly even, at some- 

 where in the neighborhood of 45 degrees, it 

 ought to answer. Between that and the cel- 

 lar, the question will very likely be as to 

 which is warmer. 



3. That depends somewhat upon circum- 

 stances. To introduce a queen earl; in the 

 season is likely to interfere with the strength 

 of the colony more than if the introduction 

 occurs toward the close of the harvest ; and, 

 besides, queens cost more very early. On the 

 other hand, if you want to breed from your 

 new stock, you would gain in time by getting 

 a queen early. 8o, in your case, it may be 

 l mt iir to get a queen a6 early as you can in 

 June. 



Shipping Bees by Freight 



Do you consider it safe to ship bees by 

 freight at this time, or a little later, from Illi- 

 nois or Ohio? Do you know what the rail- 

 roads charge per hundredweight? 



Massachusetts. 



Answer. — There is no better time to ship 

 bec6 in the year, unless it should be when the 

 temperature is about the same in the spring, 

 for in the spring the combs are not so heavy 

 with honey. On the other hand, there is dan- 

 ger of interfering with brood-rearing in the 

 spring. Later in the fall and winter, when 

 the cold is severe, there is more danger of 

 combs breaking down, becau-e brittle with 

 the cold. I don't know what freight-rates 

 are; there are a thousand different rates, 

 depending upon the different points of ship- 

 ment and destination ; and these you can get 

 by applying to the railroads in question. You 

 speak of sending by freight, but in many 

 places you can send bees by freight only in 

 car-lots. Indeed, unless there has been a 

 change through a large part of the West, if 

 not in the East, the only way to ship bees on 

 railroads is by express, unless you wish to 

 pay for a whole car. 



A Two Story Colony-Ripe Honey 



1. We put an extra hive over a colony in 

 July without putting on a queen-excluder, 

 and we find now that the queen has gone 

 " upstairs," and consequently there are eggs 

 and brood in both hives. What is the pre- 

 scription in that case? There appears to be 

 lots of bees, but it would hardly seem prob- 

 able to a neophyte that one queen could run 

 two establishments. Shall we try to get them 

 back in one hive? 



2. When honey is Bealed and capped over 

 by the bees, is it ripe and ready to take off! 

 If not, how is one to know? F. E. K. 



Answers.— 1. The neophyte who should 

 conclude that a queen could not run two es- 

 tablishments, or at least an establishment oc- 

 cupying two stories, has a rather limited view 

 of the capability of a 20th century queeu. It 

 is morally certain that there is only one 

 queen in the hive, and the proper prescription 

 is now to reduce to one story. By the time 

 this reaches you it is not likely that there is 

 any brood present, unless it be a little sealed 

 brood. At any rate, here is what you are to 

 do: Make an investigation of the upper 

 story, and if you find it well stocked with 

 full frames of honey, very likely it will be 

 well to put it on the bottom-board in place of 

 the lower story. At any rate, you are to put 

 into the lower story all the frames containing 

 brood (if there be any brood), and fill up with 

 the heaviest frames of honey to be found in 

 either story. So over this the other story 

 containing the remainder of the frames, to- 

 gether with their adhering bees. Lift out one 

 of the frames and brush buck into the hive 

 all the bees from it. Do the same with the 

 rest of the frames and then put on the cover. 



