AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



333 



experiment more thoroughly, you may 

 find a hive that you will like better than 

 the Langstroth hive. I have now 7 

 hives in my yard, but I will transfer all 

 my bees into the square hive this spring. 



About hauling bees : I notice a friend 

 in Tennessee that wanted to move his 

 bees 30 miles. I have just brought 25 

 colonies 20 miles. I nailed the bottoms 

 and tops on, and put about 3 inches of 

 straw in the bottom of the wagon, and 

 hauled them home without breaking any 

 combs down, over a very rough road. 

 Please try it. J. W. Taylor. 



Ozan, Ark., Feb. 2i. 



Drones from Imported Queens. 



Mrs. Atchley : — Should the drones 

 from an imported queen show 3 yellow 

 bands, or should they mark more yellow 

 than that? If not, how should they be 

 marked ? A. P. Lake. 



Batesburg, S. C. 



Friend Lake, in answering your ques- 

 tions as best I can, I will say that the 

 drones from imported queens are much 

 like the drones from home, or domestic 

 reared Italians — more or less mixed. 

 The drones do not seem to be as fixed in 

 their markings as the workers. Some 

 imported queens produce drones almost 

 black, or of a dark brown color, and 

 some produce drones mixed, some show- 

 ing yellow bands, and some none. When 

 I am selecting a breeder, I choose queens 

 producing both drones and bees as 

 nearly uniform as possible, other good 

 qualities combined, etc.; and es.pecially 

 a queen that will duplicate herself in 

 her daughters. It is a nice job to select 

 our breeding queens, when we are look- 

 ing after the improvement of the stock 

 for both markings and honey, prolific- 

 ness, and I will add, vitality, gentleness, 

 •and long life. Jennie Atchley. 



Burr, Brace, and Ladder Combs. 



Burr-combs are the fault of the bee- 

 keeper, and not confined to a certain 

 strain of bees. What I term "burr- 

 combs," are those little burry or rugged 

 combs built on top of the top-bars, and 

 these can be dispensed with by not al- 

 lowing too much space between the top- 

 bars and cover, or upper story. The 

 way most hives are made, the top-bars 

 do not come up even with the top of the 

 hive by }i inch ; this I know is intended 

 to protect the bees from being mashed 

 when the cover is placed on, and when 



a quilt is laid over the frames the bees 

 begin to build a little comb up against 

 the quilt, and it gives way, or is pushed 

 up by the bees, and the burr-combs fol- 

 low until the quilt reaches the cover, 

 and a great lot of ugly burrs is the re- 

 sult. 



I have my top-bars to come up within 

 }i inch of the top of the hives, and a 

 quilt laid on. No bees are killed to 

 amount to anything, and no burr-combs. 



Then we sometimes have what we call 

 " brace-combs." I find these more com- 

 mon where the frames are spaced a lit- 

 tle too wide, and the top-bars too nar- 

 row. If the spacing is about IJjb inches 

 from center to center, and the top-bars 

 full % to 1 inch wide, we do not have 

 many brace-combs. 



Then we have what we term " ladder- 

 combs." These we find often where the 

 frames are too high from the bottom- 

 boars, or where the bottom-bars do not 

 go low enough down. The bees build 

 knots or ladder-combs to assist them in 

 reaching the bottom-bars. 



Then, again, we find these ladder- 

 combs between the upper and lower 

 stories, where the top-bars of the bottom 

 part and the bottom-bars of the top part 

 are too far apart. A little less than % 

 of an inch space is one that suits me be- 

 tween stories under bottom-bars, etc., 

 and but few knotty combs are found 

 when so arranged. A hive properly 

 made to admit of only a little less than 

 % of an inch spacing or openings, is the 

 one that suits me best. When I was 

 producing comb honey I used a space 

 about 5/16 under the cases, and under 

 all bottom-bars, and I seldom had any 

 trouble with ladder combs. I am going 

 to try one out-yard for honey this year, 

 and will watch after this matter here, 

 as different localities give different re- 

 sults. Jennie Atchley. 



Introducing' Drones and Workers. 



We have found out by experiment that 

 drones or workers are just about as hard 

 to introduce to a colony of bees as a 

 queen would be — I mean to a colony that 

 has a laying queen. But a few workers 

 or drones can be introduced by the candy 

 plan to such colonies (those with laying 

 queens) as queens to colonies just de- 

 prived of their queens. 



Jennie Atchley. 



Have You Bead the wonderful Pre- 

 mium offer on page 350? 



