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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Is 



answered by 

 Marengo, III. 



In this department will be answered those 

 questions needing- immediate attention, and 

 such as are not of sufficient special interest to 

 require replies from the ;-'0 or more apiarists 

 who help to make "Queries and Replies" so 

 interesting on another page. In the main, it 

 will contain questions and answers upon mat- 

 ters that particularly interest beginners. — Ed. 



Changing Queens at Swarming-Time. 



Suppose you want to introduce new blood 

 at swarming time, is it a good plan to hunt 

 up the old queen of the swarm, and replace 

 her immediately by a caged queen upon 

 hiving the swarm ? Will bees work as 

 usual and release the queen safely ? 



Montreal. 



Answer. — I never tried it. Doolittle 

 says they are likely to be dissatisfied with 

 a strange queen at swarming time. 



Land for Bees, Bee-Food, Etc. 



1. How much land would be requisite to 

 accommodate 5 colonies — thence 50 colo- 

 nies — and what kind would be best to sow, 

 white or red clover ? Ours is now a great 

 potato-growing district. 



2. Could a basement whose wall is IS 

 inches above the surface to the sills be used 

 to keep the hives in summer time for sum- 

 mering bees ? 



3. How many swarms or colonies would 

 it require to make a livelihood or a sum of 

 $350.00 ? 



4. If it would not pay to buy or hire land 

 for bee-pasturage, would it pay any better 

 to have to keep purchasing patent or pre- 

 pared bee-food ? I trow not. M. L. B. 



Orient, N. Y. 



Answers. — 1. Where land is valuable, 

 hives can be put pretty close together, mak- 

 ing a group of five occupy about 6 feet 

 square, or 36 square feet, thence 10 times as 

 much for .50 hives, which would be 360 

 square feet or its equivalent, 40 square 

 yards. Then you will also need some ad- 

 ditional territory to be occupied by the 

 bees as bee-pasturage for them to roam 

 over to extract the nectar that Nature of- 

 fers. She doesn't offer much in potato 

 posies, and if you wish to sow white or red 

 clover it will be better to sow the white, 

 for the tongues of hive-bees are not long 

 enough to get the red clover nectar. 



There exists a painful uncertainty as to 

 the exact amount of land needed to sup- 

 port in affluence a colony of bees, such land 

 being occupied with white clover. An api- 

 ary of a hundred colonies usually has some- 

 thing like 5000 acres to work on, or .50 acres 

 for each colony. But most of this 50 acres 

 is of no use to the bees, and it is possible 

 that all the white clover on it could be 

 massed on a single acre. If that be so, 

 then an acre of white clover for each col- 

 ony might answer, and yet it might turn 

 out that an acre would support more than 

 one colony. I am sorry that I cannot an- 

 swer more definitely, and I assure you the 

 only reason is because I don't know ; nei- 

 ther do I know who has the desired infor- 

 mation. 



2. Yes, bees could be kept there through 

 the summer by having holes or passages 

 from the hives through the walls to the 

 open air. But I don't believe it would be a 

 good place, and I'd rather put them up on 

 the roof if land is scarce. Some have suc- 

 ceeded well with bees on the roof, but I 

 don't know that any one ever did in a 

 cellar, except through winter. 



3. S3 colonies. That is, on the supposi- 

 tion that each colony would average about 

 $3.01 per annum. Of course if the average 

 yield is different, then the number must be 

 changed. Sometimes the yield is very 

 much larger, and then it will make up for 

 poor years. If you depend entirely upon 

 your bees, and with nothing laid up ahead, 

 and have an entire failure, then you must 

 depend upon your friends to help you out. 



4. I trow just the same as you trow. 



Hives, Sections and the Bee-Escape. 



1. Will ^ stuff do for sides of hives, in 

 this climate ? We seldom see the mercury 

 below the freezing point, but a friend says 

 an inch board is more protection against 

 our hot summer sunshine. 



2. Can I, by using sections in wide-frames, 

 produce some comb honey, in connection 

 with extracted, in Simplicity hives ? 



3. How would you ventilate hives ex- 

 posed to the hot summer sun ? 



4. How prevent crushing bees when put- 

 ting on the bee-escape to clear supers ? My 

 bees, mostly hybrids, pile up in the way 

 and merely wax madder and madder at the 

 use of brush or smoke. C. S. H. 



Holly Hill, Fla. 



Answers. — 1. I cannot speak with au- 

 thority, and should prefer to depend upon 

 the experience of those who have tried dif- 

 ferent hives, but it would seem that tolera- 

 bly thin lumber might do in Florida. Near- 

 ly all hives in the North are made of %■- 

 inch stuff, and 3-t-inch thinner might do 

 with you. So far as the hot sun is con- 

 cerned, I think I should want some addi- 

 tional protection against it, no matter how 

 thick the hive-stufif might be. A shade- 

 board laid over the hive, projecting to the 

 south, would do, or if more convenient 

 some long grass with a stick of firewood 

 laid over it. 



2. The instinct of the bee is to store hon- 



