AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL.. 



489 



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 25 or more apiarists 

 who help to malse " 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. 



Queens Injured by Being Chilled. 



Will it injure a queen to become 

 chilled in a transit from the South in 

 cool weather? Will she be as fertile as 

 before being chilled and warmed to life 

 again ? Chauncey Keynolds. 



Fremont, O. 



A?fsWEE — Yes, if chilled as much as to 

 need to be " warmed to life again," 

 she might be badly injured. At least 

 there are cases on record where a queen 

 was frozen and revived, with the result 

 that she was afterward worthless. 



Will the Colony Swarm ? 



Will bees send out any natural swarm 

 that are on 3 and 4 frames on May 1, 

 1893 ? or will they only build up by fall 

 enough to winter? W. K. 



Answer — That question will be more 

 easily answered if you can foretell what 

 the season of 1893 is to be. Sometimes 

 the season is so poor that the very 

 strongest colonies prudently abstain 

 from swarming. But in a fairly good 

 season, such a colony as you mention 

 ought to have no difficulty in building 

 up strong enough to swarm. 



Prevention of After-Swarms. 



I would like to know what the " Hed- 

 don method " is. In the Bee Journal 

 for Dec. 22, 1892, Mr. W. Z. Hutchin- 

 son speaks of preventing after-swarm- 

 ing by the " Heddon method." 



Elmer Bridenstine. 



Answer — Drive out the queen and a 

 majority of the bees into a hiving-box or 

 empty box. Move the old hive a few 

 feet backward, reversing its entrance. 

 Set on the old stand a hive furnished 

 with frames of foundation, run the 

 forced swarm into it, and then in 21 

 days drive out the remaining bees from 

 the old hive, and add them to the former 

 " drive." 



Died with Diarrhea — 1-Frame Nucleus 



I would like to have a little informa- 

 tion about what was the matter with my 

 bees the past winter. I wintered them 

 on the summer stands, and sheltered 

 them with straw to break the wind, and 

 part of them died with 40 pounds of 

 honey, and the honey was within reach 

 of the cluster when they died. They 

 discharged their feces — a, dark, brown- 

 colored fluid — on top of the frames, right 

 above the cluster, and on the combs 

 close to them. They had white clover 

 and buckwheat honey to winter on. 



Would it work well to put a one-frame 

 nucleus in the hive of each colony that 

 died, so as to build them up and have 

 them ready for the honey crop when it 

 comes ? W. W. Martin. 



Albia, Iowa. 



Answer. — The trouble with your bees 

 seems to have been a bad case of diar- 

 rhea. It will be all right to use the 

 same combs again, but you will do well 

 to scrape off what filth from top-bars 

 and combs you can. It will be asking a 

 good-deal of a one-frame nucleus to 

 build up and be ready for the honey crop 

 in an ordinary season. 



Quilts in Summer — 1-Pound Sections. 



1. Please give the reason for leaving 

 the quilts over the frames in summer, as 

 I think by reading that most bee-keepers 

 do so. I canmot see why the bee-space 

 above the frames should be closed. 

 Would it not be better to take it off and 

 use the cover alone. 



2. What is best size one-pound section 

 for the general market ? Those I used 

 last year were 4}4;x4j^xl%, scant. My 

 hives are 12 inches wide, inside, so 7 will 

 just fit them, or nearly so. I weighed 

 one tier of 7 to-day, and find 3 of them 

 under weight, 2 over, and 1,. the right 

 weight, viz. : one pound. Now, if some 

 of them are under weight, can I sell 

 them, or will I have to extract them, 

 and save the comb for another year? 



Manus Beaupre. 

 Forestville, Ont. 



Answers— 1. Much depends upon the 

 kind of hive. Some hives have covers 

 with so much room under them that the 

 quilts are needed to fill up, and some are 

 so arranged that even when the surplus 

 arrangements are on, the quilts must be 

 used. But if only a bee-space is left be- 

 tween the top-bars and cover, there is 

 no need of a quilt in summer. Indeed, 

 quilts are going out of use, many pre- 



