54 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Jan. 28, 



continually till the first of August. J understand from these 

 words, that he noakes it a rule to commence in the early 

 spring and feeds a certain amount, accordinR to his judgment, 

 every day until the first of August or until the fail flow of 

 honey commences. Am I right in this also ? 



C. G. B., Blue Rapids, Kans., Jan. 6. 



Answers. — 1. The object of having the bees clean out the 

 sections in the fall is so that there may not be the slightest 

 remains of honey to form granules, for these granules will 

 affect the new honey that the bees put in the following season. 

 The probability is that it is too late now to do any good, for 

 the honey has probably begun to candy before this, and when 

 it is candied you can't count on the bees cleaning it out. If 

 any of the sections are half filled, perhaps you can sell them 

 at a sufficient price to make that the most profitable thing to 

 do. If to use in your own family, you can probably do noth- 

 ing better than to cut out all which contain any honey, 

 whether much or little, pack in a crock and melt very slowly. 

 Then when all has been melted and has again cooled, take the 

 cake of wax off the top, and use the rest as extracted honey. 



2. Better first rinse the cappings with water and use the 

 rinsings to make vinegar. Then put them in a wax extrac- 

 tor. There's no trouble about keeping bees away — solar wax 

 extractors are made bee-tight. 



3. The reference is to a passage from the paper of N. E. 

 Prance, in which he says : " As soon as the harvest begins, 

 our colonies are very strong, often queen-cells started. We 

 then divide them as we think best, taking from each colony 

 from one to three or four brood-combs with adhering bees, 

 and form new colonies on new stands, as strong as any in the 

 yard." Mr. France is a man of whose practical ability I have 

 a very high opinion, but I don't think he can make what he 

 would call a strong colony simply by putting in an empty hive 

 8 brood-combs with adhering bees. But you will notice he 

 doesn't say how many combs he puts in the new hive, and 

 it may as easily be l(i as 8. If he puts only 8 in the hive, 

 then he must mean that in time the colony will be as strong 

 as any in the yard. Perhaps Mr. France will kindly speak 

 for himself. 



4. I suspect there's a screw loose somewhere about that 

 report. Will Mr. DeLong tell us about it ? 



Drones Reared in Worker-Cells. 



I had a one-frame nucleus, the comb being all worker- 

 cells. The center of the frame was sealed brood, surrounded 

 by unsealed brood, and around the unsealed brood were eggs. 

 I took away the queen and these eggs hatcht out drones. 

 Can the bees change worker-eggs to drone-eggs ? If not, how 

 do you account for this ? W. R. 



Answer. — I don't believe workers can change the sex of 

 eggs. It often happens that in her last days a queen becomes 

 a drone-layer, and it is possible that she changed to a drone- 

 layer about the time of laying those eggs. 



IVon-Swarmins Bcc§ — Questions. 



I have a colony of bees that has not swarmed for seven 

 years. They have not failed to store a surplus of 25 to 50 

 pounds of comb honey. Last year, when 40 colonies only 

 stored 350 pounds, this one stored nearly 50 pounds of it. It 

 can't be the location, nor size of hive. A colony whose queen 

 Is a full sister, sitting by the side of it, swarms every year. 

 The hives are small, 8 frames, 10x12. The non-swarmer is 

 In an old hive, which sits upon a box, and has not been moved 

 In the seven years; the bottom has rotted, and the bees have 

 eaten it out in channels running from front to back. In en- 

 tering, they pass down into these channels, climb up the sides 

 on the frames. I have been thinking of making a hive on the 

 principle of this old one, and see if it will result in less 

 swarming. My Idea is to make a body 1 Ji inches deeper than 

 the frames; immediately under each frame place a board the 

 thickness of the bottom of the frame, standing on edge, so 

 that each frame rests upon it, this board to be bored with 

 holes the size of cells. This will leave quite a space beneath 

 the frames that the bees can make no use of, except to cool 

 themselves off in. I shall try this hive next summer with one 

 of my strongest colonies. What do you think of the idea ? 



F. T. B., Virginia. 



Answru. — I think well of the Idea, only it is possible you 

 might attain your end with less trouble. A colony with abun- 

 dant entrance for air Is loss Inclined to swarm than it other- 

 wise would be. Raising the hive by putting an inch block 



under each corner, leaving the hive open all around, can 

 hardly be beaten for giving plenty of air. But don't hope that 

 the plan you propose, or any other plan of giving plenty of 

 air, will sufBce to keep bees from swarming seven years, or 

 even two years. I suspect that there may be something in the 

 blood of that colony that prevents swarming, and you might do 

 well to breed from it. That colony whose queen is a full sis- 

 ter, and which swarms every year, doesn't prove much. Sup- 

 pose the queens of the two colonies were full sisters seven 

 years ago. They probably met drones of different blood, so 

 that the workers of one queen had only half their blood the 

 same as the other workers. Allowing that the blood in the one 

 hive remained the same (a very unlikely thing, for altho the 

 colony did not swarm, the queen was probably changed once 

 or twice during the seven years), the swarming colony would 

 change half its blood every year on account of the young 

 queen meeting a drone of different blood, so that in the fourth 

 year only one-sixteenth of the blood would be the same, and in 

 the seventh year only one part in 128 ! 



A Question of ITIanagement. 



I had three queens I wanted to save for another 

 year with bees enough for a fair colony. I put one queen in 

 the lower story and two queens in the upper story with a 

 queen-excluder division-board. Now, what shall I do in the 

 spring? I can separate, dividing the bees equally; if so, 

 when ? I can let them remain until they swarm, and get a 

 large swarm, the queen in the lower story going with the 

 swarm, then separate and have four swarms with one young 

 queen. I can take out the two queens, making two nuclei, 

 leaving most of the bees with one queen. Reader. 



Answer, — The first thing to be done is to see how many 

 queens are present in spring. If more than one, then some- 

 thing depends upon theamountof bees present. If all together 

 there are are only bees enough for one fair colony, let them 

 alone till the numbers increase sutBciently to warrant taking 

 away part, then take only as you can afford, always leaving 

 the one strong colony. 



Oetting ISces from a 

 Spelling Reform— 



Bee-Trce— A Bee. House — 

 Sowing; Sivcel Clover. 



1. A friend of mine and myself expect to cut a bee-tree id 

 the spring. I am to get the bees and he is to get the honey. 

 I have what I consider a very fine hive, that I make myself ; 

 it holds nine Hoffman self-spacing frames. I would like 

 to know just how to proceed to get the bees from the tree into 

 the box. I have never had any experience along this line. 



2. I have a bee-house with the open side facing the 

 south. When the weather got cold the past fall I put my 

 bees into this house and packt them in chaff for winter. I 

 just built the bee-house the past fall, and I expect to keep my 

 Dees in it next season. I have the hives packt almost to- 

 gether. I guess they are about two inches apart. Now, can 

 I leave them that way next summer, if I put a board between 

 each two, or will I have to move them farther apart ? or would 

 it be better to leave them as ther are, and divide them off by 

 twos with boards in front, and then have the entrance of the 

 hive at the west open at the west, and its companion hive open 

 at the east, taking it for granted that my bee-house faces the 

 south ? 



o. I am teaching school. Do you think it would be ad- 

 visable for me to teach the new rule for spelling, as described 

 on page 8 '? 



4. I want to sow some sweet clover this spring, and would 

 like to know about what time to sow, and about how much to 

 sow to the acre '? We live in latitude 41?4 '. 



This is my first season in the bee-business, and I like it 

 very much, and I find that the American Bee Journal is a 

 great help to me. E. M. L., Pennsylvania. 



Answers. — 1. Circumstances vary so much in matters of 

 this kind that about the best thing you can do is to take your 

 common sense along, and let it guide you as exigencies arise. 

 In some cases the tree can be carefully cut so as to disturb 

 the combs very little, and a section of the tree containing the 

 colony may be hauled home if desired. In other cases the 

 whole business will be smasht to pieces, and you may do well 

 to get the quoon and part of the cluster in a hive or box with 

 some of the broken combs. The bees will be more or less in- 

 clined to lly up to the place where their home was, but if the 

 brood-combs bo left on or near the ground, they will after a 

 time give up and accept the Inevitable. When they get set- 



