74 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Pel. 4. 



CONDUCTED BY 



DR. C O. MILLER, MARENGO, ILL, 



[Questions may be mailed to the Bee Journal, or to Dr. Miller direct 1 



What to Do witli Partly-Filled Sci>tloii§. 



What shall I do with my partly-filled sections ? If I put 

 them out in the spring and let the bees clean them out, will it 

 do to use the comb that is in the sections, that is, will it be fit 

 for market after being filled again '? or shall I cut the comb 

 out and fill the sections with foundation ? I have a good repu- 

 tation for my honey, and do not wish to injure it. 



S. B. S., Minnesota. 



Answer. — It will hardly do to risk letting the bees fill 

 sections that have stood all winter with any honey in them, no 

 matter if there is only enough to daub them a very little bit. 

 For that little bit will pretty surely be granulated, and the 

 granulations are something like yeast in starting the new 

 honey to granulating. Better cut out and melt up the comb, 

 and put in fresh foundation, if indeed the section is good 

 enough to use over again. You are quite right in being jeal- 

 ous of you reputation. It's worth a good deal to John Smith 

 for people to say, "John Smith's honey is always good, and I, 

 don't want any other.'' 



<tuc»tion§ on Wintering and Queenle$sne!«<>i. 



1. I am wintering my bees in winter-cases on the summer 

 stands. They are all in Simplicity hives, which have an en- 

 trance at the bottom -Ix'^a inches, also a %-inch auger-hole in 

 the center above. The entrance to the outside case is }-^x7 

 inches. Between the hive and the outside case I have left an 

 air-space over the entrances, 4x6x10 inches. Will this give 

 sufficient ventilation ■? There is a 5-inch sawdust cushion on 

 top of frames. 



2. I am of the opinion that two colonies of my bees went 

 into winter quarters queenless. How soon in the spring would 

 it be advisable to investigate'? C. E. C, Michigan. 



Answers. — 1. You will probably find that there is venti- 

 lation enough, if I understand correctly that the 54-inch hole 

 at the center has full play. The position of that hole makes 

 a great increase of ventilation, the %-inch hole perhaps doub- 

 ling the ventilation that the entrance alone would give. The 

 Germans — at least some of tbem — lay great stress on having 

 an upper entrance, and sometimes have it quite large, and 

 •close the lower entrance. 



2. Don't trouble them till there comes a day when they 

 have a good flight. You can't do anything about it before 

 that time, anyway, and you may do harm by opening them. 

 If the hives are packt to keep them warm, better wait till it 

 gets warm enough so you'll not mind taking away the pack- 

 ing, or at least till they fly about every day. 



Combs or Candied Honc}' — Oettins Bees to Work 

 in §eclions. 



Last fall I had 4 colonies of bees. I don't want more 

 than 2 to winter while I live here, so I try to prevent swarm- 

 ing. I divided up last summer after the one colony swarmed, 

 and that stopt swarming. I put in full sheets of foundation, 

 consequently when I doubled up in the fall I had all together, 

 with my upper story hives, about 'SO brood-frames full of 

 honey, besides some 10 or 12 narrow extracting-frames. Now 

 I wanted to extract that. I tried to rent an extractor, as I 

 didn't feel able to buy one for what little honey I might get. 

 So you see winter came on, and I had to move all these hive- 

 bodies (4 of them) into the kitchen, and two shallow extract- 

 ing supers, which makes a lot of comb honey. Well, when I 

 united, I put in the hives all the oldest combs, and the ones 

 that bad the most bee-bread in them, but for all that I have 

 almost all of these black and heavy combs. I tried to eat it, 



but it is too strong. The comb is tough and strong. We might 

 cut the combs up in small pieces, cut the caps olT and let what 

 will drain out, but it is so thick, and some of it is candied and 

 won't run out. There is a fine lot of combs, but I wanted the 

 honey — I don't care for the combs. Still, if I could get the 

 honey out and save the combs it would save me buying 

 foundation in the spring. Now, what will I do with them, say 

 15 or 20 combs full of honey ? Can I do some way to get it 

 in the supers? 



I can't make my bees work in sections to save my life, but 

 if I take off the sections and put on a super with narrow ex- 

 tracting-frames, they go right to work. They stored honey 

 all summer in them, and not a drop in the sections. I have 

 only two narrow supers and frames, and they filled them sev- 

 eral times. Then I thought if they wanted to work so fast I 

 would put a hive on top, so I nailed boards together the same 

 size as the hive, and put it on top ; then as fast as they filled 

 a frame on the outside of the brood-nest with honey, I put it 

 above, and put a frame of foundation below, and some frames 

 that were ^.i to -';; full of honey I put above, too, so my bees 

 stored lots of honey. I monkeyed with them this way to prac- 

 tice. I want to learn. I can do a good deal with bees, but I 

 can't tell it. But I can't make them work in sections. Now, 

 what shall I do with this candied and thick comb in the 

 spring? Will it pay me to buy an extractor ? I don't want 

 to get so much stuff around me, and no use for it. 



S. M. S., Knox Co., Nebr. 



Answer. — What to do with old combs filled with candied 

 honey is rather a tough question. If that one word "candied" 

 could be left out the case would be quite different. I have 

 read of melting granulated honey in combs, using mild heat 

 a long time so as to make the honey all liquid without melting 

 the comb, but I haven't the greatest faith in its accomplish- 

 ment. It will be of little use for you to get an extractor, for 

 candied honey cannot be extracted, and the probability is that 

 it will all be candied by spring. Perhaps you may get the 

 bees to dispose of part of it in the spring. If it is put under 

 or over their brood-nest, the sealed part uncapt, and what 

 isn't sealed daubed over the surface with honey, they will 

 promptly empty it out, using or storing the liquid part and 

 dropping the grains. Have a shallow box or other receptacle 

 under the hive, and gather the grains out of that, melt them 

 slowly, and you will find that to be a good table honey. That 

 which has been stored in comb that never has been used to 

 contain brood can be melted up, comb and all. A stone crock 

 is perhaps best for this purpose, setting the crock on the reser- 

 voir of the cook-stove so it will melt very gradually, or else set 

 the crock in a dish of hot water on the stove, putting a piece 

 of shingle or something of the kind under the crock so it will 

 not sit directly on the bottom of the dish containing the water. 

 The object is to keep the bottom from getting too hot. If it is 

 two or three days before it is melted, all the better. After it 

 is all melted, let it cool, and take the wax off the top. You 

 can do the same way with comb that has been used for brood, 

 but it will not work so satisfactorily. But the honey will not 

 taste so strong as to eat it comb and all. 



It seems rather strange that you succeed so poorly in get- 

 ting bees to work in the sections. Instead of giving them 

 more combs when they have filled their extracling-combs, put 

 a super of sections on the hive under the extracting-combs, 

 and see if they can resist the temptation to fill the sections. I 

 never saw a case yet where bees would not store honey in 

 sections (providing they had any honey to store) if they had 

 in the super one or more sections with comb partly or wholly 

 drawn out, or if there was put in one of the sections a piece 

 of drone or worker brood. 



Iloncy as Food aud Medicine. — A new and revised 

 edition of this 3'3-page pamphlet is now issued. It has 5 blank 

 pages on which to write or paste recipes taken from other sources. 

 It is just what its name indicates, and should be liberally dis- 

 tributed among the people everywhere to create a demand for 

 honey. It contains a number of recipes on the use of hopey as 

 food and as medicine, besides much other interesting and vaiuable 

 information. Prices, postpaid, are : Single copy, 5 cts. ; 2a copies 

 "acts. ; 50 for $1.10; lUO for $1.50. Better give them a trial. Send 

 all orders to the Bee Journal office. 



A jNC'W Clubbing' Rate has been arranged for 

 Gleanings in Bee-Culture and the Bee-Keepers' Review with 

 the American Bee Journal. Hereafter either of the two 

 papers named will be clubbed with the Bee Journal for one 

 year, for §1.90. 



