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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Sept. 30, 



■^1^ 



ORSl 



'c-^^ 1^. i 



CONDUCTED BT 



lyR. O. O. MILLER, MAREISGO, ILL. 



[Questions may be mailed to the Bee Journal, or to Dr. MlUer direct.l 



Equalizing Colonic!>. 



I have two colonies of bees close together on one stand. 

 One is very strong, and the other very weak. Would it be 

 advisable to take a few frames (how many ?) from the strong 

 one and put iu the hive of the weak one to equalize their 

 strength ? Iowa. 



Answer. — That depends somewhat upon circumstances. 

 If the strong one has six or eight frames of brood it can spare 

 two without damage, and it will be better for the weak one 

 that the frames contain as much as possible of sealed brood, 

 for that will the sooner give them an accession of bees. But 

 if the weather is cool, you must not give them so much brood 

 that they cannot cover it. If the strong one cannot spare 

 more, or if the weak one cannot take care of more than a sin- 

 gle frame, let that be given, and then if weather continues 

 favorable, another can be given a week or two later. Put an 

 empty or partly empty comb in place of the brood-comb taken, 

 that is, don't put the empty comb outside of the brood-nest. 



Perhaps a Drone-Laying Queen. 



I have struck a conundrum in a bee-hive. In looking 

 over a hive I find a queen laying as many as four eggs in one 

 cell, and sticking them to the side of the cell, only about one- 

 third from the top. Perhaps one egg in five will be in the 

 bottom of the cell. The queen is a Carniolan mated to an 

 Italian drone, about one year old. She is not a good layer. 

 Brood is rather scarce. Her offspring is two-thirds drones. 

 Why is this thus ? Missouri. 



Answer. — It happens not infrequently that a queen be- 

 gins to be played out, and a large portion of her eggs produce 

 drones even when laid in worker-cells. Usually this takes 

 place only after two or three years of service, but some queens 

 are thus practically old inside of a year. Laying an egg on 

 the side instead of the bottom of a cell is less frequent, a 

 queen sometimes doing so in her first laying and afterward 

 placing her eggs properly. Occasionally a queen lays more 

 than one egg in a cell, but with a good queen this ought to 

 bappen only when the number of bees or the size of the brood- 

 uest is quite small. Your case seems to be unusually compli- 

 cated, and I don't know what makes the trouble, but have a 

 suspicion that a physical defect of some kind may account for 

 all three of the troubles. The quickest cure, and perhaps the 

 only one, is to pinch off the queen's head. 



Amount of Honey for Winter Stores— Bee-O<lor. 



1. It speaks iu the text-books as if supers were not kept 

 on over winter. Is all the food for the winter to be stored in 

 the brood-chamber ? If so, how do you estimate how much 

 stock the bees have ? and how do you put in the food if they 

 have an insufficient quantity ? 



2. Is there any perceptible odor to bees In good condition ? 



Ma.ssacuosetts. 



Answkrs. — 1. It Is not advisable to leave honey in the 

 super over the colony through the winter, not but what It 

 might be well enough for the bees, hut ruinous to the sec- 

 tions. The winter stores should all bo In the brood-chamber. 



and you may form a good estimate by inspection or by weigh- 

 ing. If you find in the brood-chamber the equivalent of four 

 or five frames filled solid with honey, or if you find the hive to 

 weigh 40 or 50 pounds more than the empty hive weighed, 

 you need not be anxious. Generally, a colony that has workt 

 in supers will have enough stores in the frames, unless the 

 number of frames be too small. As a rule, no honey is stored 

 in sections until the brood-chamber is filled, and if 10 frames 

 are present there is little doubt as to sufficiency of stores. 

 With eight frames, there may or may not be enough. To sup- 

 ply the deficiency, where feeding is necessary, there is no bet- 

 ter way than to take out some of the partly-filled or empty 

 frames and put in their place combs filled with sealed honey. 

 It such combs are not at hand, then feed sugar and water. If 

 you have no other feeders, use the crock-and-plate plan. It 

 has already been given a number of times, but possibly you 

 may have overlookt it. 



Take a gallon crock or other vessel, put into itgranulated 

 sugar and hot or cold water, an equal number of pints or 

 pounds of each, and then put over the crock one or two thick- 

 nesses of woolen cloth, or three to six thicknesses of cotton 

 cloth, according to the thickness of the cloth. Over this put 

 a plate upside down, then with one hand under the crock and 

 the other over the plate, turn the whole thing upside down. 

 Set this on top of the frames, putting on an empty hive-body, 

 and covering up so no bee can get in from the outside. This 

 sort of feeding should be done as early as possible. 



2. Yes, bees have a distinct odor of their own. If you 

 put your nose to a hive in the cellar in winter, you may dis- 

 cover a moldy smell, quite disagreeable, or a sour smell, espe- 

 cially if the cellar is damp and the honey thin, or if all is 

 right you will get nothing but the bee-smell — a really pleasant 

 odor, uulike anything else, which it would not be easy to de- 

 scribe in words. 



Questions on Quceules^ncss. 



1. Is absence of brood, except in winter, an unvarying 

 sign of queeulessness ? 



2. What is the "queenless hum " referred to occasionally 

 by some writers ? 



3. What kind of watchfulness is necessary, what particu- 

 lar signs must one look out for to detect this serious trouble 

 early, before it has weakened the colony beyond recovery? 



The subject of queeulessness has not been treated in this 

 year's paper, and I find little definite information, especially 

 respecting the outside-of-hive evidences — none in Cook's 

 Manual. California. 



Answers. — 1. No. During the working season, if no 

 eggs or brood are present it is usually a sign that no laying 

 queen is present, but a virgin queen may be present. In Octo- 

 ber many queens stop laying, and sometimes even in Septem- 

 ber. 



2. It's very hard to describe in words a "queenless hum " 

 so that it can easily be recognized by the description. Per- 

 haps " roar " would come as near to the sound as "hum." 

 When you open a hive, if they at once commence to make a 

 loud noise, you may suspect they are queenless. If you find 

 they are queenless, and can remember the character of the 

 sound made, then you will have the knowledge you desire — a 

 knowledge which you can hardly attain in any other way. 

 But it will hardly do to depend upon it as an infallible guide. 

 A queenless colony will often give no indication of its queeu- 

 lessness by any sound they make. On the other hand, a col- 

 ony will sometimes make a noise that condemns it as queen- 

 less, when all the time a good laying queen is present. 



3. A good reason for the silence of the books, is the diffi- 

 culty of giving any reliable information. An experienced bee- 

 keeper may tell something about the condition of a colony by 

 watching them from the outside, and at the same time it 

 would be hard for him to put in words Just what were the 



