10 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Jan. 2, 1902 



\ Questions and Answers. 



CONDUCTKD BY 



DR. C. C. MILLBR. Mairenso, Ul. 



(The Qneations may be mailed to the Bee Jonrnal ofBce, or to Dr. Miller 



direct, when he will answer them here. Please do not ask the 



Doctor to send answers by mail. — Editor.1 



Clarifying Beeswax. 



Some foundation I bought two years ago I have melted 

 and sold as wax, not having need for more foundation ; but 

 this does not have the golden yellow appearance as wax 

 which it had as foundation, and which the purchaser of the 

 wax insists it must have, or cut the price heavily. It was 

 strained through muslin when melted; it is not dirty, but 

 has a very cloud.v appearance. I have seen reference to the 

 tise of sulphuric acid for producing the golden yellow color, 

 but I tried it and it made the color worse than before, and 

 the wax was inclined to be meally and crumble easily. 



Iowa. 



AxswKR. — Try cooling it slowly. If you have not had 

 much experience with beeswax it is possible that when you 

 have it melted you allow it to cool very rapidly. The result 

 is that the particles of impurity have not time to settle, and 

 are frozen in wherever they happen to be, giving a more or 

 less dirty and cloudy appearance. While the wax is very 

 hot, there will be more or less movement among the parti- 

 cles, somewhat after the nature of boiling, and there will be 

 no settling of impurities so long as it is in this condition. 

 After it becomes cool enough so there is no movement akin 

 to boiling among the particles, try to keep it in this liquid 

 condition a long time, and by the time it begins to assume 

 the solid condition the particles of impurity will have had 

 time to settle. 



A small quantity is harder to manage than a larger 

 quantity. If the quantity is small, you can help matters by 

 having water in the vessel vpith the wax, for a gallon of 

 water with a gallon of wax will stay hot longer than the 

 gallon of wax alone. Let the wax stand on the stove and 

 let the fire die out in the evening, and in the morning you 

 may find it clarified. Keeping the wax covered will keep it 

 hot longer. If the quantity is small enough, a good place 

 to put it is in the oven of a cook-stove just before the fire 

 dies out in the evening. Put the stove-handle in the oven 

 and shut the oven door. Hunting the stove-handle in the 

 morning will help to keep you from forgetting to take out 

 the wax. 



Long-Tongued Bees-Mating in Confinement 

 German Bees vs. Other Races. 



Blacli or 



1. Have the expectations of those who purchased 

 <iueens of the " long-tongued " variety been fulfilled ? 



2. Has there been any advancement made "along the 

 line" of having queens mated in confinement the past sea- 

 son ? Hasn't some one been experimenting with the tent 

 method ? 



3. Are not the black or German bees the hardiest we 

 have ? If not, why are they likely to supersede the other 

 races ? Massachusbtts. 



Answers. — 1. I don't know. Very likely some are dis- 

 appointed, and some well pleased. Some may have ex- 

 pected a great deal too much. Length of tongue alone will 

 hardly warrant a perfect bee, although some good authori- 

 ties seem to think that bees with tongues of unusual length 

 are more likely to have unusual industry. Without know- 

 ing anything positively about it, I should suppose that a 

 bee with a very long tongue might be lazier in some cases 

 than its fellows with shorter tongues. Other things being 

 equal, Mr. F. B. Simpson says he would prefer long tongues, 

 and so should I. But we can hardly settle that long tongues 

 are of great value just from a single case or two. Neither 

 are we warranted in entering a general condemnation from 

 a single case, as Mr. Doolittle seems to have done on page 

 775 (1901). 



2. I do not know that there has been anything later than 

 the tent method, so fully published some time ago. 



3. I don't know. It is possible that blacks may be hardier, 

 but that fact, if a fact, is not proven by the fact that Ital- 



ians become mixed with black blood. That may come from 

 the mere fact of numbers. I think it is not so hard to keep 

 out black blood as it was some years ago, and it would prob- 

 ably be an exceedingly difficult thing for most bee-keepers 

 nowadays to keep blacks pure. 



Rearing Italian Drones and Queens Early. 



I have two colonies with Italian queens from which I 

 want to rear queens and drones in the spring. How early 

 should I begin stimulating in order to rear them before the 

 black bees of the neighborhood start breeding. 



California. 



Answer. — It is not considered advisable to practice 

 stimulative feeding before blacks start breeding at all. For 

 bees wintering outdoors, whether black or yellow, begin 

 breeding before the weather is warm enough for bees to fly, 

 and it is not advisable to stimulate bees by feeding when 

 they cannot fly out about every day. But as soon as 

 weather comes so that bees take daily flights, then you may 

 begin operations. If there are flowers from which they can 

 gather freely, stimulative feedingwill make little difi'erence. 

 But if there come days when the weather is good but pas- 

 turage lacking, then a little feeding will keep up brood- 

 rearing. 



See that the colony from which you wish to rear drones 

 has abundance of stores, and make every efi^ort to have it 

 strong. Add frames of sealed brood from other colonies 

 (brood from black colonies will be all right), so that the col- 

 ony will be very strong, and put frames containing more or 

 less drone-comb in tjie middle of the brood-nest, and you 

 will have done about the right thing to have drones earlier 

 than the average. 



Killing Bees in Box-Hives and Extracting the Honey. 



I have bought bees in 20 box-hives that I wish to kill 

 and extract the honey from the combs. As I cannot use an 

 extractor to get the honey, please tell me how to get it from 

 the combs. Also, the best way to kill the bees. 



Indian Territory. 



Answer. — Kill the bees either with sulphur or bisul- 

 phide of carbon. Without an extractor I know of no way 

 to get the honey out of the combs without injury to the 

 combs. If you do not care to preserve the combs, melt them 

 (honey and alll, allow the mass to cool, then remove the 

 wax from the top. The probability is that the honey will 

 not be of the best quality, for it does not take much heating 

 to spoil it. Set the vessel containing the honey in another 

 vessel containing water, and let the heat be so mild that it 

 will be a long time melting, and the honey will be better 

 than if rapidly melted with great heat. 



Unusual Amount of Dead Bees. 



I have 24 colonies outdoors, well packed, but there is an 

 unusual amount of dead bees in front of the hives at this 

 early date (Dec. 4.) What is the cause ? and whatmay I ex- 

 pect as a result in the spring? Illinois. 



Answer. — I don't know. It's an exceedingly hard 

 thing to pass judgment at long range without particulars. 

 It may be there is nothing wrong. Sometimes an unusual 

 number of old bees, or a number of bees of unusual age, 

 may make a larger showing of dead bees, in which case you 

 may expect weaker colonies in the spring. The kind of 

 weather may have something to do with it. If bees are con- 

 fined to the hive a considerable time by very severe weather 

 the appearance in front of the hive will be diflferent from 

 what it will be if the weather is warm enough to allow the 

 dead bees to be partly cleaned out but not carried away. In 

 any case, all you can do is to see that the bees are as well 

 protected as possible, and hope for a favorable spring. 



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