184 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



March 20, 1902. 



bisulphid of carbon, it's well to have this simple device in 

 inind. I think its most valuable use would be in saving- 

 life or property at a fire. Personally, I am so intolerant of 

 smoke that I would often be thankful for such a device at 

 outdoor fires. 



HOW TO TIE UP COMB HONEY. 



I don't believe, Mr. Davenport, I should like driving 

 nails into sections of honey, to hold them together on the 

 road to the customer's pantry— but then I mig-ht — perhaps 

 it's the sound of the thing that repels me. Like yourself, I 

 also used lath crates awhile for the purpose, and "quite a bit 

 diflferent from your style of thing. Presume I also experi- 

 mented with heavy strings, although my memory on that 

 point is not very vivid. As I never could tie a string any- 

 how, quite likely my string packages never %von my confi- 

 dence enough to be trusted to start out. But at last came 

 the great Marconi discovery, that paper around the outside 

 held by ordinary wrapping-twine was the right way. Don't 

 you think, brethren, that I'm generous to give it to you 

 "mitoud a cent ?" Use newspaper sheets just big enough 

 and lots of them, <>z^ lots of them. There is really a little 

 art in rolling the sections into the paper tightly, and quite 

 a bit of art in folding the ends without marring' the outside 

 honey. Properly done, the package will stand quite a blow 

 on the ends, which are projecting and puffy. Page 103. 



NOTE THE LONGEVITY OF BEES. 



F. Brown, of Florida, wants some one to say why his 

 champion honey-gatherers live longer than other bees. I 

 waive the qaestion, and hail as a valuable item the fact of 

 extra longevity being attested. That is a fact we greatly 

 need to establish before we go much further. I'm glad a 

 competent man shifted the queen three times and observed 

 the age of the left-behind bees. Don't be entirely dashed 

 if daughters fail to transmit. Try granddaughters, and 

 perhaps they will. But I'll grant that holding mainly to 

 stock that produces uniform queens is a good plan. Page 105. 



CARBOLIXEnM TOO STRONG P.. FUMIG.^TOR. 



Don't believe we have much use for a chemical so strong 

 that the fumes take the skin oflf the painter's face. This is 

 anent carbolineum as mentioned on page 108. 



.\NTS AND WET LOCATIONS. 



I freely yield to Mr. Lovesyasto knowledge about ants. 

 All we have here in Ohio are mere insect •' uncles " com- 

 pared with those he tells of in Utah. The suggestion to 

 put the apiary on very wet ground seems to be a good one. 

 A wet location is not to be chosen on its own account, how- 

 ever. Dry locations much the best, other things beinsr 

 equal. Page 108. 



ROBBER-BEES AND THE ROBBED. 



Yes, that's a matter on page 115 that I have sometimes 

 longed to know : yet I have never thought of it when there 

 were convenient means of finding out. Is the pile of dead 

 bees in front of a hive from which robbers have been re- 

 pulsed all robbers ? or do robbers in the last extremity do 

 their best to kill ? If they try to kill of course they part of 

 the time succeed. 'Spects now we shall hear. 



THE BOTTO.MLESS CELLS OF STINGLESS BEES. 



You didn't say whether thecomb you got with the little 

 stingless bees was paper or wax. If of paper perhaps the 

 seemingly bottomless cells were not exactly so in fact. 

 Capped brood of our own paper wasps is in one tier only, 

 but only one end is ever opened. No good, the door-keepers 

 among our bees would vote the Mexican tactics of stopping 

 the door ail up with one's own body. Business-end pointed 

 away from the enemy. But stingless bees stand off ene- 

 mies by biting them; so their tactics just fits their struc- 

 ture. Some of them have jaws that will snip a hair off 

 quick as a flash— and bite so terribly, and "go in" so 

 boldly that the man who gets among them votes their 

 stinglessness to be in the nature of a humbug. As bellig- 

 erents they seem from reports to be about as fierce as ants ; 

 and if ants could fly we would keep at a pretty respectful 

 distance. Very interesting (and all in our line) to see bees 

 carried to southern Mexico to pollenize coffee-trees and 

 fruit-trees. Page 115.— [It was a wax-comb, of course, else 

 we would have mentioned it, Mr. Hasty. — Editor.] 



KiiV>iVjiVjvjd,a^M! 



Questions and Answers. 



•<??r>!r*r>?TfTfTr>r>fWTrTr'J 



CONDUCTED BY 



DR. O. O. AULLER, Afareng-o, ni, 



(The Qnestlons may be mailed to the Bee Journal office, or to Dr. -Miller 



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



Doctor to send answers b7 mail. — Editor.1 



Closed-End Brood-Frames. 



If the closed ends of brood-frames warm the hive in 

 comb-building, are they not warm for winter also ? 



Granting that closed ends are desirable, why not have 

 them in the Langstroth hive ? 



I have long had an idea that a dovetailed hive with the 

 side-boards built two or more inches longer than usual, and 

 thin end-boards mortised or let in at the right distance 

 from the true end-piece or outside end, so as to take the 

 Hoffman frames, but a super that takes an extra row of 

 sections, would be a good hive for outside wintering. My 

 plan is to get a hive that is 10-frame in size, has chaff- 

 packed ends, and in the fall all the preparation necessary is 

 to take out two end frames and insert in their places chaff 

 division-boards, and place a chaff cushion over frames. 



Would not this arrangement give a combination of the 

 closed-end frame and the chaff-hive ? Has such a hive ever 

 been tested ? If so, what were the results ? Illinois. 



Answer. — Closed-end frames have been used in various 

 ways, and there is nothing to hinder using them with 

 Langstroth frames. Of course, the greater trouble with 

 bee-glue, and the danger of killing bees, is to be considered. 

 I think such an arrangement as you propose, or something 

 very similar to it, has been in use more or less, beginning 

 years ago, but the number of such hives does not seem to 

 be on the increase. 



Was It Buckwheat Honey ? 



I think I did well last year, considering the dry season. 

 I started in with 18 colonies in the spring, mostlj- black, 

 and increased to 54, and took off about 1000 pounds of comb 

 honey, mostly from buckwheat. How is it that my surplus 

 came from buckwheat, and the color is so white, and the 

 flavor so fine, that I can sell it all for white honey ? A few 

 boxes were filled, and the body of the hives were filled, after 

 the buckwheat flow was over ; it, too, was of the same color. 

 I think that came from what iscalled here " wild sunflower." 



I have been able to sell all my honey here for 14 and 15 

 cents per section — 14 cents by the case, and 15 cents per 

 single pound. A great many merchants here want to weigh 

 the cases of honey. I tell them they may weigh it if they 

 want to, but if they buy it will be by the section instead of 

 by the pound. I think that is the stand all bee-keepers 

 ought to take. Minxesot.\. 



Answer. — I don't know the answer to your conundrum, 

 but if you will let me shut my eyes and guess, I will guess 

 that your buckwheat honey came from some other flowers 

 than buckwheat. One year a piece of buckwheat was close 

 to my house, and I could see the bees working on it a little 

 sometimes, but thej- never stored enough from it to give a 

 smell of buckwheat to the surplus, and that's about equiva- 

 lent to saying that the)' didn't store anything from it. 

 Buckwheat is by no means reliable as a yielder in all places, 

 even when it blooms abundantly. Possibly the wild sun- 

 flower was in bloom at the same time as the buckwheat, 

 but I'm not sure about the color of sunflower honey. 



The Premiums offered this week are well worth working 

 for. Look at them. 



Foundation Starters— ttueenless Colony,' Etc. 



1. If I use comb-foundation starters and put them in 

 the frames some time before I use them, will the worms be 

 likely to bother them '.' If so, can I prevent it ? 



2. Last fall I had a queenless colony ; it had several 

 queens hatch out, I think, but the drones were all gone. 

 Afterward, every drone-cell in the hive seemed to have six 

 or more eggs in them. Was it a no-account queen, or lay- 

 ing worker, or what ? 



3. I bought a full-blooded untested Italian queen, and 

 she laid all right for some time, and then disappeared. Do 



