536 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Ausf. 21, 1902. 



will be of interest to any who may be situated so as to 

 have practical interest in the matter. He says in the same 

 journal : 



I have not tried the method on a larg-e scale, because 

 my locality is not suited for it ; but I have tried it year 

 after year for four years, on various colonies of bees, and 

 have alvrays had the same return of wax in ratio to the 

 amount of honey produced. You will notice that it takes 

 (according to my estimation) about S 1-20 pounds of honey 

 to produce one pound of wax. Only one kind of hive in my 

 opinion is suitable for wax-production, and that is the 

 " Long- Ideal," of 2o frames — 20 would do but 25 frames are 

 better. I use the ordinary Root-Hoffman standard frame. 

 The " long ideal " gives the space required for clustering 

 room, a thing absolutely necessary for wax-production. 

 The clustering-room is too cramped in 8 or 10 frame hives. 

 I have all frames with a small stick across center, in place 

 of wire. At extracting time I take out all frames contain- 

 ing honey, extract the honey, then cut out all comb save 

 about one inch attached to top-bar for starter. To describe 

 it better, I will take a case of one hive, "long ideal," 20 

 frames. 



I have to fit a queen-excluder to this hive, which I use 

 the first time I open the hive to extract. I find all the brood- 

 comb, place it together at the front of the hive and place 

 a queen-excluder behind them to prevent the queen from get- 

 ting to the back. Should there be more than 8 frames of 

 brood in the hive, I place the oldest of them behind the ex- 

 cluder. I keep the hive this way till the approach of win- 

 ter, when I withdraw the excluder till next season. Occa- 

 sionallj- I remove two frames from the brood-chamber, re- 

 placing with empty ones from the back. 



At first extracting I take, say 10 frames, and cut out all 

 combs, leaving a starter on each and replacing frames in 

 the hive. On the top of this hive I have a kind of super 3 

 inches deep with canvas cloth on the bottom. After re- 

 placing frames I place this super on top and pour into it 

 two-thirds of the honey extracted from the frames, place 

 the lid on top and the bees are forced to consume the honey 

 as it comes through the cloth, and commence comb-building. 



At the end of -i days I open up the hive again and find 

 combs built again, with a fair amount of fresh honey in 

 them ; I go through the same process, extracting the honey, 

 cutting out the comb, and returning to the hive, this time 

 returning all honey extracted, together with the one-third 

 left from last extracting, to be sucked through the canvas 

 at the bottom of the super. 



After the second process, I generally wait from S to 7 

 days, according to the weather, and again proceed as be- 

 fore, giving back all honey extracted each time to the end 

 of the season. You will notice I- always leave two frames 

 at the back. This is to keep the bees in a contented frame 

 of mind. It seems to upset them a lot if the whole of the 

 frames are cleared from the back each time. 



After extracting the honey I run it into a watering-can 

 with the nose off, and after replacing frames I place super 

 on, pour the honey in and replace close-fitting cover. 



I have tried this experiment with 10-frame two-story 

 hives, queen-excluder between, but with little success, as I 

 could not feed sufficient honey through the super. The 

 extra weight of honey forced it through the canvas too 

 quickly, and the bees could not get sufficient clustering- 

 room without over-crowding one another; in fact, any other 

 hives but the " long ideal " proved failures for wax-pro- 

 duction. As I said before, I have experimented on this 

 plan on various colonies of bees, and find the return of wax 

 is 1 pound for every S 1-20 pounds .of honey returned to the 

 hive. 



y t^tsVj4.lV>^J^V>VJiVis^iiViiV>v>^ 1^ J^i^ji^ jiVj^Mi 



Our Wood Binder (or Holder) is made to take all the 

 copies of the American Bee Journal for a year. It is sent 

 by mail for 20 cents. Full directions accompany. The Bee 

 Journals can be inserted as soon as they are received, and 

 thus preserved for future reference. Upon receipt of SI. 00 

 for your Bee Journal subscription a full year in advance, 

 we will mail you a Wood Binder free — if you will mention it 



Queenie Jeanette is the title of a pretty song in sheet 

 music size, written by J. C. Wallenmeyer, a musical bee- 

 keeper. The regular price is 40 cents, but to close out the 

 copies we have left, %ve will mail them at 20 cents each, as 

 long as they last. 



\ 



Questions and Answers. 



CONDUCTED BY 



DR. O. O. MILLER. Alareaeo, lU. 



[The Qaestions may be mailed to the Bee Journal oSBce, or to Dr. Miller 



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



Doctor to send answers bv mall.— Editor.) 



Likely RofiDer-Bees. 



I would like to know the meaning of these actions of a 

 colony of bees : The bees come from the hive with their feet 

 locked, and struggle to get apart, and when they finally get 

 separated one goes into the hive and the other flies away. 

 The bees seem to be working all right. 



Massachi-setts. 



Answer. — A foreign bee has probably made an entrance 



into the hive to steal some honey and has been nabbed by 



one of the sentinels. Struggling to get loose, the robber 



works toward the outside, and quickly flies away as soon as 



loose. 



■*-'-• 



Some Swarming Difficulties. 



On page 488, I read with much interest the swarming 

 difficulties of "Illinois," which he says would knock into a 

 cocked hat all theories lie could find in two bee-books. But 

 I think I have just had an experience with one of my colo- 

 nies which will " go him one better." 



On July 22, the first or prime swarm issued, and was 

 duly hived, but after being hived about an hour came out 

 again and left. The next swarm issued on July 27, but it 

 returned to the parent colony after a short time, and before 

 properly settling (2 daj's latter, July 29) another, the third, 

 swarm issued, but the queen had been caught in an Alley 

 queen-trap, and queen and bees were properly hived and 

 went to work all right. The next day (July 30) the fourth 

 swarm issued, but we again caught the queen and destroyed 

 her, the bees returning to the hive. The next, and fifth 

 swarm came forth August 1, and again tlie queen was trap- 

 ped, and bees returned to hive as before. I thought this 

 was quite enough swarming for one colony, but while I was 

 standing in front of the same colony this morning (August 

 3), and thinking of the trouble they had caused us, another 

 swarm, the sixth one, came forth. I put the queen-trap in 

 front of the hive just in time to catch this queen also, and 

 killed her, thinking the bees would soon return, but as they 

 did not seem inclined, I cut them down from the tree in 

 which they had settled, and mixed them with the swarm 

 hived on July 29. Everything seems all right now, and I 

 hope they will not swarm any more. This one colony 

 swarmed 6 times in 13 days, and 4 queens were caught in 

 the trap and killed. The question I would like to have 

 answered is this : 



Did I do the proper thing in this difficulty? and what 

 may be the cause of so much swarming ? I may add that 

 the weather has been warm and clear during this time. 



Missouri. 



Answer. — July 27 a swarm issued and returned, leaving 

 the colony as strong as before, and when the bees returned 

 July 30 and August 1 it was practically the same as if no 

 swarm had issued, reducing the number of after-swarms to 

 two, not by any means a large number. Put a queen-ex- 

 cluder under a hive before the colony swarms, and the 

 bees may swarm out a dozen times, first a number of times 

 with the old queen in the hive, then more times after a 

 young queen has emerged. If you had left the bees entirely 

 alone, there would hardly have been so many attempts at 

 swarming ; or if you had hived them each time there would 

 not have been so many issues. If j'ou had returned the 

 swarms without killing the queens you might have done 

 better, for the colony was left unreduced in strength, and 

 so long as two queen-cells were left in the hive the bees 

 would continue to swarm. Instead of returning the swarm 

 to the mother colony, if you had added the swarm July 30 to 



