586 



AMERICAN BEE lOUENAJL 



Sept. 11, 1902. 



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Questions and Answers. 



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CONDUCTED BY 



DR. O. O. MILLER, Mareago, Ul. 



CThe Qiestlons may be mailed to the Bee Journal office, or to Dr. Miller 



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



Doctor to send answers bv mail. — Editor.1 



Perhaps a Scarcity of Bees. 



1. I had black bees in a box-hive, and drove them into 

 an Sframe dovetail hive. Then I waited until the bees 

 hatched, when I put them, with their old combs, in the 

 dovetail hive, and gave them eggs and hatching brood from 

 a golden queen. They reared a queen from the first brood 

 hatched, but since then -3 of it has died in the larva; state. 

 There is no odor or ropiness, it just dies and dries up. The 

 brood that is sealed hatches all right. 



2. I reared 2 golden queens, and made nuclei ; one shows 

 dead brood, and the other one does not. There are very few 

 bees here, and no disease anywhere around. I used new 

 hives, and full sheets of foundation, bought queens and 

 made the nuclei. My old bees are all sound. Now, what is 

 the cause ? and what shall I do ? Pennsyi,vani.\. 



Answek. — It looks a good deal like nothing more than 

 a scarcity of bees. If there are not enough bees to care 

 fully for all the brood, the sealed brood will continue all 

 right, but some of the young brood will be starved. If my 

 guess is right there is nothing to be done now, as by this 

 time no more brood will be dying. 



.*-*-»^ 



Is It Foul Brood? 



4. How can I tell when to take measures to prevent a 

 colony from swarming? 



5. If nuclei are formed in the spring, and some of them 

 do not build up to more than 3 or 4 frames, what do you ad- 

 vise doing with them ? Unite, or carry over the winter by 

 feeding. Mississippi. 



Answers. — 1. You will not be able to tell any difference 

 between the queens reared from Italian brood in the way 

 you mention, and those reared by Italian bees. 



2. I suspect you're fooled as to all the drones being 

 killed off in your apiary ; but if they are, there is little 

 doubt that neighboring apiaries will supply them. 



3. Only one queen will likely be reared in each, unless 

 the colony is strong enough to think of swarming, for the 

 first queen that emerges will kill all her royal sisters in 

 their cradles. If you want to get more than one queen from 

 each, take away the cells nine days from the time the brood 

 was given, and give to nuclei. 



4. By looking in the colony to see when queen-cells are 

 first started. 



5. Either dynamite or gunpowder would be a good thing 

 to blow up anj' nucleus started in spring that failed to build 

 up by winter, unless it was started too weak to have any 

 chance, and then the bee-keeper needs — to be told to unite 

 the weaklings, unless he is anxious to save the queerls, in 

 which case he may feed up and try to keep them over sepa- 

 rately. 



•^-•-^ 



Sweet Clover— Foul Brood. 



I would like information in regard to disease that has 

 attacked some of my colonies. Last summer I noticed a i 

 weak colony that had lots of brood that died before it ma- 

 tured. This dead brood was brown in color, but did not 

 smell badly, neither did it adhere to a toothpick if stuck 

 into it. The colony was rather weak in the spring, and had 

 to be fed. but it cast a swarm late in the season. This 

 young swarm acted in the same way, only there was not 

 much dead brood, but it did not store any honey, and finally 

 swarmed. I put them back several times, but they would 

 not stay, so I put them with another colon}'. I do not know 

 whether the colony I have described before is the one I 

 united those bees with or not. I know it was a weak colony 

 when I took it from winter quarters, and I fed it partly- 

 filled sections of honey on top in a super, and put a blanket 

 over them ; but we had a very cold spring and I believe the 

 brood got chilled. 



Please let me know what you think of it, and how to 

 find out whether it is foul brood or not. Minnesota. 



Answer. — In a matter of so much importance one can- 

 not be too active in taking precautions, and a wise thing 

 would be to send in a tin box a sample to Dr. Wm. Howard, 

 Fort Worth, Tex., with a fee of S2, and then you can know 

 something definite. 



-^-^-^ 



Italianizing— Preventing Swarming-Uniting Nuclei. 



Being desirousof Italianizingmy apiary, and not feeling 

 myself equal to rearing queens, nor wishing to purchase all I 

 need, I concluded to try a plan which 1 have not seen de- 

 scribed, but would like to have your approval or opinion as 

 to its practicability. 



To try my plan I took several colonies of black bees, 

 that failed to give any surplus this season, and removed 

 their queens. Then I took out all the combs containing 

 brood or eggs and exchanged them for a frame of brood 

 from a colony of Italians. 



1. As they have no queen, and only Italian eggs, will 

 they not rear an Italian queen ? 



2 If so, how will she be fertilized, as all the drones 

 were killed off more than a month ago ? Are there likely to 

 be drones flying from other apiaries ? 



3. If more than one queen is reared by each colony, to 

 which I have given brood or eggs, how can I preserve them 

 from being killed ? I would use them on other colonies of 

 blacks. 



1. If I sow sweet clover in the spring of 1903 it will not 

 bloom until 1904. The following winter it will die, and if 

 it does not bloom until the second season of its life, how 

 will it produce any bloom in 1905 ? 



2. Would '2 acre of sweet clover do much good for 25 

 colonies. 



3. How long will a colony of bees live after they take 

 the disease called foul brood ? 



4. Will they ever appear to get better ? 



5. Will they ever swarm ? 



6. Will they ever work in the supers ? If so, would the 

 honey be wholesome to eat ? 



Answers. — 1. I don't know of any possible way by 

 which you can have bloom in 1905 from sweet clover plants 

 that started from the seed in the spring of 1903. If you 

 want bloom in 1905, the plants must begin their growth in 

 1904. 



2. Yes, indeed. 



3. There is no definite rule about it ; they may be fin- 

 ished up within a year, and they may live several years. 



4. Yes, if the disease is not very bad it may appear to 

 be almost gone in a big yield of honey, but it's only fool- 

 ing ; it will be faithful about coming back again. 



5. Yes, sometimes. 



6. Yes, and the honey is not injurious to the human 

 stomach, although death to a healthy colony of bees. 



One Colony Joining a Neighbor Colony. 



I may be taking up your time with something that other 

 bee-keepers know all about, but the incident is entirely new 

 to me. 



I have a few colonies of bees, all numbered ; the other 

 morning my little boy came running to me with, "Papa, 

 No. S is robbing No 4." I found, when I got there, that 

 there was no robbing going on, but a solid line of bees as 

 wide as two fingers going from No. 5 into No. 4. These two 

 hives stand on a platform holding 5 hives ; they are about 4 

 feet apart. The bees in No. 4 made no objection whatever, 

 and as long as they were satisfied I was, so I stood and 

 watched them migrate until a fair-sized swarm had passed 

 into No. 4. No. 4 was a small colony that I had made about 

 4 weeks before, and was not very strong, but had a nice lot 

 of capped brood ready to hatch. There has been perfect 

 harmony in No. 4 since the addition, and they are working 

 nicely. 



I have handled bees quite a number of years, and have 

 read the most of the bee-books, but I don't remember ever 

 having seen a like incident recorded. Illinois. 



Answer. — You do not say anything about the condition 

 of No. 5. If No. 5 was in good condition, having a laying 

 queen, the case is one perhaps unlike any previously re- 

 ported. But if No. 5 was queenless, it is not such an 



