Oct. 2, 1902 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



633 



queen lays ; but I have noticed quite a number of cases in 

 which the <|ucen continued to lay for some days after the 

 workers stopped liatching the ejjffs- !^o the best thinjj for 

 you to do may be to do nolhin^j ; trustin^f that the bees may 

 be ready next spring to take care of the brood. There is 

 such a thinj4^ sometimes as a <|ueen laying epjfs that never 

 hatch ; but such cases arc very rare (I tliink I never had 

 more than one such queen), and as your queen was a tested 

 one, she should not come under that head. 



Perhaps Paralysis or Poisoning. 



On June 2 I sold to one of my neighbors a swarm of 

 bees that came out May 30, and he hived them in a hive on 

 the old coinbs on which a colony had starved out last winter. 

 He moved the bees rijfht away to his place one block distant 

 from my place. They worked well and put up considerable 

 honey in the brood-combs, and have it about all filled up 

 with brood and honey. 



About two weeks ago he advised me his bees were dying ; 

 some of them would crawl out and roll down on the ground, 

 while others were carried out by the bees, unable to lly, but 

 would crawl around on the ground and finally become too 

 weak to crawl, and after from 2 to 12 hours would die. 

 Upon mashing them there is a dark-yellow subtance 

 comes out about the size of two wheat-grains. The 

 ground is all spotted up around the hive with this dark-yel- 

 low substance. They are not working very much the last 

 few days. The queen looks all right. 



Can you give some idea what is the matter with them ? 

 and is there any remedy for it ? What is it ? 



My bees, one block away, are working well, and do not 

 appear to have anything the matter with them. 



Kans.-^S. 



Answer. — I am not sure that I know what the trouble 

 is. It looks a little like paralysis, in which case you will 

 find the diseased bees with trembling wings, some of them 

 having a shiny, black appearance. It looks rather more like 

 a case of poisoning. I am sorry to say that in either case I 

 can oifer no remedy. 



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Probably the Result of Worms. 



What causes the following : Nearly every morning I 

 find young bees of a whitish color lying on the alighting 

 boards of the hives ; sometimes there is just enough life to 

 cause the legs to move, but generally they are dead. 



Illinois. 



Answer. — It is probably because of the presence of 

 worms in the hive. It might be well for you to examine, 

 and kill the larger worms. 



Screening Grapes Away from Bees. 



Perhaps you would like to hear how bees are getting 

 along in Virginia. Upon the whole it seems to be an off 

 year. My best colony stored 60 pounds of comb honey in 

 pound sections, and did not swarm. This was all stored in 

 June. Since then they have filled only the sections with 

 comb, but stored no honey. 



My other colony stored but 6 pounds of honey, and 

 swarmed once in June. The old colonies are in Langstroth 

 .hives; the swarm I got I put into a Danzenbaker hive. 

 This colony has no honey in the super j'et, but has tilled 

 the most of the sections with comb. Now, you know it is 

 claimed for this hive that the bees will store no honey below. 

 I took it all apart a few days ago, and there is a circle of 

 cells filled with honey from 2 to 4 inches wide, both at the 

 top and at the sides of the 10 brood-frames, with the center 

 built out in worker-cells. 



I am only a beginner, this being my first year. I like 

 it very much. I find, however, that the good people who 

 claim that bees will not cut into fruit are away off, at least 

 as far as grapes are concerned. My bees have been on a 

 spree for two weeks, working on my grapes, and have 

 caused considerable loss. I have watched them very closelj' 

 and have seen them go from berry to berry, especially the 

 thinner-skinned sorts, and cut them. Another year I must 

 surely cage them during this season. Now, will you please 

 tell me the best way to accomplish that ? Of course I would 

 expect to feed them during this time, and perhaps allow 

 them a flight late in the evening. Would not an empty 

 super spanned with wire-cloth, and the same over the en- 



trance, be safe ? IJesides the damage they do in the vineyard 

 they are a real nuisance in the wine-house, stinging and 

 getting into the must, and in and on everything that has 

 any grape-juice on it. They now neglect everything in 

 favor of the grapes, even smartweed and buckwheat. I 

 have a field of black cowpcas, but I have never seen a Vjee 

 on the bloom. Although there is an abundance of the so- 

 called honey-plant bloom, and the bees get all the grape- 

 juice they can make away with, they have brought in no 

 honey. All honey stored was white clover and poplar. 



I do not know about the truth of bitterweed making bit- 

 ter honey, but certainly the bees work on it for at least 

 three weeks, and as this was before they stored in the super, 

 both the nectar and pollen was either fed to the brood or 

 stored below. Vikc.inia. 



Answer. — I do not believe you can imprison your bees 



during the grape .season without heavy loss, unless you put 



them in a cellar where they can be kept in the dark at 50 



degrees or less. Some have been very positive that bees cut 



into grapes, but upon closer observation have always found 



that no bee ever cut through the skin of a sound grape. 



After the skin has been broken through, the bees will make 



rapid work sucking out the juices. Some grape-growers 



prefer to have the bees work on the grapes, as the grapes 



they work on would only sour if left on the vines in their 



broken condition. The bees can be kept away from the 



grapes after they are off the vines in the same way they are 



kept from cider-mills, by putting wire-cloth in all doors and 



windows. 



•*-*-»' 



Perhaps Worms in the Hives— Ants. 



I wrote you a few days ago that my bees were killing 

 the young bees ; they still kill them. I am feeding them 

 sugar every day ; they don't eat the sugar very well — some 

 days they eat it all, and other days they leave it. The bees 

 seem very uneasy. Some nights the black ants bother 

 them. I scalded the ants' nest to-day with hot soap-suds, to 

 try to drive them away. They are gnawing at the joints of 

 the cover, trying to get into the hives. Illinois. 



Answer. — If the number of young bees carried out is 

 not large, it maj' be because there are worms in the hive. 



If the hot water has not made a finish of the ants, you 

 might try pouring gasoline into their nests. 



Feeding for Winter Stores. 



1. This has been a poor season for honey here. The 

 bees have held their own, but no more. Last spring I in- 

 creased my bees from 10 to 25 colonies, so I have some small 

 ones that will not gather enough to winter on. Would it 

 not be best to pick out a few of the best ones, put on second 

 stories filled with frames of full foundation, and feed them? 

 Then after the frames have been filled and sealed give them 

 to the needy ? 



2. Can I feed sealed honey stored in odd-sized frames, 

 by setting them in an upper or third story, after cutting 

 the cappings open ? 



3. About how many pounds would the bees store from 

 every 100 pounds fed 7 Or, what would there be in the trans- 

 fer from the old to the new frames ? 



4. Or, is it better to feed sugar? 



5. If both are good, which is the cheaper when they 

 cost the same per pound ? Michigan. 



Answers. — 1. Yes, your plan is all right. 



2. Yes, tut unless there is much empty space in the 

 brood-frames you may find the bees making very slow work 

 carrying- it down. In some cases they will leave it where it 

 is and seal it over again. 



3. I don't know the amount of loss in transferring from 

 one set of frames to the other, but I think it would be very 

 small. 



4. I don't know which is best. Some authorities in 

 Europe think it unwise to use sugar except as a matter of 

 extreme necessity, claiming that bees reared on such food 

 will have a weakened constitution. On the other hand, some 

 good authorities in this country think sugar better than 

 honey for wintering. Something may depend on the way 

 the sugar is fed. If fed early, having as much water as 

 sugar, or more water than sugar, so that the bees can make 

 the proper chemical changes, the results may be very differ- 

 ent from feeding late, so that there shall be only a third as 



