666 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Oct. 16, 1902. 



weaver's beam." And ye Editor may be jostled in his 

 chair: and combat-hating- readers may take to the quiet 

 and umbrageous woods. Page 584. 



CAUSE OF YOUNG BEES DYING. 



As to California's hard puzzle, page 587, I would sug- 

 gest that poisoning docs sometimes aflfect numbers of young 

 bees when the old ones show little or no effects of it. Other 

 creatures ditto. Human baby will die from an amount of 

 opium the effects of which the grown man would probably 

 not notice. I'll guess also that the wings were not cut off 

 from the wingless young, but that their development in the 

 cell stopped before the wings were formed. The formation 

 of the wing is about the last thing, I believe. So, as the 

 novelist would say, the plot deepens. Whether poison or 

 disease, it appears to have begun in the cell, allowing the 

 young bees to develop enough to come out, although not 

 allowing them to complete their development. And that, 

 in turn, looks a little more like a constitutional disease 

 than it does like poison. Say a form of microbic disease 

 much like paralysis, but lacking the trembling motions. 



THE BEE-MARTIN AND IMITATION FI.OWER. 



If you should place the nicest little genuine flower that 

 could possibly be found on the top of a post how many bee- 

 visits would it attract in a whole day ? It would be lucky 

 if it got one. Therefore, I do not tumble to the theory of 

 W. P. Turner about the bee-martin with an imitation flower 

 on the top of his head. Nothing intrinsically absurd in 

 bees being attracted by a decoy flower and snapped up by 

 a bird. There are lots of such things in Nature. The 

 trouble is, I can't believe Nature would proceed with a 

 scheme which no bird could make a living at. Bees don't 

 rush to posies and the grave in any such style. Page 58s. 



HANIiI,ING OUEEN-BEES. 



H. G. Quirin reminds us, on page 589, that in case we 

 accidentally bump a lot of sealed queen-cells so hard as 

 presumably to cause some of the young inmates to drop, we 

 can reverse them and gently tap them back again. I guess 

 that's so. Will they not, however, drop the second time 

 with such great ease that there's not much in it? Seems 

 to me I would keep those particular cells reversed until the 

 queens emerged. May be Mr. Q. means just that himself. 



DENVER'S CONVENTION ATTENDANCE. 



Aha I Denver also " regrets to report" — regrets tore- 

 port that the Millennial attendance of a full convention, 

 like it was going to be when told about beforehand, is not 

 yet here below. Never mind. Lots of things are certainly 

 going to be here below which the sun has not risen upon 

 yet. Page 595. 



^ Questions and Answers, f 



WT<s'Tir>fT!rwT?': 



} 



>r>r*f>fTr'»e>'rw>?T^*rw*j 



CONDUCTED BY 



DR. O. O. MILLER, Marengo, ni, 



[The Qaestlons 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 bv mail.— Editor. 1 



Peediiig for Winter. 



1. I purchased 21 colonies of bees August 1, in 10-frame 

 Simplicity hives, with movable frames, comb built on wired 

 foundation. After examining them I found only 5 with 

 sufficient stores for winter, some only containing about (> 

 pounds of honey. Will it pay to feed such colonies for win- 

 ter ? They all contain an abundance of both bees and 

 brood, excepting two which I shall unite. 



2. I have fed them about 150 pounds of granulated 

 sugar. They should each have about 25 pounds of stores 

 for winter. Is it necessary that this be sealed ? 



3. I have made syrup of 5 parts sugar with 4 parts 

 water, and have reckoned that one pound of this syrup 

 would make ., pound of honey for winter stores. Is this 

 right ? 



When I have fed the required amount to a colony they 

 do not seem to seal it. I leave the 10 frames of comb in 

 each hive. Will they winter on these stores, even though 



they are not sealed at present 7 I shall winter them out-of- 

 doors, packed in clover chaff in winter-cases. I have had 

 fine success wintering this way, but have never had to do 

 any feeding before. Ohio. 



Answers.— 1. It ought to pay big. 



2. Five pounds of sugar is considered equivalent to 7 of 

 honey, according to which a pound of your syrup would be 

 equivalent to 7-9 of a pound of honey, making j-our estimate 

 ver)' close to the mark. 



3. It takes time to ripen and seal syrup as thin as you 

 have fed, and the cooler the weather the longer the time. 

 The fear is that you fed too late to allow the bees plenty 

 of time to get the syrup evaporated to the sealing point. It 

 is better to feed syrup even thinner than you gave it, but in 

 that case it should be fed in August or early in September. 

 When fed late, there should be 5 parts sugar to 2 parts 

 water. If the weather should be warm enough in October, 

 the syrup may yet be ripened ; and in any case all you can 

 do is to pack the bees warm and hope for the best. 



Common Bumble-Bee. 



Is the insect which accompanies this letter a bee or 

 wasp ? 



I found it this morning at the entrance of one of my 

 purest Italian colonies. The workers were dragging her 

 out of the hive. You will see they have pulled off one of 

 her wings. I never saw anything in the bee-line that was 

 so intensely black. While she has some of the appearance 

 of an old queen-bee, yet her color and length of legs are 

 something I never saw in a queen-bee before. 



Kansas. 



Answer. — The specimen sent is a Borabus. I do not 

 wonder that you do not recognize it ; for the bees have 

 stripped it of all its gay plumage, making it a glossy black, 

 and at the same time making its legs appear abnormally 

 long. Its common name is bumble-bee. 



Moving Bees Home from an Out-Apiary. 



I have some bees to move home from an out-yard, and 

 wish to know whether a screen over the entrance would give 

 sufficient ventilation, if moved on a cool day, say just after 

 frost, or when too cold for the bees to fly. The entrances 

 are the full width of an 8-frame hive. 



I think I have moved them with no other ventilation, 

 years ago, but have forgotten. If no screens are needed 

 over the tops of the hives we can get them all ready to load 

 any time, except nailing screens over the entrances. I 

 wish to move my bees home soon. Michig.\n. 



Answer. — For many years ,1 have hauled bees to out- 

 apiaries in the spring and back again in the fall, and all 

 the ventilation they have is wire-cloth the full length of the 

 entrance. For some years past the entrance is two inches 

 deep, which makes quite a difference ; but then they are 

 hauled sometimes when it is a good deal warmer than the 

 time you are talking about. With weather too cool for bees 

 to fly, a full-width entrance needs to be only 's-inches deep. 



Bee-Keeping as an Exclusive Business. 



I am thankful for the good the American Bee Journal has 

 done me. My partner (an experienced bee-man) and myself 

 started into the business last May, with 47 colonies, in chaff 

 hives. Until the first of August the bees barely made a liv- 

 ing. Since then they have produced about 2,000 pounds of 

 comb and extracted honey, 1,500 pounds of the former. The 

 honey in sections has been of high grade, with white cap- 

 ping. I have had a little of greasy or dark capping. Al- 

 though we have only given our spare time to the bees, we 

 feel amply repaid. I believe this place can be made to pro- 

 duce large crops of honey, and would like to go into the busi- 

 ness exclusively. 



I can secure a location at the junction of the Kankakee 

 and Iroquois rivers. The surrounding wgods are rich in 

 basswood and sweet clover, heartsease, Spanish-needle, and 

 many wild flowers grow in profusion. I feel that with care 

 and attention a large apiary could be made to pay. We 

 have made a good name this year. We have sold all our ex- 

 tracted honey at 10 cents a pound, and could sell more. Our 

 comb honey is about all disposed of. We get 12'^ and 13'2 

 cents cash, from local dealers. Kankakee seems to be a 



