154 



Feb 21, IW 



American ISae Journal 



W^^^E 



KkH'-X^ ■ ■ ■- T 



ocfor Miller 



Send Questions either to the oilice or the American Bee .Journal, or to 



Dr. C. C. Miller, Marengo, 111. 



C^^ Dr. Miller does 7iot answer Questions by mail. 



Best Hive Paraphernalia to Start 

 With 



1. What hive-body should I use — an 8 frame 

 era 10? 



2. What should the supers be fitted with— 

 T-tins or section-holders? slatted or plain 

 separators? bee-way or no bee-way sections? 



3. What make of hive should I start out 

 with? Michigan. 



Answers. — 1. For extracted honey 10 

 frames, every time. For sections, maybe 8, 

 maybe 10. Unless you expect to pay the 

 closest attention to your bees, there is too 

 much danger of starvation with so small a 

 brood-chamber as 8 frames, but with fullest 

 attention and the right kind of management 

 you may sometimes do a little better with the 

 smaller hive for comb honey. So long as the 

 frames are the same, it is not a very hard 

 matter to change from one size of hive, so it 

 might not be a bad plan to try each. 



2. After trying different ones, I have set- 

 tled down on T-supers, plain wood separators, 

 and 4,',4 bee-way sections. Of course, you 

 many not agree with me. I'm only saying 

 what I think is best for me. 



3. You will hardly go astray to take the 

 hive most in use by men who keep bees for 

 the money that can be gotten out of the busi- 

 ness, and more of them seem agreed upon the 

 dovetailed hive than upon any other kind. 



thing to raise the temperature in some way. 

 Good banking might accomplish it. Coarse 

 manure would do. .\ big lot of snow is good 

 while it lasts. The ventilation of the hives 

 would be all right in a dry cellar; but as it is 

 there would be advantage in giving more ven- 

 tilation at the top or bottom, or both. The 

 cellar might have more ventilation, too; but 

 in that case there might possibly be danger of 

 lowering temperature too much. 



2. The drops of water on the cover is the 

 moisture from the bees, and settles there be- 

 cause of coldness and lack of ventilation. 



3. There is probably some additional damp- 

 ness from the potatoes; the harm depending 

 upon the amount of potatoes. 



4. I don't believe it would help much, if 

 any, to have a cement bottom. 



5. Your going in and out is not likely to do 

 any harm unless you cool ofif the cellar by it. 



Information on Cellar Wintering 



nl. A year ago last fall I built a bee-cellar in 

 a side hill, 10x12 feet, with a 2-foot stone 

 wall. It is covered with dirt all around ex- 

 cept the front. I have a bee-shop on top. For 

 bottom ventilation I have a 2-iach gas-pipe 

 running from the bottom out 40 feet, 2 feet in 

 the ground. For top ventilation I have a 

 trap-door 18 inches square, which I go io and 

 out. Is the ventilation all right? I wintered 

 my bees there last winter, and they came out 

 in poor condition, with the combs all molded. 

 I went in last week, and the bees were all 

 right except one colony. They seem to be 

 quite noisy for this winter. The cellar seems 

 to be quite damp, but no mold around the 

 hives. My thermometer registers from 38 to 

 40 degrees. When I put the bees into the cel- 

 lar I put inch blocks under each front corner 

 on the bottom-board, and quarter-inch blocks 

 under the cover for top ventilation. Is that 

 all right? 



2. On looking over my bees I found big 

 drops of water gathered under the covers. 

 What is the cause of it? 



3. I keep potatoes in the same cellar. 

 Would that cause any dampness to the cellar? 



4. If I put a cement bottom in the cellar 

 would it improve it? 



5. I go in about every 2 weeks through the 

 trap door. It doesn't seem to disturb the 

 bees. Is there any harm in going in so often? 



New York. 

 Answers. — 1. With dampness and mold 

 there is certainly something wrong. If your 

 thermometer is at all correct, the tempera- 

 ture of 38 to 40 degrees is too low, especially 

 where there is dampness. Qlt[would be a good 



Bits of Cell-Capnings on the Bottom- 

 Board 



I have noticed on the alighting-boards of 2 

 or 3 of my colonies a substance resembling 

 sawdust. What is this? I winter my bees 

 outside in small sheds packed with straw. 

 The sheds face the south. Iowa. 



Answer.— That brings vividly to mind the 

 first year I wintered bees, when I was alarmed 

 to find under the bees and at the entrance 

 something that looked like a mixture of cof- 

 fee-grounds and sawdust, and 1 didn't know 

 but what it was " all up" with my bees. An 

 old bee-keeper quieted my fears by telling me 

 it was nothing worse than the bits of the cap- 

 pings that the bees dropped when unsealing 

 the honey. Your bees have the same " dis- 

 ease." 



Control of Increase in a Back Yard 

 Apiary 



Having 5 colonies in a small city back-yard, 

 without room to work in pairs, or have any 

 more colonies, running for extracted honey in 

 3 colonies and comb honey in 2, with the 

 main honey-flow from the last of May to the 

 middle of July — what is the best way to con- 

 trol increase? Of course, time is no object in 

 the case. I keep bees only as an avocation. 

 Washington Citt. 



Answer. — You haven't asked me about it, 

 and maybe it's none of my business; but I'd 

 really like to know what you mean by " with- 

 out room to work in pairs." As a rule, work- 

 ing in pairs is the very thing to give one 

 room, and the only way I can think of to 

 have more room with hives not in pairs, is to 

 have the whole 5 standing as close together 

 as possible. But that would give you such 

 poor chance to get at the hives to handle 

 them, that if you're working with bees for the 

 fun of it, I shouldn't think you'd stand it. 

 At least, I don't believe I'd stand it. I'd 

 rather give away one of the colonies, and then 

 there would surely be room for the 2 pairs. 

 There's another way out. I suppose that 

 back-yard isn't roofed over, and you have the 

 right to build up] your bees as Ihighjiasl you 



like, so long as they don't interfere with the 

 moon. Well, if I wanted more bees, and 

 didn't see any way to manage it, I'd pile one 

 hive up on top of another. That's nothing 

 unusual in Germany, and if you want you can 

 have a pile of 4 colonies. 



As to the best Way to prevent increase, I^ 

 well, really I don't know. One way is to 

 double up in spring, so as to start with only 

 2 or 3 colonies, and then increase to 5 or so. I 

 wonder, though, if you don't mean to prevent 

 swarming. That's a harder one, but you can 

 have a whole lot of fun trying to head off the 

 bees from swarming, and they can have a lot 

 of fun beating you. With the ones run for 

 extracted honey there ought not to be much 

 trouble. With 2 stories for the queen to 

 range in, room for surplus given as fast as 

 needed, and ventilation given at bottom and 

 top of each story (see page 191 of " Forty 

 Years Among the Bees"), you ought not to 

 worry about swarming. With the comb- 

 honey colonies, if you will allow each colony 

 to be queenless forabout 10 days at the be- 

 ginning of the clover harvest, and then fur- 

 nish it a queen that has been laying only a 

 few days, there ought to be no swarming. Or, 

 what is practically the same thing, remove the 

 old queen just before swarming-time, as near 

 as you can guess, and 8 or 10 days later de- 

 stroy all queen-cells but one, and the bees 

 will do the rest. Instead of that, it might be 

 just a little better not to destroy any cells till 

 you can hear the free young queen piping in 

 the evening, and then, or next morning, de- 

 stroy alt cells. 



Now, I've taken some liberties with your 

 question, and if they're not to your taste, 

 come back and I'll fix up another prescription 



for you. 



• — ^^^^ — • 



Feeding Bees in Tenement Hives 



I have my bees in Orton tenement hives. 6 

 colonies to the hive, all in very good shape 

 when put in. One of them is all stirred up 

 from some cause. There is 8 inches of snow 

 now, and the bees make as much noise as in 

 July, both night and day, and will try to fly 

 out in the cold if you go near the the entrance 

 of the hive. All the other colonies are quiet. 

 Can it be that they are short oJ food? Should 

 I feed them sugar syrup? Kentcckt. 



Answer.— It is not certain what makes the 

 bees so uneasy. They maybe short of feed 

 and they may not. The right thing is to open 

 up the hive on a mild day and see whether 

 there is plenty of honey present. It is pos- 

 sible, however, that the hive can not be 

 opened without seriously disturbing all the 

 colonies. In that case it will be the safe 

 thing to thrust some candy into the entrance. 



Foretelling a White Clover Yield - 



Alternation of Good and Poor Sea- 



ons-Ratio Between Amounts 



of Comb and Extracted 



Honey 



1. Do you know of any meins of making a 

 reliable guess, daring the winter, as to the 

 probable yield from white clover for the next 

 season? If you can tell anything at all about 

 it, I would like to hear how you do it. in C3 



2. Have you ever noticed a tendency 

 towards alternation of good and poor seasons? 

 I began keeping bees in 1897; and beginning 

 with that year, the odd years have all been 

 above the average, and the even years all be- 

 low it, though 1898 was only a trifle below. I 

 have been wondering it it just happened that 

 way, or if alternation were the usual thing? 



3. What is your guess as to the ratio be- 

 tween comb and extracted honey? Can you 

 produce more than half as much comb as ex- 

 tracted, from the same bees, on the average? 



Il linois. 



Answers. — 1. I don't know a thing about 

 it more than any farmer who has never kept 

 bees. If there is no stand of clover, of course 

 there will be no crop. If there is a good 

 stand, it may be killed out by freezing when 



