194 



Mar 7, 1907 



American Hee Journal 



they can do any other way. When I 

 wrote "desperately difiScult," and, 

 "the work is disagreeable as well as 

 long,'' sore memories of long ago were 

 backing the thing up. I don't like to 

 get beaten by bees — or bee-keepers, 

 (you may have suspected that much) ; 

 and years ago a big lot of colonies com- 

 pelled me to "throw up the sponge " 

 and confess that I could not keep 

 them from getting drones. My final 

 defeat was largely owing to this scat- 

 teration of the drone-brood. I tried to 

 shake the combs gently enough that 

 there wouldn't such an awful lot of 

 nectar fly out. The result was that a 

 good many bees would manage to hang 

 on when their comrades were shaken 

 off ; and it seemed to me that these re- 

 maining bees would consciously hicg 

 the scattered cells to keep me from see- 

 ing them — but perhaps that was my 

 excited imagination. If Dr. Miller ex- 

 terminates drones without shaking the 

 bees off, no wonder he doesn't know 

 anything about scattered cells. Half 

 a notion to tweak his nose by claiming 

 that that's just the way he has always 

 done. And (if my frisky adversary 

 wants a categorical answer) a few min- 

 utes ago, in the comb closet, I saw a 

 solitary drone-cell on the first comb I 

 came to. And the next time Dr. Miller 

 says he thinks the moon is made of 

 green cheese I shall pull on an appre- 

 hensive face and say, " I should like to 

 know how Dr. Miller knows this." 

 Page 47. 



Fumigating Combs With Formalde- 

 hyde. 

 David J. West reports success at 

 making foul-broody combs clean with 

 formaldehyde. The treatment, as he 

 describes it, is of a very strenuous sort ; 

 and yet he makes a final confession 

 that the combs are not always clean. 

 That would be a sickener to some of us. 

 Too dire a danger to stand in doubt 

 about. Page 47. 



Bees in the Ends of the Earth. 



A missionary who notices bees is 

 just the right one to post us about the 

 bees in the ends of the earth. East 

 Africa, which Saeuberlich reports from, 

 is, it seems, the home of a small, light- 

 colored bee whose actions show singu- 

 lar variation from the behavior of ours. 

 We hive our swarms, and rarely fuss 

 with decoy hives. There hived swarms 

 so seldom stay that decoy hives are 

 trusted to almost wholly. And the bear, 

 it seems, is not the only animal whose 

 appetite for honey is so ravenous that 

 he will upset hives to get it. Pity they 

 didn't tell us some name whereby to 

 call this — honey-woodchuck. Page 48. 



Hardly Go Back to 2-Pounds. 



No doubt, Mr. Merrill, the 2-pound 

 section is better theoretically than the 

 scant-pound section ; but (do you 

 mind ?) turning the wheels of progress 

 backward is very near to the impossi- 

 ble. The moment we poor darkeys 

 grab the big fly-wheel to reverse it we 

 get"frowed." Page 48. 



What Bees Make 



Teacher—" What is it that bees make, 

 Tommio?" 



ToMMiE— " Sore spots, ma'am." — Yonken 

 Statesman. 



kfor Millers 



Send Questions either to the office of the American Bee Journal, or to 

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

 ' Dr. Miller does not answer Questions by mail. 



Superseding Queens in Winter 



1. Yesterday (Feb. 17) was the warmest day 

 we have had here this winter, 60 degrees in 

 the shade for the greatest part of the day. I 

 took my bees (10 colonies) out of the cellar 

 for a flight, and found on looking them over 

 that one colony had a patch of drone-brood 

 about 3 inches in diameter, partly capped 

 over on both sides of one comb. I found some 

 worker-brood in the rest of the hives, but this 

 one had none. I found the queen but it 

 looked more like a virgin than a fertile 

 queen. Will bees supersede their queen in 

 winter? 



2. We expect to move out on to a claim 

 about 5 miles south of Stratton, Colo., this 

 spring. How is that part of Colorado for 

 bees? 



3. Do you think it will pay to take the bees 

 alongl Iowa. 



Answers. — 1. In the proper sense of the 

 word I doubt that a queen is ever superseded 

 in winter. If a queen is lost, they may try to 

 replace it almost any time. Your queen is a 

 drone-layer, and so worthless. 



2. I don't know about that particular part, 

 but Colorado in general is good. 



3. If you ship a car, so freight will be little, 

 it may pay. Even then, if prices at both ends 

 are nearly alike it will not pay. 



Bokhara and Japan Clover 



How does Bokhara clover (MeUlotus alba) 

 and Japan clover {Lcspedesa striata) compare 

 with sweet clover? Are they related? Are 

 they of any value to bees? 



Pennsylvania. 



Answer. — Bokhara is the same as sweet 

 clover, and so, of course, is valuable. I can't 

 tell about Japan clover. Who can, and will? 



Rearing Queens— Mating, Clipping, 

 Etc. 



1. I have never been able to make a success 

 of queen-rearing, either from unfavorable 

 season or bad management. 1 have in mind 

 to try a plan giren on page ", by F. L. Day, 

 in which he makes two nuclei from one col- 

 ony by putting a division-board between them 

 in the new hive, and leaving it on the old 

 stand. In taking the queen away, can I give 

 her to another colony by depriving it of its 

 queen? Would they accept her at once, or 

 wait awhile? or how long? 



2. He says he has never been able to get 

 many laying queens in that way, but by in- 

 closing the queen-cells in West cell-protec- 

 tors, with spiral cage attached, and then 

 banging these between the frames of the nu- 

 clei, he secured fine virgin queens. What is 

 the West cell-protector? Is not the spiral 

 cage itself the cell-protector? or is it some- 

 thing else? 



3. When these virgin queens hatch out, will 

 they not kill each other if not watched and 



taken out? and can I introduce them as I 

 proposed to do with the fertile queens? 



4. When these virgin queens come out to 

 meet the drones, would the swarm be likely 

 to swarm out with the queens? 



5. Do they ever alight, and, if so (with the 

 bees clustered around the queens), would 

 they ever return to the hive* 



6. I shall want to clip the queen's wing 

 when she becomes fertile. When should this 

 be done? 



7. What is your opinion of this plan? Will 

 you suggest a better one? lowA. 



Answers. — 1. Before attempting to an- 

 swer I should like the privilege of a little chat 

 with both you and Mr. Day lest I may misun- 

 derstand. But I'll do the best I can, and will 

 be glad to be straightened out if I do misun- 

 derstand. 



You say Mr. Day makes two nuclei from 

 one colony by putting a division-board be- 

 tween them. That is possible, but I rather 

 understood that instead of taking a full colony 

 to make two nuclei, he drew brood and bees 

 from different colonies to make his nuclei, in 

 which case there would be no queen to re- 

 move. But taking it as you understand it, 

 I reply that when you remove the queen from 

 the divided colony you can at once give her 

 to a second colony which is deprived of its 

 queen, but she must, of course, be caged or 

 the bees would promptly kill her. After be- 

 ing in the hiye for perhaps 2 days, she is said 

 to have the scent of the colony, and if it is ar- 

 ranged so that the bees will free her in about 

 3 days from the time she is put into the hive, 

 she ought to be received all right. A good 

 way would be to put her in the hive in a pro- 

 visioned cage a couple of days before the re- 

 moval of the reigning queen, but not allow- 

 ing the bees to get at the candy till the re- 

 moval of said reigning queen. 



2. If we had our chat together I should like 

 to have Mr. Day tell us more fully about his 

 failure to get laying queens in his nuclei. I 

 have reared hundreds of laying queens suc- 

 cessfully in hives containing 2 nuclei each, 

 and some in hives containing as many as 6 

 nuclei each. He says he failed to get many 

 laying queens, but plenty of virgins, and it 

 sounds a little as if his effort to get laying 

 queens preceded the getting virgins in the 

 cell-proteetors. If that supposition is cor- 

 rect, it may be that the failure to get the lay- 

 ing queens was because it was too early. Get- 

 ting queens much before swarming time is 

 likely to be a failure, and when one does suc- 

 ceed in getting a young queen to lay very 

 early, she is likely to be very poor. 



The West cell-protector is a spiral wire ar- 

 rangement that allows the bees to get at only 

 the extremity of the cell, for when bees tear 

 down a cell they do not do it at the point but 

 at the side. The spiral cage is separate, and 

 put over the protector, so that when a virgin 

 emerges from the cell neither can she get out 

 nor can the bees get in. 



3. If the protector be used without the cage, 

 you may count on all the virgins but one 

 being killed as fast as they emerge; but if 

 each virgin has a cage, of course there will be 

 no fighting. The virgins may be introduced 

 in the same way as laying queens, and if 

 taken when less than a day old will be ac- 



