Mar. 21, 1907 



245 



American Hee Journal 



Nilk 

 %cstion-Btx^ 



Send Questions either to the oflice of the American Beo Journal, or to 



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



|^° Dr. Miller does nut answer Questions by mail. 



Buying Bees or Makinj; Increase 



I am 31 years old, and I own 4 colonies of 

 bees. I am as interested in the bee-business 

 as I think any person can be. I have read all 

 the bee-literature I could for i) years. At 

 present I am taking 4 bee-papers. Would 

 you advise me to buy more bees, or to wait 

 until those I have increase? Wisconsin. 



Answer. — That depends. If you want to 

 increase to a considerably larger number, and 

 have an opportunity of buying a few colonies 

 at a bargain, as sometimes happens at an 

 auction, or when some one wants to get rid 

 of his bees, it will be well for you to buy. But 

 if you can't buy for less than $5.00 a colony, 

 then it will be more profitable tor you to run 

 your bees tor increase than for honey. Only 

 don't make the mistake of having a number 

 of weak culonies on hand in the fall. It 

 would, no doubt, be an easy thing to increase 

 those 4 colonies to 20 or more by fall, and 

 then lose most of them in the winter because 

 too weak, but in the long run you will get on 

 faster to move a little more slowly and surely. 

 Of course, something depends upon the sea- 

 son. In a very poor season it may not be 

 safe to increase at all, unless you do a good 

 deal of feeding. But if you reach next fall 

 with 10 or 13 strong colonies, another good 

 season ought to bring you up to 40 or so. 



Qiueerly Acting Colony Perhaps 

 dueenless 



1 have one colony the bees of which seem 

 to be making a noise at the entrance and run- 

 ning up and down the front of the hive, and 

 all over the alighting-board. They will fly 

 oH just a little and then back. In fact, they 

 act queerly— as if they had been disturbed or 

 dequeened. I have 16 colonies, all on the 

 summer stands, and all are quiet except this 

 one. What is the matter? Kentuckt. 



Answer. — It is very much to be feared that 

 the colony is queenless. By this time there 

 ought to be in your locality brood in any col- 

 ony that has a good queen. If you find no 

 brood present it is pretty certain they have no 

 laying queen. I don't know just how early 

 matters are in your part of Kentucky, but 

 another possibility is that a young queen has 

 been reared, and that the bees were excited, 

 as you found them, when she took her wed- 

 ding-flight. Give the colony a comb contain- 

 ing young brood, and if they start queen-cells 

 it is fair evidence that no sort of queen is 

 present, though, sometimes, bees start cells 

 when a virgin is present. 



Puttins Pull Supers on the Hive 



On page 131, is a picture of L. A. Smith and 

 a colony of Carniolans. How is he going to 

 put those supers back without smashing a lot 

 of bees? California. 



Answer. — Not often will enough bees be in 

 the way to make much trouble. When a few 

 are on the upper edges of the sides and ends 



of the brood-chamber, suggest to them that 

 they better gel off by means of a little smoke. 

 Don't blow (luwn upon them, but blow up- 

 wards against the outside of the brood-cham- 

 ber, and enough smoke will come up at the 

 top. But when the bees are piled over the 

 top as they appear to be in the picture to 

 which you refer, a quicker way is to use no 

 smoke, or, at most, only a little on the edges, 

 and set one end of the super on the brood- 

 chamber, keeping the other end raised 6 

 inches or so. While letting the first end 

 down, don't do it quickly or you'll mash a 

 lot of bees; but with an up and down and 

 also a sort of sliding motion, until you can 

 get at least one corner to rest without any 

 bees under it, then you will gradually let 

 down the whole super, playing it up and 

 down, gradually letting it down a little and 

 a little lower until clear down, and you need 

 not kill a bee although they may be cluster- 

 ing an inch thick all over the hive. 



Growing Basswood Trees 



1. I have just ordered some basswood trees. 

 How close can I plant them together? 



3. Will they grow well in this climate; 

 that is, hot and dry in the summer-time, sub- 

 ject to strong winds in winter, no snow, and 

 temperature never falling very low! 



3. How long will it be before they yield 

 nectar to amount to anything? 



4. How much water do they need when 

 growing* California. 



Answers. — 1. When they get to be large 

 trees, 20 to 25 feet is close enough. It is not 

 a bad plan to plant only half as far apart as 

 you want the trees finally; then when half 

 grown, to cut out three-fourths of them. The 

 danger is that you will be too tender-hearted 

 to cut them at the right time; but you will 

 not have so much nectar from large trees that 

 are too crowded. You will easily see, how- 

 ever, that up to the time they get half their 

 full growth there would be a gain in nectar 

 by having the larger number of trees. 



3. I don't know. One would think that 

 conditions are all right; yet I don't remem- 

 ber that any one has reported planting bass- 

 woods on a large scale in California. 



3. Not before S or 10 years in this locality ; 

 but things move faster in your pushing 

 climate. 



4. At a guess, I should say the same amount 

 as crops in general, particularly other trees. 



Requeening from a "Star" Colony 



I have 8 colonies of bees, one of which 

 gives me more honey than all the rest to- 

 gether. I want to requeen all colonies from 

 that one " star '' colony. How am I to do it 

 and still get returns from all? My surplus 

 never begins until Aug. 1. New Jerset. 



Answers. — Build up the colony with the 

 best queen by giving it brood and bees from 

 other colonies, making it so strong that it 

 will swarm before any other colony. Call 

 this colony No. 1. and let No. 3 be the 



strongest of the other colonies, No. '.i the next 

 strongest, and so on down to No. H, the weak- 

 est. When No. 1 awarms, put the swarm on 

 the Bland of No. 1, put No. 1 on the stand of 

 No. 2, and put No. 3 on a new stand. In 

 about 8 days .No. 1 will swarm again with a 

 virgin. Put the swarm In place of No. 1, put 

 No, 1 in place of No. 3, and put No. 3 on a 

 new stand. A day or two later, when No. 1 

 swarms again, proceed as before, and let No. 

 1 take the place of No. 4, and then in succes- 

 sion of NoE. 0, G, ", and H, provided No. 1 is 

 complaisant enough to swarm so many times, 

 which would be nothing strange. You will 

 BOW have 8 colonies of the same stock, 7 colo- 

 nies with the otherold queens, and you ought 

 to have as much honey as if each colony bad 

 swarmed once. 



Perhaps you would rather proceed another 

 way. A little before there is danger of swarm- 

 ing, put in the central part of No. 1 a frame 

 with a starter of foundation not much more 

 than an inch deep. A week or 10 days later 

 take out this frame (it wouldn't be a bad plan 

 to put in its place another frame of the same 

 kind in case it should be needed later i, and 

 trim off the edge of the comb that contains 

 only eggs, but not trimming away any of the 

 young larv;c. Put this frame in the middle of 

 No. 2, at the same time removing the queen of 

 No. 2. Ten days later — be sure not to wait 

 longer than that — you ought to have a lot of 

 fine queen-cells. Pul each one into a cage, 

 having the cage provisioned so the bees can 

 eat into it, the same as in introducing a 

 queen, remove the old queens that you want 

 to replace, and at the same time put in the 

 caged queen-cells. If all goes well, the bees 

 ought to do the rest. This plan will change 

 the queens without any increase, and there 

 ought to be no swarming with young queens 

 so reared. Of course, you can combine the 

 two methods in a variety of ways. 



Another way is to make nuclei and rear 

 young queens, introducing them afterwards. 



Pollen from Red Cedar 



My bees gathered pollen from red cedar to- 

 day (March 4), and as I have failed to find 

 cedars referred to as a source of honey or 

 pollen, it struck me as something rather un- 

 usual. Is that a common occurrence? 



Arkansas. 



Answer. — I don't know; but it is quite 

 likely that it is nothing unusual, even though 

 no mention may have been made of it. It is 

 only the plants from which unusual quanti- 

 ties of either honey or pollen are obtained 

 that are generally mentioned as honey-plants. 



Do Bees Get Disease from Comb 



Foundation ?— Superseding 



Queens 



1. Is there any danger of Introducing foul 

 brood, or any other disease, into my colonies 

 by using freely of comb foundation* 



3. Is it not a fact that many combs affected 

 with foul brood and other diseases are ren- 

 dered into wax, and that the foundation on 

 sale by all dealers is contaminated more or 

 less with this same wax? 



3. In Doolittle's " Queen-Rearing,'' page 

 111, he says: "To supersede a queen, hatch 

 a young queen in an upper story over a zinc 

 excluder, and after she is hatched remove the 

 excluder and your old queen is superseded." 

 Will the plan work invariabhj ? 



4. How soon after the young queen hatches, 

 as mentioned in No. 3, shall I remove the ex- 

 cluder to make success certain > Indiana. 



Answers.— 1. I don't believe there is any 

 danger. 



3. Undoubtedly much wax is made from 

 foul-broody combs, and just as undoubtedly 

 much of it must fall into the hands of the 

 manufacturers of comb foundation. But it 

 does not necessarily follow that the founda- 

 tion is contaminated so as to make it in the 

 least dangerous. I have bought hundreds of 



