June 20, 1907 



American ^ec Joarnal j ^ 



— — - — * 



Conducted by J. L. Byer, Mount Joy, Out. 



Queens in Supers 



One of the things I could never un- 

 derstand, is 2vliy Mr. Dadant's queens 

 do not go into the supers where no ex- 

 cluders are used. Is it locality, race 

 of bees, or what ? Certainly it is not 

 size of hive, as the hive I use is con- 

 siderably larger than that used by Mr. 

 Dadant, yet th? queens will go into the 

 supers every time where no excluders 

 are used. As intimated, the majority 

 of my bees require supers at once, and 

 on Friday, May 24, the weather having 

 moderated a little, a super of brood- 

 combs was put on each of 4 very strong 

 colonies at the home yard. No exclud- 

 ers were put on, as I wished the queen 

 to occupy these combs so that they 

 could be used for nuclei later on in the 

 season. Friday night the weather 

 turned cold, and remained so till 

 Wednesday evening; yet on examin- 

 ing these supers on Wednesday— more 

 out of curiosity than anything else — 

 sure enough, the queens had estab- 

 lished a brood-nest already in the upper 

 stories, one colony having 3 combs 

 (Quinby dimensions) nearly full of 

 eggs. ^^ ^^ 



A Backward Season, Spring* 

 Dwindling:, Etc. 



Friend Byer : — As the season ad- 

 vances (backward) in this locality, 

 prospects do not look at all promising. 

 The bees are doing just a little better 

 than holding their own. I am consol- 

 ing myself, however, that it will not 

 be necessary for me to buy a gasoline 

 engine to turn my extractor this sea- 

 son. 



Feeding for Spring Dwindling. 



I had a little experience with a case 

 of spring dwindling a short time ago. 

 The bees from several of my strongest 

 colonies were crawling in great num- 

 bers through the grass. I picked up a 

 few of them and found they were filled 

 almost to bursting with pollen. I ex- 

 amined these hives and found them 

 nearly bare of honey. When I com- 

 menced feeding, the "dwindling" dis- 

 appeared. I suppose the bees were 

 trying to eke out a living on pollen. 

 Evidently bees "can not live by (bee)- 

 bread alone." 



Bees Moving Eggs or Larvje 



I believe I had an example last sea- 

 son of bees moving eggs or larva;. A 

 colony with an extracting super over 

 an excluder swarmed. I hived the 

 swarm on the old stand, and during 

 the operation I happened to lift a frame 



out of the extracting super where I 

 found 2 fine queen cells. There was 

 not another cell of brood in that super, 

 nor had there been. The combs were 

 built in the super from foundation, 

 and were perfectly white, except for 

 those queen-cells. Did the queen 

 squeeze through the excluder just to 

 lay 2 eggs, and then return to the 

 brood-nest 7 



Careless Bee-Keepers. 



I think fully 75 percent of the bees 

 of this locality are dead, and the most 

 of them went under this spring. I pity 

 the bees, but have mighty little sym- 

 pathy for the bee-keepers (?) who allow 

 their bees to die from neglect. I tell 

 you, Mr. Byer, we can work to get 

 laws to suppress foul brood, but when 

 we get laws to deal with careless, 

 heartless beekeepers, and weed them 

 out of the business, foul brood inspec- 

 tors will be a thing of the past. How- 

 ever, a poor season followed by a hard 

 winter probably does the " weeding " 

 far better than any law. 



I hope you will have a prosperous 

 season, and that the present prospects 

 are not tellini; the truth for the bee- 

 keepers of Ontario in general. 



H. A. Smith. 



Palermo, Ont., May 27. 



Yes, the season is certainly a record- 

 breaker. As I write (June Ist), we have 

 a fire going in the house as though it 

 were March instead of June. Apple- 

 blossoms are not open yet. and clover 

 is correspondingly late. Yet, for all 

 the bad weather, bees that wintered 

 well have more than held their own. 

 The majority of my colonies are as 

 strong as usual at this time of the year. 

 In fact, I hardly know what to do with 

 them in order to keep back swarming. 



The weather has been so steady cold 

 that we have had only a few days fit to 

 open hives, I hesitated to unpack the 

 hives, and now find about one-fourth 

 of the colonies have queen-cells started. 



The case you mention would seem to 

 prove beyond a doubt that bees do 

 move eggs and larva;-. Personally, 

 I have been convinced for some time 

 that such a feat was quite possible. 



As to pollen injuring the bees, after 

 thoroughly examining the combs of 

 honey left in hives where our bees died 

 from dysentery last winter, I feel 

 pretty sure that too much pollen was 

 the cause of the loss, and that the 

 small quantity of honey-dew present 

 in the hives was only a minor factor in 

 the business. AH during the clover 

 flow last season the majority of the 

 bees coming in would have pollen, and 

 although the most of this pollen was 

 sealed over, yet with an exceptionally 

 steady winter, and the absence of a 

 suitable day for a cleansing flight, the 

 excess of pollen brought on dysentery 

 early in February. Most of the colo- 

 nies that perished left from 20 to 30 

 pounds of stores in the hives, and 

 when a portion of the comb is un- 

 capped the majority of the cells have 

 pollen in the bottom. 



Please Mention Bee Journal 

 when writing advertisers. 



(T? 



louthern _ 



'■^- '-"' ' 



Conducted by Louis H. Scholl, New Braunsfels, Tex. 



Cheap, Suitable Bee-Veils 



There are many kinds of veils, and 

 one is apt to titid this out if he travels 

 and visits among bee-keepers. But 

 there are good veils and bad ones. A 

 crude veil, much used, is that made of 

 wire-screen cloth, generally fastened 

 to the edge of the rim of an old hat. 

 To the lower edge of the wire-cloth is 

 sewed a width of cloth which falls over 

 the shoulders and is fastened so the 

 bees can not g^et in. For me, such a 

 head-gear has its faults. First, it is 

 rather bulky or heavy ; it is warmer 

 than some of the other veils, and the 



screen-wire hurts the eyesight to a 

 great extent. It is also quite cumber- 

 some to take along from place to place. 



I should prefer something that can 

 be folded up and carried in the pocket, 

 like the silk and cotton tulle veils gen- 

 erally listed in the catalogs. These I 

 have used for years, after trying many 

 kinds. There is an objection to the 

 material these veils are made of, how- 

 ever. The all-silk veil is rather more 

 expensive, and soon wears out. Those 

 made of cotton tulle obstruct the vis- 

 ion too much on account of the heavier 

 material. To remedy this, cotton tulle 

 veils are made with a silk face, a 



