July, 1907. 



593 



Am^erican Voe Journal 



cniiil) ill ilu' bruod-chanibci", ;i strong 

 colony will often fill with honey empty 

 combs put in the center of the brood- 

 chamber, and fill with drone-comb an 

 empty frame given them. If you will 

 take from the hive 2 or 3 frames of 

 brood with queen and adhering bees, 

 and put the .same in a hive on a new 

 stand as a nucleus, and then give the 

 empty frame next to the brood-nest, 

 yon will probably not have a cell of 

 drone-comb built. 



Under your conditions it would seem a 

 good thing for you to take a hand in 

 the superseding. I'd give something to 

 know why your bees act differently from 

 mine. 



Wash Boardy Honey- 

 Crates 



Shlppitig- 



1. Does vvash-boardy honey cut down 

 the grade any, or, in other words, would 

 honey that would otherwise grade fancy, 

 grade any lower on account of being 

 wash-boardy ? 



2. What material or size of lumber 

 does it take to make the shipping-crate 

 shown in the enclosed cut? 



3. Does there want to be any end play 

 around cases? 



4. If this is not the best crate, give 

 size of material of the one you use. 



Missouri. 

 .•\n.s\vers. — I. I'm not sure that a wash- 

 boardy appearance, unless very pro- 

 nounced, would throw honey into a low- 

 er grade, but it would have some tend- 

 ency in that direction. 



2. A shipping-crate in which a num- 

 ber of cases are packed for shipment 

 is generally made of rather tough ma- 

 terial, which is only about 'j inch or so 

 thick. 



3. There should be no play in the 

 crate whatever. Any vacancy must be 

 filled with some packing material. 



4. A good size for a crate is one that 

 will hold 6 or 8 24-pound cases, or twice 

 as many 12-pound cases. 



Splints in Foundation— Bad Weather 

 Conditions 



1. How shall I use splints in founda- 

 tion? I believe I have read your de- 

 scription, but forget. Wiring frames is 

 slow. 



2. I had bad luck the past winter. I 

 lost nearly half of my bees, and with 

 weather conditions as they are, the out- 

 look is not very encouraging. Water 

 froze here last night (June 8). There 

 used to be some good crops of honey 

 gathered in this region, but not so good 

 of late years. The basswood is nearly 

 gone. Wisconsin. 



Answers. — i. In the book'Torty Years 

 -Among the Bees," page 88, you will find 

 the following: 



'^Little sticks or splints about 1-16 of 

 an inch square, and about J4 i'lch short- 

 er than the inside depth of the frame, 

 are thrown into a square, shallow tin 

 pan that contains hot beeswax. They 

 will froth up because of the moisture 

 frying out of them. When the froth- 

 ing ceases, and the splints are saturated 

 with wax, then they are ready for use. 

 The frame of foundation is laid on the 



board as before; with a pair ol pl\ers 

 a splint is lifted out of tlie wax (kept 

 just hot enough over a gasoline stove), 

 and placed upon the foundation so that 

 the splint shall be perpendicular when 

 the frame is hung in the hive. As fast 

 as a splint is laid in place, an assistant 

 imniedi.itely |)resses it down into the 

 foundalinn with the wetted edge of a 

 small board. About I'/j inches from 

 each cnd-b.ir is placed a splint, and be- 

 tween tliese two splints three others at 

 equal distances. * * * \ little ex- 

 perience will enable one to judge, when 

 putting in the splints, how hot to keep 

 the wax. If too hot there will be too 

 light a coating of wax. * * * If a 

 frame be given at a time when little 

 storing is going on, the bees will de- 

 liberately dig away the foundation at 

 the bottom; and even if it has been 

 built down but the cells not very fully 

 drawn out. they will do more or less at 

 gnawing a passage. To make a success, 

 the frames should be given at a time 

 when work shall go on uninterruptedly 

 until full-depth cells reach the bottom- 

 bar." 



2. Don't be in too much of a hurry 

 about deciding that the year will be 

 poor. Of course I don't know what the 

 season will be; but I have known bees 

 to be starving in June, followed by a 

 good crop. Then again I've known a 

 number of years in succession with poor 

 crops or none, and it looked as if the 

 days of good crops were over, and then 

 came better crops than ever. Of course, 

 the basswoods that have been felled are 

 probably gone forever, but other pas- 

 turage may improve. 



Brushing Bees at Night 



Can bees be brushed successfully from 

 one hive to another in the night? 



Connecticut. 



.■\ns\ver. — Yes, only it's likely to be 

 unpleasant, because at night bees do 

 more crawling than flying, and in craw- 

 ling over one's person they are likely 

 to do some stinging. 



Three Swarms in Two Weelts 



Will bees swarm 3 times in 2 weeks? 

 First swarm came out May 25 ; 9 days 

 later the second ; the third 4 days later. 



Illinois. 



Answer. — Yes, they may swarm more 

 than 3 times in 2 weeks. The case you 

 mention is rather slower than the aver- 

 age, which is about 8 days after the 

 prime swarm for the first afterswarm, 

 and 3 days later for the next. 



Bee-Keeplng-Average Yield Per 

 Colony-Sttngless Bees 



1. Having just read an article on get- 

 ting away from the strenuous life, in 

 the Saturday Evening Post, in which 

 sotne of your experience is given. I take 

 liberty to ask: Is the article reliable, 

 not overdrawn? 



2. Is 100 pounds per colony an aver- 

 age or toward the maximum yearly 

 yield? 



3- I > it reasonable to suppose that a 

 capable man can make a living of say 

 $i,2(jo per year at bee-culture? 



4. VVhat of the newly-written-of sting- 

 less bees? Michigan. 



Answers. — i. It is a temporately writ- 

 ten article. 



2. Hardly one or the other. One-third 

 of that* amount is nearer the average 

 yield of comb honey, and half of it for 

 extracted, while a maximum annual 

 average might go to 150 or more. It 

 must not be forgotten that the yeild 

 .sometimes is less than nothing; that is, 

 no surplus is taken and the bees have 

 to be fed to keep them alive. 



3. Not many make so much. Some 

 make more. The way to find out what 

 you can do is to feel your way, begin- 

 ning with from 2 to 6 colonies. It would 

 be folly to enter bee-keeping on a large 

 scale without first finding out what you 

 can do on a small scale. 



4. They are valuable as a curiosity. 

 I don't believe any stingless bees will 

 be found of any practical value as 

 honey-gatherers. 



Black Bees from an 

 Queen 



Italian' 



1. We purchased an Italian queen from 

 a breeder in Pennsylvania, and she was 

 a fine, large queen, yellow almost from 

 tip to tip. She was introduced to a black 

 colony, and when her brood appeared it 

 was as black as "coly." I have been in 

 the bee-business for almost 25 vears, 

 and never witnessed this before. Have 

 you a ghost of an idea as to the cause? 



2. Give me your best idea on blacks 

 rearing Italian queens. 



3- I have "A B C of Bee-Culture," 

 ||How to Keep Bees," "Langstroth," and 

 "Forty Years Among the Bees," and I 

 thought that my 25 years' experience 

 was somethmg, but I am attending some 

 black bees that are queenless. They will 

 "feed" black eggs, but will not '''feed" 

 Italian eggs. You see I have just wak- 

 ened up. 



Answers.— I. If there is no mistake 

 about pure black bees being the progeny 

 of a very yellow queen, then I give it 

 up; never heard of such a thing before. 



2. It is generally considered that the 

 kind of nurse-bees has no bearing on the 

 purity of the queen. I don't know enough 

 to know whether that's entirely reliable 

 or not. 



3. Hard to believe that bees will dis- 

 crimmate against any egg on account 

 of race, color, or previous condition of 

 servitude. If you can get them to ac- 

 cept eggs or young larvse of any kind, 

 you ought to be able to fool them by 

 throwing a young larva out of a queen- 

 cell and transplanting in its place a 

 young larva of the desired kind. 



What Ails the Bees? 



I. I don't know what to do with my 

 bee-s, or whether to do anything with 

 them. There is something' the matter 

 with them. The biDod either chills, 

 starves, or else there is some brood- 

 disease among them. I can't tell which. 

 Last summer there was a great deal of 



