August, 1907. 



[American Hee Journal 



or 10 days they are in prime condi- 

 tion to divide up for nuclei. The un- 

 capped brood will all be sealed over, and 

 cells from which the young bees have 

 hatched out will be filled up with fresh 

 honey, and the hive will be runnirig 

 over with young bees that will stay in 

 a new location. 



To start the new colonies take from 

 2 to 4 combs with adhering bees, give 

 them a ripe queen-cell, and place on 

 the stand they are to occupy. E.xamine 

 in 10 or 12 days, and if eggs are pres- 

 ent in the combs the young queen has 

 hatched out and mated; give them more 

 room as needed, and if any further 

 shaking is done after the nuclei are 

 made up, the combs from such can be 

 distributed among them, one or two to 

 each, depending upon their strength and 

 ability to look after the uncapped brood. 

 This uncapped brood in the nuclei will 

 indicate whether or not a queen is pres- 

 ent. The bees will start queen-cells 

 upon it should she be missing. If such 

 is the case then insert another cell. 

 Should the honey-flow drop ofT sud- 

 denly it would be as well to stimulate 

 these nuclei with a little thin sugar sy- 

 rup and by fall they will be the best 

 colonies in the yard. 



In order to get ripe quccn-cells at the 

 proper time there is no simpler or better 

 way than by saving the cells from some 

 of the best colonies that have swarmed. 

 Instead of shaking these colonies let 

 them swarm out, and hive the swarm 

 on a new stand. The brood and queen- 

 cells will then have the best of care, 

 and in about 6 days after the swarm 

 has issued, cut out the best cells care- 

 fully and proceed to make up the nu- 

 clei as outlined above, giving one cell 

 to each. This work must be done very 

 carefully — no jarring the combs that the 

 cells are on, nor injuring them in any 

 way. 



If one is acquainted with Doolittle's 

 method of transferring larvae into pre- 

 pared cups, and giving them to a popu- 

 lous colony above a queen-excluder, 

 there is no better way to secure ripe 

 cells at this time of the year. True, 

 this method requires some study and 

 experience, but it is time well spent by 

 any bee-keeper, for not only are the 

 queens obtained by it first-class in ev- 

 ery respect, but it has the further ad- 

 vantage of hatching them out at ex- 

 actly the time they are required. — F. P. 

 Adams, in Canadian Bee-Journal. 



Brantford, Ont., June i. 



Testing for Honey-Gathering. 



D. M. M. says (British Bee Journal, 

 192) : 



"In selecting a queen-mother I would 

 place her honey-gathering^ualities high 

 above any other trait, but the query 

 arises in my mind — Have even the so- 

 called "tested" queens ever been tested 

 as to their abilities in this line? Cer- 

 tainly not in nine cases out of ten." 



That's a very cautious statement. Is 

 there any such testing in 1 case out of 

 10? In I out of 100? 



Jarring Embryo Queens. 



It is a common thing to caution be- 

 ginners against handling roughly a 

 queen-cell or letting it drop, as the jar 

 may result in a crippled queen. John 

 W. Moir (British Bee Journal, page 

 217) suggests carrying this a step fur- 

 iher, making practical use of it to pre- 

 vent swarming. He asks, "Might it not 

 be possible to go around an apiary once 

 a week, and, lifting every brood-cham- 

 ber so many inches, let it drop sud- 

 dendly, and thus kill the embryo queens 

 in every cell where they might be?" 



But because the fall of a queen-cell 

 may cripple the embryo queen, it does 

 not follow that one would be killed 

 without a jar sufficient to crash the en- 

 tire fabric. 



Annual Renew.\l of Combs. 



In this country old combs are in good 

 repute, a comt being considered all 



right so long as there is no objection 

 to it besides age. But in England and 

 in Europe it is the practise, at least with 

 some, to renew combs every 5 years, 

 or oftener. One writer in the British 

 Bee Journal even goes so far as to re- 

 new combs annually, counting this a 

 help to avoid foul brood. G. W. Avery, 

 British Bee Journal, page 235, raises a 

 protest against such extravagance. 

 While not advocating keeping combs 

 in use so long as 25 years, he cites an 

 instance of combs being kept in use 

 that length of time without any detri- 

 ment. It is doubtful if any real ob- 

 jection can be raised against mere age 

 in combs, unless it be that after 50 

 years or so they might need a trifle 

 wider spacing on account of the thick- 

 ened septum. 



Dead-Be.\t Honey-Buyers. 



General Manager France is collect- 

 ing a list of these, which he will send 

 to any member of the National who 

 applies for it. To many this will be 

 worth alone several times the annual 

 fee of $1.00. Of course, any one who 

 has discovered any of these dead-beats 

 should report the same to Mr. France, 

 Platteville, Wis. 



.\utomobiles Condemned. 



W. Woodley (British Bee Journal, 

 page 223) complains that the great 

 amount of dust raised by passing mo- 

 tors settles in the nectaries of flowers 



for some distance in adjoining fields. 

 Hedges that were formerly white with 

 bloom in June are now practically 

 bloomlcss because the road authorities 

 keep the hedges cut low so that motor- 

 ists can see each other coming. 



Controlling Queen-Fertilization. 



The matter of control of the fertiliza- 

 tion of queens has generally been given 

 up as impracticable, if indeed desirable. 

 A tent has not been immensely success- 

 ful, and if it is ever made a success 

 it will probably be a very large tent, 

 hence expensive. Editor Root has been 

 raking among the archives of a quarter 

 of a century ago, and from Gleanings 

 for April 15, 1882, produces the follow- 

 ing item : 



"Last season Dan White took all the 

 wingless queens he found, tied a delicate 

 silk thread around their bodies, hitched 

 it to tall pole, when the drones were 

 out thick, and let them buzz around with 

 the stumps of their wings. Three out of 

 ten were fertilized, and he has ihem 

 laying now." 



Dan White is considered a reliable 

 man, and if he could succeed with 30 

 percent of the wingless queens, might 

 not success be still greater with those 

 having whole wings? As an improve- 

 ment, Editor Root proposes to substi- 

 tute for the pole a toy balloon. This, 

 with enough string, would go higher 

 than any pole, and the balloon being 

 anchored below could be hauled down 

 at intervals for observation. It might 

 be added that if, for any reason, wing- 

 less queens were better, it would not 

 be a difficult feat to make any queen 

 wingless. 



Deep Tank for Clearing Honey. 



It is not an easy thing rapidly to get 

 rid of the minute air-bubbles in ex- 

 tracted honey that give it a cloudy ap- 

 pearance. Walter S. Ponder takes ad- 

 vantage of increased weight by increased 

 depth, using a tank 30 inches deeep and 

 12 inches in diameter. The weight of 

 the 30 inches of honey above causes 

 a more rapid rising of the air-bubbles 

 at the lower part, and at this lower 

 part the clear honey is drawn ofif. He 

 says that this clearing retards granula- 

 tion, preventing "that soapy appearance 

 that occurs when jars are heated after 

 being filled." — Gleanings, page 966. 



Carbolic acid for Swarms. 



A bottle of dilute carbolic acid, a 

 piece of sponge, and a long pole, are 

 recommended in Prakt. Wegweiser to 

 be always on hand in the apiary at 

 the swarming-time. If a swarm settles 

 in a high or undesirable place, quickly 

 pour some acid on the sponge, thrust it 

 up where the swarm is, and like a cloud 

 the bees scatter. If the swarm settles 

 in a place still undesirable, the act is 

 to be repeated, and the tendency each 

 time is for the swarm to settle lower; 

 but the editor warns that too many 

 repetitions may cause the swarm to 

 leave. 



Moth-Infested Skep. 



In the British Bee Journal a cor- 

 respondent with a colony of bees in 

 a skep badly infested with bee-moth 

 asks whether he shall set the skep over 



