September, J 907. 



American Hee Journal i 



when the brood is capped? 'I'licn, too, 

 I have seen eggs laid in chonc-cclls 

 considerably shallower than the worker- 

 cells on the same comb; the dronc- 

 oomb being in batches at the lower corn- 

 ers where the comb is generally more 

 or less rounded off. 



And, again, I have seen eggs in newly- 

 built drone-comb with cells only J4-inch 



deep, and the cells were only later 

 drawn out full - depth. Anybody can 

 try this during early summer, when 

 the queens are an.xious to lay drotu- 

 eggs, by simply giving an empty frame 

 in the brood-nest. 



And all this goes against the "com- 

 pression of the abdomen" theory, and 

 that of the different depths of the cells. 



Poison for Mice. 



Strychnine is extremely bitter, and 

 mice or rats are not fond of it. The 

 following has proved very useful with 

 me: Take one part flour, .one part 

 sugar, and one part arsenic ; mix thor- 

 oughly, and place in hives or where 

 the mice pass, and they will disappear 

 very fast. — J. E. Crane, in Gleanings. 



Virgin Queens Do Not Always Fight. 



Editor Root gives an exception to the 

 rule, perhaps first one on record. He 

 says in Gleanings : 



"Not six weeks ago we found in one 

 hive nearly a dozen virgins on one 

 frame, living peaceably together. It 

 was a case where a lot of cells had been 

 given to the colony to complete, and 

 they had hatched before the apiarist got 

 around to them. Some of the queens 

 were from 2 to 3 days old, and yet there 

 they were all together like a happy 

 iamily." 



Closing Entrance When Moving Bees. 



When moving bees, cut a strip of bur- 

 lap J or 3 inches wide, the length of 

 the entrance to your hive for each col- 

 ony, and when ready to close them, 

 leave these pieces in a pail of water. 

 Crowd one into each entrance with a 

 jack-knife; better than sticks, screen or 

 anything I ever used. No hammering 

 to disturb the bees, and the moisture 

 tends to quiet them, as well as being 

 much the quickest way. Try it. — Amer- 

 ican Bee-Keeper. 



Tarred Felt Not Alw.ws Desirable. 



S. D. Chapman found it an actual 

 detriment, the bees being warmed up 

 by the dark color, and Hying out on 

 days when it was so cold that they 

 were lost. In the Bee-Keepers' Review, 

 Editor Hutchinson comments: 



"If the location is exposed and 

 windy, I can see that the results might 

 possibly be like those reported by Mr. 

 Chapman, but in the sheltered locations 

 where my brother and myself have used 

 this kind of protection we have always 

 found it a decided advantage." 



Roasting Out Wax-Worms. 



Combs in fected with larvse of the 

 wax-moth are set out in the sun against 

 some obstacle so that there are no shel- 

 tered parts under which the "worms" 



may hide from the sun. Then watch 

 them "hike out," and the sun gets them, 

 leaving the combs free of the pest. 

 Don't leave the combs out too long or in 

 too hot a sun or they will melt. Hun- 

 dreds of combs have thus been "dis- 

 infected" in this way in our yards. — 

 Louis H. Scholl, in Gleanings. 



Shaken Swarms. 



Under this title, F. Greiner, in the 

 American Bee-Keeper, gives an excel- 

 lent summing up of points, among 

 which are the following: 



Some bee-keepers brush all bees from 

 the brood-combs and place the bee less 

 combs on top of other colonies; some 

 leave bees enough on the combs to take 

 care of the brood, and thus form a new 

 colony, giving the motherless family 

 either a queen or a ripe cell; which 

 latter answers just as well. Some bee- 

 keepers give the brushed bees a little 

 brood to hold them. 



All authorities on shaken swarms 

 agree that the bees ought to be made 

 to fill themselves with honey before 

 they are shaken or brushed from their 

 combs. 



After a swarm is shaken, dissatisfac- 

 tion sometimes arises among the mass- 

 es, possibly also among the royalty, al- 

 though I don't think that occurs. I 

 think the queens are subject to the 

 workers and must go if they so decide. 

 When the masses become dissatisfied 

 with the conditions as the bee-master 

 (?) has aranged matters, they just pull 

 out. They seem to think that they can 

 lose nothing, so there they go. If the 

 queen is able to fly, and nothing else, 

 hinders her following the bees, our hive 

 will be found empty of bees when next 

 we make them a visit.. They may 

 swarm out after 3 or 4 days. I hardly 

 consider the same safe before the sev- 

 enth day. When the queen is clipped, 

 of course she cannot go with the bees. 

 After sailing around they decide to come 

 back, for really they have no other place 

 to go. The queen crawling about in 

 front of the hive enters it also when the 

 bees return. 



I have watched many swarms with 

 clipped queens, and I never saw one go 

 astray. Hives, however, must not stand 

 close together, and the alighting-board 

 to each must reach the ground ; other- 

 wise there would probably be trouble. 



Pri.vkntion op Swarming. 



1-. !■'. .'\twatcr gives in The Bee- 

 keepers' Review, the Rauchfuss or Aikin 

 plan of preventing swarming, which .\Ir. 

 Rauchfuss >,iys will give more honey 

 than any other plan — at least for arid 

 belt conditions— the chief fault that Mr. 

 Atwater finds with the plan being that 

 sometimes a colony is left hopelessly 

 queenless by the failure of the virgin 

 to return s.ifely from her wedding trip 

 He says : 



"Put most of the brood in the Irjwei 

 story of the hive, on this a queen-ex- 

 cluder, on this a second story, with one 

 frame of bees, brood and the queen, 

 the balance of the combs empty or con- 

 taining some honey. 



"Brood-rearing will leap ahead in this 

 upper story, receiving the heat from the 

 mass of brood and bees below. The 

 bees can't swarm, as the queen can not 

 pass the excluder. Nine or 10 days 

 later, set the upper story containing 

 queen, bees and new brood, off to a 

 new stand. The hive on the old stand 

 now contains only sealed brood. De- 

 stroy the queen-cells, if any, give a ripe 

 queen-cell, or run in a virgin queen, 

 and put on the supers. The bees will 

 not swarm, as they have no eggs or 

 larvs from which to start queen-cells. 



"As soon as the young queen begins to 

 lay, the honey will go up into the su- 

 pers in a rush. For some conditions 

 the method may be better than forced 

 swarming as usually practiced; for the 

 hatching brood reinforces the field-force 

 for about 10 or 12 days after the old 

 queen and her hive of new brood is re- 

 moved to a new stand." 



Value of Protective Surrounuings. 



Over at Port Huron, where I met mv 

 Waterloo last spring, there was a shel- 

 tered nook at one cprner of the yard. 

 The wagon-shed, the barn, a high board- 

 fence, and one or two big apple-trees, 

 all combined to shut off the cold north 

 or west winds. Scarcely a colony per- 

 ished in that sheltered nook ; and even 

 of those that lived, not one was as 

 strong, when I moved them away, as 

 were most of the colonies in the shel- 

 tered corner of the yard. Away out in 

 the field, beyond the influence of this 

 shelter, scarcely a colony was left alive, 

 and those were weaklings. It seems 

 strange that some of us are so long in 

 learning the true value of outside pro- 

 tection in the winter and spring. — Bee- 

 Keepers' Review, p. 200. 



Strengthening Weak Colonies. 



The Alexander plan of putting weak 

 colonies over an excluder on a strong 

 colony in spring seems to be gaining in 

 favor. It appears that if the two colo- 

 nies are stirred up at the time of put- 

 ting together, the bees of the stronger 

 colony kill the upper queen. To avoid 

 this some allow a wire-cloth between 

 the colonies for about 2 days, thus al- 

 lowing them to gain the same scent be- 

 fore the bees from below can get above. 

 Others gain the point by doing every- 

 thing so quietly that the bees of tlie 

 two colonies are not likely to get to- 

 gether for some little time. 



The Canadian Bee Journal reports. 



