October, 1907. 



U^^^^^^^i American Hee Journal]^ 



working for extraced honey it is a 

 good plan to have an opening above 

 for ventilation, by shoving the upper 

 story forward so as to leave a crack 

 of ^-inch. Even when working for 

 comb-honey I make use of this kind 

 of ventilation during the hottest part 

 of the season. 



2. Except the labor, and the trouble 

 to the bees in changing the location of 

 their hives. I know of no objection to 

 piling up hives 3 or 4 high, and there 

 is some advantage in the matter of 

 heat. 



3. That will work, but you will prob- 

 ably find it better to have them in pairs, 

 the first 2 facing north, the next 2 south, 

 and so on. The bees are not likely 

 to make a mistake in getting into the 

 wrong hive of a pair; much more likely 

 to make a mistake in a row alternately 

 facing in opposite directions. 



4. Yes, that would be going it rather 

 too strong to ask the bees to give up 

 their brood and start all anew at a 

 time when every effort should be made 

 to increase the force for the coming 

 harvest. Wait till just before the time 

 when there is danger of swarming, and 

 then it will be what is so popular with 

 many, shaking a swarm. 



Using Brood-Frames for Extracting 

 Frames Old Honey-Extractor 



I have some American frames about 

 r2xi2 inches inside, with a bar across 

 the center, fop-bars lj4 inches, and 

 notches for bees to pass up through. 

 The swarms were hived on starters in 

 1905, and the frames have been used 

 for brood ever since. I want to dis- 

 card them as brood-frames, and had 

 thought of making supers and using 

 them for extracting, over lo-frame 

 Langstroth hives. Of course, the 

 frames would be crosswise, also the 

 supers, and being about nn ''nch nar- 

 rower than the hives, it would leave an 

 offset at each side for bee.^ to travel 

 over when going up the side of the 

 hive. There is considerible drone-comb 

 in these frames. 



1. Would these combs cause the 

 honey to be inferior in any way? 



2. Would bees store nearly as much 

 (or quite) as in other extracting frames? 



3. Do you think it would pay me to 

 use them for extracting? 



4. If I buy a 2-frame non-reversible 

 extractor 25 years old, will I be sac- 

 rificing many improvements? 



Pennsylv.^ni.^. 



Answers. — i. Honey in those combs 

 ought to be as good as in any combs 

 used for the same length of time for 

 brood-rearing. Generally it is consid- 

 ered that there is no difference between 

 extracted honey taken from new combs 

 and that taken from the very old, black 

 combs. Some, however, who want to 

 get the very lightest honey for exhi- 

 bition purposes prefer new combs. If 

 you take a very black comb and let it 

 stand for some time filled with water, 

 the water when thrown out will be pretty 

 black, and it is claimed that honey in 

 such combs will also be to some ex- 

 tent colored. But for ordinary purposes 

 the difference is not considered. 



2. There ought to be no dift'erence. 



3. Yes, but for the sake of having 

 all frames alike many would prefer 

 to transfer the combs into your regu- 

 lar frames. 



4. Your question itself suggests that 

 one of the improvements would be self- 

 reversing — a matter of considerable im- 

 portance. If you do a small amount 

 of extracting, the probable difference in 

 price would over-balance any disadvan- 

 tage; if you do a large amount, bet- 

 ter pay for all the improvements you 

 can get. 



Queer Noise Among Bees 



What is it that I hear in my Italian 

 bee-hive this time of year? It makes a 

 fuss like a queen. I heard the same 

 noise last spring before I shook a swarm 

 from it. Those bees have always done 

 queer things. Are there 2 queens in 

 there? and are they destroying one? 



Answer. — Without hearing the noise 

 I cannot say what it means, and possi- 

 bly I couldn't say if I should hear it. 

 I've often put my ear to a hive and 

 heard the bees making various noises 

 without being able to make anything out 

 of it, except the piping or quahking of 

 young queens when an after-swarm is 

 contemplated. It is, of course, possible 

 that 2 or more queens are present in the 

 case in question. 



Bees TronWed Witli Motli Larvae 



My wife's father has a colony of bees 

 here that are not doing well (Aug. 6). 

 They swarmed along the fore part of 

 July or the latter part of June. I was 

 not here then and the folks did not see 

 them swarm, but I am confident they 

 did swarm, as there were several indi- 

 cations to show that they had. They 

 seemed to be gathering some honey 

 and had quite a lot of bees, some hav- 

 ing gone to the super, but they had not 

 stored an ounce of honey in the super, 

 and had been carrying out lots of young 

 bees, in size from the small larvae in 

 the bottom of the cell to the bees just 

 emerging from the cell. On opening 

 the hive yesterday I found a lot of 

 honey and pollen in the comb, brood 

 in all stages, and 7 out of 8 frames with 

 eggs. The older bees that were car- 

 ried out seemed to have a sort of white 

 web around them which made them 

 unable to fly, and in some cases almost 

 unable to walk. There were a few 

 moths in the hive last spring, but none 

 in the combs that I could see. I found 

 a few moth-worms under the frames 

 covered over or hemmed in with wax. 

 What is the disease, and what is the 

 remedy for it? The bees do not seem to 

 build up as they should, but there is 

 plenty for them to work on and other 

 bees are doing fairly well now. Io\v.\. 



Answer. — The bee-moth is the mis- 

 creant that causes the whole trouble, 

 almost certainly. The larva of this pest 

 makes its gallery of silk along the sur- 

 face of the comb and deeper, and the 

 young bees thus injured are thrown out 

 of the hive by their older sisters. It 

 is hardly fair, either, to say that the 

 bee-moth causes the trouble. The cause 

 is a weak, inefficient colony, and the 



bee-moth comes in only because the 

 colony is not vigoroOs enough to resist. 



'I he remedy is a stronger colony, or 

 bees of greater vigor. Italian bees are 

 greatly superior to blacks in fighting 

 off the bee-moth, and if your bees are 

 black, the introduction of Italian blood 

 is the thing indicated. It is also pos- 

 sible that the queen is at fault, either 

 through age or some other cause. The 

 case is worse if there are more combs 

 than the bees can cover. 



You may do something to help the 

 bees get rid of the larger worms pres- 

 ent. Take out a comb, note where a 

 worm has built its gallery, with the 

 point of a wire-nail pick a hole in one 

 end of the gallery, then start at the 

 other end and pick along till the worm 

 drops out, when you can treat it as your 

 conscience dictates. 



Queen Passing Tlirouati Entrance- 

 Guard- Swarm Deserting Intro- 

 ducing Queens 



[ bought a full colony of Italian bees, 

 which were shipped by express in a 

 shipping-case. As soon as I hived them, 

 off they went. I caught the swarm and 

 hived them again. I saw the queen go 

 in, got almost all the bees in the hive; 

 put on an entrance guard, and a half- 

 hour later all the bees were out again 

 on the same tree. I did not bother with 

 them any more, but before night they 

 all went back to the hive. The next 

 day the same thing happened, and I 

 did not see her any more. The bees 

 went to work. I had put on only start- 

 ers. Three weeks later 2 frames were 

 fully built and 2 half built, but laying 

 never began. I am sure now that there 

 is no queen at all. 



1. Can a queen pass through an en- 

 trance-guard? 



2. Why did the bees go out after I 

 had hived them in a new hive with 

 foundation-starters ? 



3. I never use either veil or smoker 

 while I examine the hives, and take the 

 frames out one at a time, and never 

 was stung. Why did they sting me the 

 last time? Just as I had removed the 

 cover they rushed at my face and I 

 got 3 stings. 



4. What is the best method of intro- 

 ducing a queen to a queenless colony? 



LOUISI.AN.A. 



Answers.- — i. Not if the entrance- 

 guard is perfect and the queen of nor- 

 mal size. Some have thought that when 

 a queen is not laying, her abdomen con- 

 sequently smaller than usual, she might 

 get through a perforation smaller than 

 when in full laying. But it is not the 

 size of the abdomen that prevents her 

 passage, it is the thorax. The abdomen 

 is soft and yielding, and when at the 

 largest it will easily flatten out to go 

 through any perforation large enough 

 to allow the passage of the thorax. 

 The thorax is a sort of bony structure 

 which is the same whether the queen 

 is laying little or much. 



2. I have no means of knowing, but 

 the most common reason for the de- 

 sertion in such cases is that the hive 

 is in too warm a place, and too close. 

 Leaving the cover open a trifle helps, 

 also shading and sprinkling with water. 



