American Hee Journal 



757 



in, tlie bees would he in Ih,( condition 

 for queen-rearing. You will be told, 

 however, by some good bo -keepers and 

 intclliRent, that the bees u II be in such 

 a hurry to rear a young queen that they 

 will select larvre too old for best suc- 

 cess. So if there was anything beyond 

 eggs and very young larva? in the frame 

 of unsealed brood given them, you may 

 expect some poor queens, if those men 

 are correct. I do not at all believe tbey 

 are correct, and my belief is based on 

 a pretty large experience in allowing 

 qucenlcss bees to make their selection 

 from brood of all ages. This, however, 

 I have experienced: The bees continue 

 for several days to start fresh cells, and 

 the last started may be with too-old 

 larvse. So it is better to reject these 

 latest cells. But if you have virgin 

 comb filled with eggs and brood as giv- 

 en in " Forty Years among the Bees." 

 page 237, and have your queen-cells 

 built from this, you may count on all 

 the cells being started from larvoe 

 young enough. Just why this difference 

 i don't know, only that I have reared 

 hundreds of queens in that way, and 

 think I have had good proof that none 

 of them were reared from larvx too 

 old. ^ 



Black Bees in Italian Colony — Fall 

 Feeding — Non-Hatching Eggs. 

 I have just finished reading "Forty 

 Years Among the Bees." I found it 

 very interesting and instructive. 



1. I had a colony swarm July 13, 1906. 

 The young queen was very small, and 

 never" laid. August 9 I replaced her 

 with an imported golden queen. Dur- 

 ing last spring the black bees gradually 

 disappeared, but there were always 3 or 

 4 to be seen fanning in the entrance 

 in the same corner every fine evening. 

 June 22, 1907, I divided them, putting 

 4 nuclei in one lo-frame hive, and 

 stuffed the entrances with grass. When 

 I pulled out the grass there were 6 

 black bees dead in one entrance. These 

 were the only black bees I could find 

 in the nuclei, and the only bees that 

 were dead, although some of the others 

 were very weak and unsteady from suf- 

 focation. Is it possible that these bees 

 were the daughter of the old black 

 queen that swarmed July 13, 1906? Her 

 swarm gradually weakened during the 

 fall and died in early winter. My one 

 other colony was headed by a leather 

 Italian. There are no other bees within 

 2j4 miles as the crow flies. 



2. Is there any danger of feeding too 

 much or too fast in the fall, either from 

 troughs outside or from feeders inside 

 the hives? 



3. Is it common for a queen to lay 

 eggs that will not hatch? I do not re- 

 member reading of any. I reared 6 

 leather queens the past summer. They 

 are heading 6 strong colonies now. I 

 also reared 6 golden queens. Only one 

 of them laid, but her eggs did not hatch. 

 She was the largest and finest-looking 

 queen I ever saw, and laid as many as 

 6 eggs in some cells. She had more 

 bees than some nuclei that did well. 



Prince Edward Island. 



Answers. — i. That's a tough one. It 

 hardly seems credible that a worker-bee 

 should 'have lived through from July 13 



to the end of the following June. It is 

 often the case that black bees stray in 

 from other hives, but they would hard- 

 ly come 2>i miles. It might be that 

 your yellow queen was not purely mat- 

 ed, and some of her progeny black, but 

 in that case the number of black bees 

 would hardly be so small as you seem 

 to mention. I give it up. 



2. If fall feeding must be resorted to, 

 the faster the better. For late in the 

 fall all that is expected of the bees is 

 to store what is given them, and as it is 

 given them, whereas when fed at the 

 earlier and better time the feed should 

 be thin and the bees should have time 

 to make the proper changes in it. 



3. It is very uncommon. In 47 years' 

 experience I have had only a single case 

 of the kind to my knowledge; and I 

 have read of very few cases. Y'ou are 

 not likely to have another. Of course 

 the trouble is with the queen, and the 

 only remedy is to kill her and replace 

 her with one that can lay a better brand 

 of eggs. 



Possibly it may be well to mention 

 that any queen may lay eggs that do not 

 hatch, but in that case the fault is not 

 with the eggs. It is perhaps the usual 

 thing in the fall that the last eggs laid 

 by a queen do not hatch, probably be- 

 cause the bees do not furnish heat 

 enough, and the same thing may some- 

 times occur in the spring. But as I un- 

 derstand it, in the case you mention 

 everything was favorable for the hatch- 

 ing of any properly disposed egg. 



Answering Questions — Wintering 

 Bees Under Snow-Drifts — Tar- 

 taric Acid in Winter Stores. 



1. Why do we never get any answers 

 to the questions we send to you through 

 the question departments of the various 

 bee-papers? 



2. What will be the result of winter- 

 ing bees out of doors in a locality like 

 some parts of the coast where a large 

 proportion of the snowfalls are accom- 

 panied by high winds, that cause the 

 snow to pile up in huge drifts and banks 

 that often bury small objects like a bee- 

 hive completely, sometimes 6 feet deep? 

 In dividing some of my colonies last 

 summer I unwittingly placed several 

 hives in a location which I have since 

 been told is in the direct path of the 

 worst snowdrifts in the neighborhood. 

 In fact, this is within a narrow space 

 that catches the drifting snow from off 

 a large field during successive snow- 

 storms and which at times is 10 feet 

 deep. I am very much averse to mov- 

 ing a colony of bees after it is once es- 

 tablished in a place, especially during 

 cold weather. 



3. Although the following question is 

 somewhat out of season, will you tell us 

 the result of your experience in mixing 

 tartaric acid or other acids with sugar 

 syrup for winter stores? I haven't had 

 time to experiment in this, and this fall 

 I followed Prof. Cook's advice accord- 

 ing to his book, and put an even tea- 

 spoon of tartaric acid into 15 pounds of 

 syrup. I think this amount of acid is 

 altogether too much for the amount of 

 syrup. I believe much less acid in pro- 

 portion would keep the syrup from crys- 



tallizing. The bees evidently do not like 

 it. 



4. What is the result of mixing the 

 acid with cold or boiling syrup, relative- 

 ly, and in different proportions? 



Massachusetts. 



Answers. — i. I don't know. Certain 

 it is that a goodly number of those who 

 send questions get answers, as is abund- 

 antly testified by the amount of space 

 occupied each month in this depart- 

 ment. I think I have made replies of 

 some kind to every question ever sent 

 me, when the writer told me in what 

 publication he wanted the answer to ap- 

 pear. If, by some strange means any 

 letter of yours has come under the head 

 of "lost, strayed, or stolen," let us hope 

 it may not occur again. 



2. Reports of results when hives were 

 buried in deep snow have not always 

 been the same. I think that in most 

 cases it has been reported that the bees 

 have done well, the snow making a fine 

 protection, being porous enough so there 

 was no suffering from lack of ventila- 

 tion. I have no distinct data at hand, 

 but if memory is not at fault some cases 

 have been reported in which the bees 

 seemed too warm, breeding being start- 

 ed, with diarrhea following. 



3. Some years ago I had considerable 

 experience in feeding iip for several 

 winters with tartaric acid in syrup. I 

 used an even teaspoonful of acid for 20 

 pounds of sugar. I think it worked all 

 right. How much acid that would be 

 to a given weight of syrup depends on 

 the strength of the syrup. For winter 

 feeding I used S pounds of sugar to 2 

 of water, and that made a teaspoonful 

 of acid to 28 pounds of syrup. Prof. 

 Cook's teaspoonful of acid to 15 pounds 

 of svrup looks jm-t at first glance as if 

 he made it about twice as strong with 

 acid as I did. Whether he really did 

 so depends upon the strength of the 

 syrup. Referring to Cook's Manual, 

 edition of 1902, page 266, where he men- 

 tions an even teaspoonful of acid to 15 

 pounds of syrup, it will be seen that he 

 says, "We use equal parts of sugar and 

 water." With the proportion of a tea- 

 spoonful to 20 pounds of sugar there 

 would be a teaspoonful to 40 poun-ds 

 of half-and-half syrup. That, against 

 his 15 pounds of syrup, shows that he 

 made it 2 2-3 times as strong as I did. 

 Mine seemed to be strong enough, and 

 yet I think at least one man reported 

 that with the same strength as I used 

 his syrup granulated. 



Of late years I have used no acid. 

 If I fed at all I gave half-and-half syrup 

 in August or early September, and the 

 bees made it all right without any acid. 

 I cannot help thinking this is better 

 than later feeding with acid. My feed- 

 ers are becoming idle capital, as the pas- 

 turage has so changed that a fall flow 

 mav always be counted on. 



4. I have had no experience as to dif- 

 ferent proportions, nor as to stirring 

 acid into cold syrup; but I should think 

 it quite difticul't to get the acid well 

 mixed in the syrup. My plan was to 

 dissolve the acid in a cup of hot water, 

 and then stir it into the hot syrup. But 

 I don't believe it advisable to use acid 

 at ail. If you must feed, feed thin 

 enough, and early enough, and the bees 

 will do the rest. 



