1920 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



2S 



There are less of them when they are full of 

 honey. There are more of them when they 

 are starving. 



2. It will do to ship bees now better than 

 in the summer. But the best time to ship bees 

 is when they have the least honey, in the 

 spring, before they breed very heavily. 



Using Old Supers 



1. White clover honey failed this year, as 

 there was so much rain until clover matured 

 too much to contain honey, and I now have 

 a large number of sections that are not filled; 

 some have only a small piece of comb built 

 in them from the starter. I ask your advice 

 as to what I shall do with them. 



2. Will supers just as they were taken off 

 be good for another year without taking them 

 apart? 



3. Some sections have a little unsealed honey 

 in them ; will the bees use them, or must 1 

 take them out? INDIANA. 



Answers. — 1 and 2. Those supers will be 

 very good for another season, just as they are, 

 provided you keep them in a dry, clean place, 

 away from dust or mice. They will need more 

 scraping when full than if they had been filled 

 the first time. But the comb in them will at- 

 tract the bees to the super, 



3. It is not necessary to remove the honey, 

 unless it is amber honey and you expect to get 

 white honey in the spring. Since the combs 

 are not sealed, you might place all the partly 

 filled sections in one super, and use it to feed 

 the bees in early spring. 



Amount of Bees for 20 Acres of 

 Clover 



Near where I live there is a considerable 

 quantity of white sweet clover that grows 

 along the sidewalks, in vacant lots and alleys. 

 My estimate is that there would be about £0 

 acres of it available for bees if it was all to- 

 gether. Would 100 colonies be too many for 

 this location? CHICAGO. 



Answer. — Unless there are other plants, I 

 would be inclined to think it would be hardly 

 sufficient for a good honey crop for 100 colo- 

 nies. Better keep a less number. However, 

 that is only a guess. 



Requeening 



This past season I have had a number of 

 colonies go wrong by allowing them to requeen 

 themselves in cases of supersedure. Have had 

 virgins go nearly a month before laying, and 

 then disappear in a few days. In the future 

 I propose to keep laying queens in nuclei for 

 immediate use. In case of a natural swarm 

 with clipped queen, would it work with quite 

 a certainty of success to run in with the re- 

 turning swarm a new queen taken from a 

 nucleus? LONG ISLAND. 



Answer. — I have seen queens balled which 

 happened to join a swarm. So there would 

 perhaps be danger of the new queen being 

 balled, which is always objectionable. But if 

 you can make sure of the clipped queen, so 

 that she will not return to the hive, you can 

 probably have your new queen accepted by 

 caging her a few hours. Yet, if the colony 

 has queen-cells, there is still danger of non- 

 acceptance. Hive your swarm on the stand of 

 the old hive, giving them the new queen, and 

 remove the old colony to a new spot. Then 

 all will be harmonious. 



Supers On in Winter 



I have 10 colonies of bees in ten-frame Dan- 

 zenbaker hives. I used the shook-swarm sys- 

 tem last summer and my colonies are larger 

 than usual. I thought they would not have 

 room for themselves and their - provisions in 

 the shallow ten-frame Danzenbaker brood- 

 chamber (7>4 in. deep), so I left a super 

 partly filled with honey on the brood-chamber 

 for over winter. The hives are covered with 

 tar paper and kept in a woodshed, where the 

 temperature varies around zero in cold weather. 

 But they are in no draft. They made about 80 



pounds of honey per colony in the supers this 

 summer and the combs seem to be filled with 

 honey. Would you leave the supers on? 



IOWA. 

 Answer. — It may not be necessary, but it 

 will certainly do no harm in those very shal- 

 low hives. When you speak of having them 

 in a woodshed you surely do not mean that 

 you will keep them closed up in there. If you 

 have them so they can fly in warm days, they 

 are just that much better off than in the 

 open. 



Feeding Outapiaries — Granulated 

 Honey in Combs 



1. My feeding of winter stores has hitherto 

 been contined to a small home apiary. Last 

 summer I branched out and placed 56 colonies 

 14 miles from home. Fortunately a heavy 

 buckwheat flow obviated the necessity of feed- 

 ing this year, but I wish to know the quickest 

 and most satisfactory method of feeding out- 

 apiaries. I take it for granted that it is cus- 

 tomary to feed syrup warm. Do large com- 

 mercial beekeepers manage this by making the 

 syrup at home where they have some con- 

 veniences, or take the heater and sugar to their 

 outapiary ? What is the best contrivance for 

 making sy^rup in large quantities without dan- 

 ger of scorching the syrup? 



2. I was unable to extract my buckwheat 

 honey until the 10th of November, too late to 

 place the extracted frames back on the hives 

 for bees to clean up. The buckwheat honey 

 had granulated somewhat, but not badly. Will 

 this granulation affect the condition of the 

 combs next spring, and will I be liable to 

 have trouble with them on this account? I 

 have been told that on account of granula- 

 tion in these combs all my honey next sea- 

 son is quite likely to granulate quickly and 

 may give me a good deal of trouble — is this 

 correct? ONTARIO. 



Answers. — 1. The manner of making syrup 

 depends upon the conveniences in reach. Cold 

 water will do to make syrup, but it is both bet- 

 ter for the bees and a little more speedy to 

 use hot water. The proper quantity of sugar 

 poured into boiling water will speedily make 

 all the syrup you want. Then pour it into 

 5-gallon cans, with screw-cap spouts similar to 

 gasoline or coal oil cans, for convenience in 

 pouring it into the feeders. Keeping the cans 

 well covered during the trip, you will have no 

 trouble in reaching your outapiary with warm 

 syrup. But variations from this method are 

 often resorted to. They also percolate the 

 water through the sugar, letting it come 

 through a sheet of muslin. 



2. It is not likely that you will have any 

 trouble from that granulated honey, if you 

 return the supers to the bees a few days be- 

 fore the opening of the crop. They will clean 

 them and burnish them at that time. The 

 worst trouble I can see is their keeping some 

 of that dark honey in the supers and mixing 

 fine white honey with it, next June. 



Wintering — Bees on Leeward Side of 

 Tree 



My beekeeping for the last 25 years has 

 been in California, where the wintering prob- 

 lem was not seriously considered, which is 

 my reason for asking a question or two. 



1. Will one frame taken from a lO-frame 

 hive give sufficient space for wintering in a 

 cold climate? 



2. You say in Gleanings, page .587: *'They 

 know that their hive is the right-hand one of 

 a pair." I infer from this that the hives face 

 in opposite directions; is it not so? 



3. I think, Doctor, on further investigation 

 you will find that the reason for the bees be- 

 ing on the leeward side of a tree in bloom. 

 Gleanings, jjage 587, is because a bee cannot 

 alight flying with the wind, and if she should 

 undertake to do so she would be carried 

 through to the other side. In California I in- 

 variably faced my hives toward the east, as 

 only on very rare occasions did the wind blow 

 from any other direction than from the 

 coast (west). Occasionally we had a desert 

 (east) wind, and it was always very strong. 

 The bees on these occasions bad a very hard 



time entering their hives. They would be 

 blown to the back of the hives in clouds await 

 ing an opportunity for a lull to skip around 

 the corner of the hive to enter; but when the 

 wind blew ever so hard from the west they 

 seemed to have no trouble in making a land- 

 ing. When the wind blew squarely into a hive 

 and when a bee more veiiturebume than the 

 others undertook to land she would invariably 

 "tumble" in. UTAH. 



Answers. — 1. Abundant, 1 think. 



2. No, the two hives of a pair face in the 

 same direction. 



3. If you will observe closely next time 

 qou see bees working on a honey tree, I 

 think you will change your mind. Not only 

 in a strong wind, but in a gentle breeze, when 

 scarcely a leaf is stirred, there will be a 

 cloud of bees on the leeward side and none on 

 the windward side, although the leeward side 

 may be the farther side from the apiary. 



(The answers to the above are in Dr. Mil- 

 ler's own handwriting and we are glad that 

 he is getting well enough to do that much. 



Uuection No. 3 is whether the bees come 

 from the leeward side to a tree because of get- 

 ling the odor wafted by the breeze of because 

 they must fly against the wind to get any- 

 where. It seems to us that both of these 

 causes serve. Bees cannot very well get the 

 odor except from the 'leeward side, and in a 

 strong wind they might be carried beyond it 

 if they did not come steadily against the wind. 

 —Editor.) 



Wintering — Cutting Out Queen-Cells 



1. What would be the longest tmie that 

 bees can stand being housed up? 



2. Would you advise putting bees in winter 

 quarters at this date? 1 have a good base- 

 ment, high and dry. 



3. I am using the 10-frame hive and all 

 frames are full. Would it be safe to take out 

 one outside frame for honey ? Would there 

 be stores enough for the bees? 



i. At what time do you advise cutting out 

 queen-cells? MiNNESUlA. 



Answers. — 1. The longest time I have 

 known bees to be kept in a cellar was 180 

 days. This was achieved at Charlesbourg, 

 yucbec, by Mr. Verret, and the bees came out 

 in good shape. But they must have good 

 healthy food and must be kept at the right 

 temperature, between 45 and 5U degrees, or at 

 whatever degree keeps them quietest. 



2. They may be put in the cellar earlier in 

 Minnesota than in countries farther south. 

 The proper time is shortly after they have had 

 a good flight, before cold weather. 



3. If your combs are all heavy with honey, 

 they will winter on 9 combs full, but it is 

 quite likely that they may need some feeding 

 in spring. 



4. We never cut out queen-cells. Those who 

 practice that method do it whenever they find 

 queen-cells with eggs or larvx in them, at 

 swarming time. But unless you take steps to 

 prevent swarming, it does not do any good to 

 cut out the queen-cells. 



Transferring — Stimulating Brood- 

 Rearing 



1. I have 12 colonies of bees in box hives 

 and would like for you to advise me a little on 

 this question : I want to transper them to 

 movable frame hives next spring, as soon as 

 it gets warm. I want to put them on founda- 

 tion. Could they get pollen soon enough to 

 raise their brood ,or could 1 feed them some- 

 thing that would take the place of pollen? 



2. What would be the best to feed them for 

 pollen. WEST VIRGINIA. 



Answers. — 1. The proper time to transfer 

 from box ^ hives or gums is during fruit 

 bloom, because they have less honey and less 

 brood and more chance to repair their losses 

 than they would at any other time of the year. 

 But if you want to transfer only the bees and 

 do not wish to save the combs, you may do it 



