1920 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



61 



as close to your home as possible, as shipping 

 bees is expensive. 



Increasing 



I am thiiik:ing of making increase, and think 

 I will use live hives in making them. I in- 

 tend to make 20 new ones, and having five old 

 ones the same strength as the others after di- 

 viding them, leaving the old queen on the old 

 stand. The plan I intend to go by you will 

 find enclosed. 



On April 10 put old queen above with two 

 frames of brood, with a zinc excluder bt-tween 

 them, putting brood below and filling out with 

 frames. On April 20 cut out all but one queen 

 cell. That will give me laying queen May 5, 

 leaving them together until the 25th, then di- 

 vide. 



I am going to use five hives for making 

 twenty-five, using four to start them and using 

 the last one for making queen cells for the 

 others, giving queen cells and stuffing them in 

 with grass, starting the last hive on May 15. 

 MISSOURI. 



Akswer. — I'm afraid your plan will not 

 come up to your expectations, although I'm 

 none too sure about the plan, as you first 

 speak as though intending to have each colony 

 start its own queen-cells, and later as though 

 having one start cells for all. Perhaps the 

 idea is to have four of them start each a cell 

 for itself and the fifth rear one for itself and 

 twenty extra that will be needed. As I under- 

 stand it. you will put the queen above an ex- 

 cluder and expect cells to be started on the 

 brood below the excluder. But you cannot 

 rely upon it. Some of them will be pretty 

 sure not to start a cell, and those that do 

 start cells will start too few to make out the 

 total number needed. Again, you will find 

 that, as a rule, queens reared before about tlie 

 usual time of swarming are not very valuable 

 queens. If you have confidence in the plan, 

 better try it upon one colonv, and if it's suc- 

 cessful you can call me down for giving poor 

 advice. 



Transferring 



1. Some three years ago a swarm of bees 

 settled in an inverted soap box and have staid 

 there since. How can X now get them into an 

 ordinary hive? 



2. Will the bees settle down if placed over 

 a hive fixed with frames and foundation 

 combs? OREGON. 



Answers. — 1. If you place a hive with 

 frames and foundation right over the box 

 containing the colony, after having inverted 

 the latter so that the two openings will come 

 together, leaving off the bottom-board of the 

 movable-frame hive, the bees will ascend into 

 the upper hive as soon as the other box is 

 full. This should not be done before spring, 

 when there are flowers in the field. During 

 the winter it would be worse than useless. If 

 the queen does not move up into the upper 

 combs, you may drive her up by smoking and 

 drumming the lower hive. Better still wou.a 

 be to transfer the brood and bees by the 

 methods recommended in "First Lessons," 

 "Thousand Answers," or at still greater 

 length in "Langstroth Revised." 



2. The bees will go up into a hive much 

 more readily than they will go do-wn into it, 

 everything else being equal. The heat ascends 

 from a hive of bees, but does not go down, 

 and in the spring they need heat for the 

 brood. 



Moths 



I have no bees here, but I own several hun- 

 dred colonies of bees in Greece and am much 

 interested to learn the business properly. I 

 had a letter from my father saying that my 

 bees suffer from the moths. Those are the 

 worst enemies we have. Our hives are all 

 skeps, but as soon as I learn the business over 

 here I propose to go back and put them in 

 modern hives. 1 enclose money order for the 

 Bee Journal and "Answers to Thousand Ques- 



tions. What can I do to prevent the moths? 



ILLINOIS. 

 Answer. — The book which you have just or- 

 dered answers your question pretty thorough- 

 ly in pages 13-16, on "Beemoths." In a very 

 few words we can say that moths are injuri- 

 ous only to weak and often to queenless colo- 

 nies — never to strong hives of bees. Of 

 course, in order to control your bees properly, 

 you will need to transfer them from the 

 "skeps" to regular movable-frame hives, for the 

 advantages of the latter are that they enable 

 you to take your hives apart just like a lot of 

 toy building blocks, permitting you to perform 

 any necessary operations. ' 



Increasing 



Would it be a good idea to make an increase 

 in bees in spring, about the time they are 

 ready to swarm? I haven't a good place for 

 my bees to alight if they should swarm, and 

 would not like to lose them. I intend to order 

 my queens and divide my colonies which are 

 about to swarm. TEXAS. 



Answer. — Yes, if you don't want natural 

 swarms and want increase, a good plan is to 

 divide them. j:-erhaps the best way is to put 

 the old hive in a new spot, leaving the queen 

 with one brood and frames of foundation on 

 the old spot. She will thus have all the 

 field bees, and if you give the old colony a 

 new queen it will be but a short time till 

 both are in good shape for harvesting honey. 



Extracted or Comb Honey 



I am in a good location to sell honey to 

 consumers, or retail it. Which do you think 

 would be the most profitable for me to pro- 

 duce, extracted or comb honey? 



WASHINGTON. 

 ....j4nswer. — If you can sell extracted honey 

 for two-thirds of the price of comb honey, it 

 will pay better to produce that kind, for you 

 can produce it for less than two-thirds the 

 cost. 



Creosote on Queens 



Will bees occupy hives which have been 

 dipped in creosote to preserve them, in place 

 of painting? WYOMING. 



Answer. — You can transfer a colony of bees, 

 comb, brood, queen and bees into such a hive 

 and have them stay, but it is very doubtful 

 whether you can hive a swarm into it and have 

 them stay. Try it. I never did. 



Hiving Two-Pound Packages 



Last June I got 2 pounds bees and untested 

 queen from Alabama. Never having had any 

 experience myself with bees. I got a neighbor 

 boy to put them in the hives. He took off the 

 top and put them in on top of brood frames. 

 They stuck around for three or four days and 

 then flew away. Now what I wish to know is, 

 exactly how to put bees purchased by the 

 pound) into a hive, and just how to release 

 the queen. I wish someone would answer this 

 in your Journal before next May. 



PENNSYLANIA. 



Answer. — Bees want a cavity, in the dark, 

 for their home. So opening a hive and ex- 

 posing its entire inside to the light of day 

 is perhaps the least satisfactory way of get- 

 ting them to go in and stay. 



If the queen is caged separately from the 

 bees, as is often the case, place her cage at 

 the entrance of the hive, or, if the bottom- 

 board is not fastened, place the cage on the 

 bottom-board a short distance back of the en- 

 trance, so the bees may smell her odor from 

 the entrance. Then place the cage containing 

 the bees, open, with its opening in front of the 

 hive entrance. If they hesitate to go in, you 

 may shake a few of them so as to get them 

 started. The whole swarm might be shaken 

 in front after giving them a little syrup, so 

 they will not be inclined to take wing. 



A comb of brood, or even a dry comb, inside 

 of the hive is a great inducement for them 

 to go in. Of course, after the bees have gone 

 in, the queen should be released among them. 



The hiving of bees by the pound is really 

 the hiving of a swarm. What is suita le in 

 the one case is usually suitable in the other. 



Getting a Start 



1. How bad I best work, with one big colony, 

 for next spring's run, beginning all over again? 

 My idea was to buy an old colony for win- 

 tering, give careful early feeding in spring 

 and introduce an Italian queen as early as 

 temperature will permit. 



2. Could I transfer them in spring to a mod- 

 ern Jumbo hive and at the same time supple- 

 ment them with a pound of bees' 



WISCONSIN. 



Answers.— 1. This should have been an- 

 swered sooner. If you have bought a big col- 

 ony for winter, it should have enough honey 

 to winter, especially if wou place the hive in 

 the cellar. If they do not have enough food, 

 when spring comes, you may give them some 

 warm syrup, from time to time. As to intro- 

 ducing an Italian queen as soon as temperature 

 will permit, it is all right. But be sure you 

 have the Italian queen, alive, on hand, before 

 destroying the old queen. 



2. If you desire it, the colony may be 

 transferred to a Jumbo hive during fruit bloom. 

 But unless they are very weak it will hardly 

 do to buy a pound of bees to give them. There 

 is always more or less danger of fighting, when 

 uniting bees, and a pound of strange bees, fa- 

 tigued from a long trip, would not do much 

 good. It might pay better to buy that pound 

 of bees and that queen in spring and start a 

 new colony with them. 



Qpeen Find Hive — Clean up Frames- 

 Drones 



1. If a queen bee drops on the ground from 

 a comb, will she find her own hive? 



2. Will it incite the bees to robbery if we 

 raise the hive one inch in hot weather? 



3. Is it proper, after extracting, to put the 

 comb out to the bees to clean up? 



4. I had two colonies go wrong last summer. 

 They all turned to small drones. Do you think 

 they had a laying worker-bee? I couU not 

 find any queen. What should I do in such a 

 case? 



5. When bees are put in hives that have 

 dead sealed brood, will they clean out dead 

 brood? BEGINNER. 



/Answers. — 1. The queen is rather helpless in 

 finding her home, when she happens to drop 

 on the ground, for the only time she has 

 taken flight was when she went out to mate, or 

 perhaps when she went out with the swarm. Be- 

 "sides, she is usually heavy with eggs and flies 

 with difliculty. Usually when she drops to the 

 ground some of her bees find her and care 

 for her. But I should be very careful to see 

 that she was home safe. 



2. If we raise the hive In hot weather when 

 it is overflowing with bees (and there is no 

 need to do it at other times) there will be no 

 danger of robbing. 



3. Practical men are not all agreed upon the 

 course to pursue. If the combs are put out, 

 when all is quiet, far enough from any hive 

 to avoid inducing robbing of a nearby colony 

 afterwards, there will be no trouble, though 

 it certainly induces bees to seek easy spoils. 

 But the worst part of it is that you may feed 

 youi- neighbors' bees as well as yours. The 

 other way is to put the supers on strong colo- 

 nies, a little after sunset. 



1. These colonies cither became queenless and 

 had drone-laying workers, or their queens were 

 drone-layers. Such colonies bad best be united 

 with stronger ones, for they are of no value. 



0. Belter cut out the dead brood, although 

 they usually clean it out. There is always a 

 doubt lurking about dead brood. It is carrion, 

 at best. 



