1920 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



95 



vessel. This is much better than just 

 filling the hole with solder. Cut off 

 the protruding part of the nail and 

 job is done. For larger holes the 

 same method can be employed, only 

 use a copper rivet with the head in- 



side and washer out. If the solder 

 is well "sweated" with this it will last 

 as long as the pot. Cut off the pro- 

 truding part of the rivst. 



MAJOR SHALLARD. 

 New South Wales. 



DR. MILLER'S ANSWERS 



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Answered by the Editor during the illness of Dr. Miller. 



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Honeydew 



I have been awaiting to see or learn some- 

 thing out of the Journal in regard to honey- 

 dew. My bees have been dying off gradually 

 all winter ; my neighbor beekeeper has lost 

 half of his colonies up to date.. I am in- 

 formed if bees carry the honeydew into their 

 brood-nest and live on it> it kills them. If 

 any of our beekeepers know of any remedy to 

 overcome this I would like to hear from them. 

 SUBSCRIBER. 



Answer. — I know of no remedy but the re- 

 moval of the honeydew and replacing of it 

 with good honey or sugar syrup. If it is not 

 too late, you might feed the colonies with good 

 sugar syrup made by diluting 2 pounds of 

 sugar with a pound of water and feeding it to 

 them warm, in a feeder, right over the combs. 

 They will use that first and will leave the 

 honeydew in the combs. Most of the bee 

 books advise the removal of honeydew in the 

 fall. 



Moving Bees — Transferring 



1. As I have a hive of bees that is about 80 

 rods from the house, which I would like to 

 have brought closer, I would like to know how 

 and when is the best time to move them, and 

 how to do with them after moving, so as to 

 not lose any bees. 



2. I would also like to know when is the best 

 time to transfer from a box hive to a movable- 

 frame hive, and which do you tLink is the best 

 method of doing it ILLINOIS. 



Answers. — 1. Wait till the warm days of 

 spring. Then ciOse the hive in the evening. 

 In the morning drum them vigorously so as to 

 frighten them. Then carry them to the new 

 spot and place a slanting board over the en- 

 trance so as to compel them to take notice of 

 the change of location. Usually when they 

 have been very much disturbed they take note 

 of their place, as does a new swarm. But 

 some bees among the oldest often insist on re- 

 turning to the old spot. 



2. The modern way to transfer is to wait 

 till the beginning of the honey crop, drive 

 the bees and queen into a box and hive them 

 into the new hive just like a swarm, placing 

 the old hive on top of their new home or at 

 the rear, for 21 days, or until all the brood 

 hatches. The more thorough way is to trans- 

 fer all the brood combs also and destroy the 

 old hive. For the latter method, see the text 

 books: "First Lessons in Beekeeping," ' or 

 "Langstroth," It would take more space than 

 can be spared in the Journal. 



Fermented Honey in Cells 



I noticed last August, when extracting 

 honey, that the sealed honey from at least one 

 colony was fermenting. December 22 I ex- 

 tracted the honey taken from a number of 

 hives after the flow stopped and I found prac- 

 tically every cell in the super from hive No. 

 43 was fermented and would throw out say 

 6 to 12 small air bubbles from each cell as 

 soon as uncapped. The cappings slipped from 

 the knife as if they were greased and the 

 honey was very thin, though it \.as sealed. It 

 is in an open jar and has become decidedly sour. 

 I put a bucket of it in a hot water bath; the 

 water boiled a few minutes, then all was set 

 on the back of the stove. When cold this 

 honey had little or no foam at top, but looks 

 and tastes like it had a big lot of pollen in it. 



1. Will this colony winter well? 



2. Will its honey ferment again next season? 

 I know that one colony had this trouble last 

 year (191S), too, perhaps this one. 



3. Do you want some of this honey and 

 some of the comb it was in for examination? 



4. Should I transfer them into a clean hive 

 next summer, or reqiieen? tr both? 



I got a poor quality of honeydew in June 

 and a good crop from heartsease later, over 

 8,000 pounds in all. MISSOURI. 



Answers. — 1. It is difficult to guess, but my 

 guess would be that the colony would suffer 

 very much, if its honey is all fermented as 

 described. 



2. If the conditions are as mentioned on 

 page 422 of December last, the honey of next 

 season would probably ferment again if stored 

 in those cells. . It seems as if the germs of 

 fermentation remain. At least that was the 

 experience of Mr. Kenyon in similar circum- 

 stances. 



3. We will be glad to examine a sample of 

 it. 



4. If the trouble is bad, it might be well to 

 put the colony on new combs next year. Re- 

 queening seems absolutely unnecessary, and, 

 in fact, useless. The queen is not at fault. 



Division — Rearing Queens — Killing 

 Drones 



1. Can I split my colonies in half, putting 

 4 frames full of foundation, at the beginning 

 of the season, in another hive, and have good 

 swarms? 



2. Is it necessary to buy queens, or will they 

 rear their own queens? 



3. I had lots of drones in my hives, but I 

 put on drone traps and killed them all. Will 

 the bees eventually rear a young queen, when 

 the old one is worthless? MISSOURI. 



Answers. — 1. Yes, you can split your colo- 

 nies in the way you suggest, but you must 

 watch them so as to make sure that each side 

 has all it needs. If you don't seek and find 

 the queen, you must be sure and have young 

 larvse less than 3 days old in each division, 

 so they can raise a queen. 



2. They will rear a queen, if you do as 

 above suggested. But if you buy queens to 

 use when you divide, it will be better. You 

 must make sure in what half the queen is. 



3. Your way of killing drones is the most 

 expensive way. Yes, the bees will usually 

 rear a new queen when the old one is too 

 old. You need to get a bee book of some 

 kind and read it. It will explain many things 

 to you that can't be answered in this depart- 

 ment. 



Miscellaneous Questions 



1. Next year I want to use a shallow ex- 

 tracting super and comb-honey super on the 

 same hive. The sections will contain full 

 sheets and the extracting super will contain 

 only narrow strips for chunk honey. Now 

 which super shall I place on the top if I put 

 them both on at the same time? 



2. You dequeen for ten days and have the 

 same honey and it cures the colony of Euro- 

 pean foulbrood. and yet if you would feed 

 any of that honey to a healthy colony they 

 would catch the disease. Please explain why 

 one colony can eat it and the other can't. 



3. If one should buy a pound of bees with 

 queen and afterwards change places of the 



hives between it and a strong colony, will 

 the returning field bees kill the queen, or will 

 they take hold and help build up the colony? 



4. Criticise the following for transferring 

 from a box hive to a movable frame hive. 

 Just wait until they swarm. The box has no 

 bottom. Turn it bottom side up and put a 

 queen excluder over it. Hive the swarm and 

 place it (minus bottom) on top of excluder, 

 stopping up all entrances except through the 

 hive( of course this will have an opening). 

 At the end of nine days the brood below will 

 require no more attention, so remove the ex- 

 cluder and put on an escape ooard, bottom 

 upwards, so the bees can get up but not down. 

 If the virgin attempts to swarm she can be 

 caught in an Alley trap. Would there be any 

 honey remaining in the box when the brood 

 all emerged? 



5. If a swarm emerges from a hive, which 

 we will call A, and a couple of days later 

 a swarm comes from another part of the 

 yard and is hived in A, will the new swarm 

 tear down the cells already started in A? 



6. How can a person put an observation 

 hive in a window and not mutilate the win- 

 dow? 



7. If one puts a tight division board in the 

 middle of an 8-frame hive and has on each 

 side a full 4-frame nucleus, will the bees 

 work as well in the super as eight frames 

 under one queen? 



8. Would one need to use any precaution 

 in uniting them except to remove the division 

 board ? 



9. Will bees in a 10-frame Jumbo hive lay 

 up as much comb honey as in a 10-frame 

 Langstroth size? PENNSYLVANIA. 



Answers. — 1. Put the extracting super on 

 first. As soon as the bees get to work well in 

 it, raise it up and put the comb honey super 

 under it. If you insist on jutting them both 

 on at the same time, put the comb honey super 

 at the bottom. 



2. Are you not getting the two kinds of 

 foulbrood mixed? It is with American foul- 

 brood that the honey is dangerous. If there 

 were germs of i-.uropean foulbrood in the 

 honey, then, of course, we would have to 

 starve the bees also. But it does not seem 

 to appear necessary. 



3. They will not give any trouble if the 

 crop is on. If there was no honey in the field 

 they might cause trouble, but n-t positively. 



4. The success of this will depend in a meas- 

 ure upon the season. It might do in a warm 

 summer. As to whether there will be any 

 honey left in the lower box, depends upon bow 

 much there was when it was turned over, and 

 also how large a crop has been harvested in 

 the meantime. It would be a puzzle to answer 

 it one way or the other. 



5. It may and it may not. In a crowding 

 season the cells would probably be preserved. 



6. Raise the window enough for a bee 

 passage and put a block of wood in the aper- 

 ture, on each side of the bee passage. An 

 opening an inch wide is sufficient for an ob- 

 servation hive. 



7. Probably they will. Have never tried it; 

 try it yourself. 



8. Not if there is a honey crop. At other 

 times they should be thoroughly smoked before 

 removing the board, and it would be better to 

 kill one of the queens the day before. 



9. That depends on the strength of the col- 

 ony. But with colonies of equd strength, as 

 there is more room for honey in the Jumbo, 

 they may put more honey in the supers of the 

 Langstroth. I judge that is what you want 

 to know, though you don't exactly say it. 



Transferring — Cross Bees — Large 



Hives 



1. I have 12 hives, 11 of which are in stand- 

 ard dovetailed hives, and the other in a box- 

 hive. I would like to know your best way 

 to transfer the bees of the box hive into a 

 standard 10-frame dovetailed hive. How 

 could I transfer the hive? I do not wish to 

 save the old combs and place them in the new 

 frames, as some do when they transfer. I 



