376 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



November 



their heads partly cut out and were 

 provided with four porcelain knobs, 

 such as are used in electric light 

 wiring. These knobs served as feet 

 at the bottom. Over the top a piece 

 of quarter inch wire mesh screen was 

 placed. 



For healing purposes two Ch. Hat 

 type electric heating strips, about two 

 feet long, were suspended from the 

 top. Connection was made to the 

 lighting circuit, since this type of 

 steel-clad heater required together 

 only 1,000 watts, or the equivalent of 

 about ten 50-watt lamp bulbs. A snap 

 switch was arranged to turn the cur- 

 rent on and off. The heat circulated 

 vertically from the floor up through 

 the two cans and out at the top. The 

 cost of each of these electric heater 

 strips was $2.75, and the switch 6Sc, 

 making a very cheap outfit. 



Wisconsin. 



WHAT IS THE TROUBLE? WHO 

 CAN TELL? 



I have five colonics of bees placed 

 out near town. Last year we took off 

 the surplus honey and it was espe- 

 cially fine flavored. I put it in pails 

 and didn't hurry about selling it. 

 Later one pail was sold and the buyer 

 brought it back and said I must have 

 made a mistake and given her Karo. 

 I examined the rest of the pails and 

 they were all tainted with this Karo 

 taste. I buried it. 



This year I took off 110 pounds of 

 honey from the same colonies, ex- 

 tracted it, and it was as fine as I ever 

 tasted. This honey was removed in 

 August. Last week one of the men 

 who is working for me wanted to 

 know where I got that pail of sor- 

 ghum. I looked at the rest of the 

 pails and they have all done the same 

 as last year. There was foam on it, 

 and there is a very distinct sorghum 

 taste. Last year it tasted like Karo, 

 but this year it was like sorghum, al- 

 though perhaps it will arrive at the 

 Karo stage later, providing I don't 

 bury it. I was present when the honey 

 was removed from the hive. The 

 frames were all well capped, and this 



year f took special care to see that 

 nothing was taken from those hives 

 unless it was well capped. The flow- 

 ers in that locality, as far as I know, 

 have been white and yellow sweet 

 clover and alfalfa. 



If I remember correctly in the 

 "Answers" column of the American 

 Bee Journal, mention was made of a 

 ferment in honey which might live 

 over from year to year. What can 

 you tell me about this? I have 100 

 pounds of this honey and want to 

 make some use of it. K.^NSAS. 



We pass this question on to our 

 readers and will be glad of an ex- 

 planation of good white honey turn- 

 ing to sorghum or Karo. 



WASPS IN A BEEHIVE 



By Frank C. Pellett 

 In the December, 1919, issue of this 

 journal we published an account of 

 a colony of yellow jackets which had 

 occupied a beehive in the apiary of 

 D. W. Spangler at Longmont, Colo. 

 In that case the wasps occupied the 

 body of the hive and made use of the 

 regular hive entrance. On a recent 

 visit to an apiary at Concord, Tenn., 

 in company with Prof. Bentley and a 

 party of beekeepers, the writer was 

 much interested in a hive where a 

 family of red wasps, identified by 

 Prof. Bentley as Vespa vulgaris, had 

 established themselves in the cover. 

 It was a double cover with a space 

 about 4 inches deep between the upper 

 and lower boards. Evidently the 

 wasps had been present for a long 

 time, as the nest was much the larg- 

 est, for this particular species, ever 

 seen by any member of the party. One 

 of the illustrations shows how fully it 

 occupied the cover, l)eing more than 

 IS inches in diameter the largest way. 

 These wasps are commonly found 

 nesting in empty hives in Texas and 

 other southern States, and nests as 

 large across as a tea plate are not un- 

 common. In this case the nest was 

 placed under the cover of an occupied 

 hive, and as the beekeeper removed- 

 the double cover intact in every case, 



he had no idea that such a large col- 

 ony of wasps was present. It was 

 the writer's curiosity to examine thf 

 nest closely that led to removing the 

 lower portion of the cover, thus ex- 

 posing the nest. The second picture 

 shows a few of the wasps resting on 

 their paper combs. 



Nest of red wasps uiuler ;i hive cover 



THE LARGE HIVES AGAIN 



By C. P. Dadant 



"Please tell us how to manage to 

 handle your large hives? After 

 working for years with eight-frame 

 hives, the Dadant hive looks as big 

 as a barn. In the usual system of 

 management there are dozens of oc- 

 casions for moving from place to 

 place : when a swarm is hived, 

 when the bees must be taken into 

 the cellar or removed therefrom, 

 when colonies are to be united, an-d 

 similar operations which would re- 

 quire some lifting of the hives. Also 

 please explain how such operations 

 as uniting and other manipulations 

 which usually require tiering up of 

 hives, are accomplished with the Da- 

 dant hive." 



Illinois. 



Yes, the Dadant hive looks as big 

 as a barn, to the people who are used 

 to small hives like the 8-frame, but 

 after comparing the crop of an 8- 

 frame with that of a 10-frame Da- 

 dant, in the same locality, we are 

 quite willing to put up with the barn. 



"In the usual system of manage- 

 ment there are dozens of occasions 

 for moving the hive from place to 

 place.' Yes, that is true. But the 

 usual system is not ours. 



"When a swarm is hived . . .' Well, 

 we have very few swarms, and we 

 don't handle one hive to your 10, Mr. 

 8-frame man. 



"When the bees must be taken to 

 the cellar . . ., we use a hand-barrow 

 and carry two hives. It takes two 

 men, it is true, but they carry them 

 in this way with more ease than one 

 man will carry an 8-frame hive alone. 



"When colonies are to be united 

 . . ." Remember that since we have 

 larger colonies, we have less need of 

 uniting. We do uniting when there 

 are only 3 or 4 combs with bees in 

 the cluster. On a cool day, this clus- 

 ter is easily lifted out of its hive and 

 carried to the other hive. We place 

 it in the other hive, sometimes be- 

 liind the division-board. There is us- 

 ually room for it, as we unite only 

 weak colonies. But if you want to 

 use the newspaper plan, you need to 

 carry only the brood-chamber of the 

 vvtakcr hive to the other, and with 

 tlie Jumbo or the Modified Dadant 

 body there is but little more weight 

 than with a Langstroth standard 10- 

 frame hive. 



The making of divisions is one of 

 the few operations in which there is 

 any need of carrying hives about the 

 apiary. We have never found it so 

 objectionable that we would l)e wil- 

 ling to put up with a diminutive hive, 

 for we find the results of the deeper 

 and broader hive very superior to 

 those of a small one. 



When we have to haul bees back 

 and forth from a locality of spring 

 crop to another locality of fall flow- 



