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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



December 



pers containing the combs are scattered about 

 the room, they will gain the full benefit of the 

 brimstone. This material can usually be 

 bought already prepared for burning, at any 

 drug store. If you ca..not find it already pre- 

 pared, buy the rough brimstone or sulphur, 

 melt it in a pot over a fire, out-of-doors, ana 

 dip pieces of rag into it. In this shape you 

 can use more or less, as needed. Set it in a 

 pan, on a stone, in the room; light it and leave 

 the room, carefully closing all openings. Re- 

 peat the operation in two or three weeks, in 

 case some eggs have hatched or in case the 

 moths or grubs have not been all killed. Then 

 keep the room well closed, especially at night, 

 for the moth is a night bird. A quarter's 

 worth of brimstone will kill all the moths you 

 may have. 



Yield of Sweet Clover — Foundation — 

 Candy, Etc. 



1. I would like to know if anyone has an 

 idea how much honey there is in an acre of 

 sweet clover? 



2. Can light section foundation be used in 

 the broou-chamber? 



3. If bees have plenty of honey and are kept 

 in a very warm place in winter, what will 

 happen? 



4. How can one make candy for bees? 



a. Which is the most economical in the pro- 

 duction of comb honey, the pound or two- 

 pound boxes? VERMONT. 



Answers. — 1. I do not remember ever to 

 have seen any estimate, but it must be quite a 

 yield. 



2. Yes, if sufficiently reenforced. 



3. Generally it will happen that they will be 

 dead by spring, but in some cases they have 

 been kept over. But there is no gain by it ex- 

 cept the interest of watching them. 



4. You will find particulars in the bee- 

 books, the main thing being to boil the syrup 

 till it will crack when dropped into cold water, 

 but not to burn it. 



5. The 2-pound, provided it can be sold for 

 twice as much as the l-pounu. 



Scent to Draw Bees 



Can you tell me about a scent to draw bees? 

 I am hunting bees out of the woods. 



PENNSYLVANIA. 



Answer. — The odor of burnt wax, especially 

 old combs, is probably the best odor to draw 

 bees from a distance. Of course the wind 

 must be right. The combs should be burnt 

 slowly, so as to make as much smoke as possi- 

 ble. However, if the bees are getting honey 

 out of the fields at the time, nothing will draw 

 them away from this source. 



Cross Combs 



I have two swarms that were hived this 

 spring, one in an 8-frame hive and one in a 

 10-frame hive. These bees have built their 

 comb almost solid in their hive from frame to 

 frame; no chance to take them out. They 

 seem to have some disease; some dead bees 

 in front of each hive early in the morning. 

 Some will come out, try to fly and fall and act 

 crazy till they die. Have seen some fill up on 

 water, start to fly and fall and die in 5 or 10 

 minutes. INDIANA. 



Answer. — You are not the only man who 

 finds that his bees have built their combs criss- 

 cross in the hive. The only way to avoid this 

 trouble is to give your bees full sheets of 

 foundation, well fastened in the frames. It is 

 often better to use a few built combs, taken 

 from other colonies, giving the colonies sheets 

 of foundation to work, as a natural swarra, if 

 hived on foundation, may pull the sheets 

 down even when wired. 



The only way to get your bees onto straight 

 combs is to transfer those combs into other 

 frames, during apple bloom, in spring. That 

 is the best time, as the combs are then light. 



It is difficult to tell, from your description, 



what ails your bees. If only a few drag 

 themselves about in front of the hive, they 

 may simply be old, worn-out bees. If a large 

 number this fall, it may be paralysis, though 

 this does not usually hapi)cn in the fall, in 

 Indiana. If the population of each hive is 

 still very strong, there probably but little 



danger of anything serious and no cause for 

 worry. 



What Size of Hive? 



I am soon to increase my apiary and I can- 

 not decide on a hive — Langstroth or Dadant. 

 1 expect to raise comb and extracted . honey, 

 but would like to have only one kind of hive. 

 The Dadant is too large for comb honey and 

 the Langstroth does not prevent swarming, or 

 produce extracted honey as well as the Dadant. 

 Can I use the Dadant hive all around and on 

 comb honey take out about 3 frames and put 

 in place a division board? KANSAS. 



Answer. — Nothing is more annoying than to 

 have two different sizes of hives in an apiary. 

 We know that by experience. For that rea- 

 son we never advise anyone to change from 

 one style to another. Good use can be made 

 of the Langstroth hive by using a greater num- 

 ber of stories. But the deeper frame has 

 proven better in a number of ways, and espe- 

 cially for wintering. So if you have only a 

 limited number of hives and want to increase 

 largely, you might use your Langstroth hives 

 and frames for supers or for comb-honey pro- 

 duction. Of course, the reduction of the num- 

 ber of frames in the Dadant hive will have as 

 a result the forcing of the bees more readily 

 in the supers. But this gives similar results to 

 those of small hives. Each man must decide 

 for himself what is best in his case. 



Swarms or Nuclei 



I lost two swarms this spring. 1 laid it to 

 the cold weather in the month of May. I shall 

 start again in the siring. Whether to buy 

 lUJi swarms, or just nuclei, is the question. 

 WASHINGTON 



Answer. — The answer to this question de- 

 pends upon the occasions that you may have. 

 Full swarms are much better than nuclei, if 

 they are secured at the right time. But you 

 may be able to uuy nuclei early enough to 

 make good colonies out of them. 



Wintering 



I should like to know your opinion on win- 

 tering a small colony of bees; would you think 

 it advisaole to put them on top of a strong 

 coloi y with a screen between the two? 



NEW YORK. 



Answer. — It might do in the cellar. It does 

 not iiiipress us as practical for out doors 



Moving Hive — Climbing Milkweed 



1. During the swarming season, if a colony 

 is ready to swarm and is moved directly back 

 7 or 8 feet, on a new stand, and a new hive is 

 placed on the old stand exactly like the old 

 hive, and a new queen put into new hive, and 

 old hive made to look entirely different, would 

 field uees go to new hive and queen? 



2. Can you furnish seed of climbing milk- 

 weed; if not, can you tell me where it can be 

 obtained? IOWA. 



Answers. — 1. Yes, the field bees will go to 

 that spot, for that is the only spot they know 

 for their home. The only objections to this 

 method are: 1st. there will be no young bees 

 in that new hive to build comb and help take 

 care of the brood and that is their work. A 

 quart or two of young bees ought to be 

 given the new colony. 2nd, the hive which is 

 removed will have no old bees at all and may 

 need food if the season is backward or cold. 

 Yet much increase is made in just about this 

 manner, with good success, usually. 



2. Wc do not believe it s advisable to in- 

 troduce it in your vicinity, for it appears to 

 be an undesirable pest in the fields. 



Bees Diseased 



My bees have had an ailment similar to 

 Nose ma apis. I sent samples to the Govern- 

 ment Bureau, but they could find nothing 

 wrong. Lost about 25 colonies last year. 

 There is a preserving and jelly factory near 

 me which dumps broken jars and cans of 

 raspl>crry extracts and apple butter, etc near 

 my yard in a hollow. I've seen my bees 

 amongst this stuff. Could that be the cause 

 nf their trouble? They run from their hives 

 and flutter their wings as if tliey had paralysis 

 almost all year around. MISSOURI." 



Answer. — It is possible, but not probable, 

 that the jelly factory has anything to do with 

 the disease of your bees. However, if the 

 disease continues all the year round it would 

 be an indication in that direction. There are 

 evidently several diseases of the adult bees 

 which have not yet been very well diagnosed. 

 We believe that Isle-of Wight disease is due 

 mainly to the damp climate of the British 

 Isles. In this country, constipation, caused by 

 inferior food in winter, has j-robably been the 

 cause of some deaths in spring of a disease 

 similar in appearance to th it caused by the 

 Nosema. It will be advisable for you to note 

 whether there are times when the disease dis- 

 appears and whether those coincide with a 

 stopping of the dumping of the refuse in the 

 ditch in question. We would welcome further 

 information on the subject. 



Putting Queen Above — Mating 



1. In the spring, I am thinking of putting a 

 hive-body above my old one, with a super and 

 excluding-board between. Could I take a cou- 

 ple of frames of brood, with the old queen, out 

 of the lower story and put them in the upper 

 story with frames full of foundation, and, if 

 so, would they rear a new queen below? 



2. Should I leave an entrance in the upper 

 body-hive, or close it up and have just the 

 lower entrance? 



3. Would you advise me to put some supers 

 between the two bodies, or cne between and 

 one above? 



4. Why cannot a queen nute in her own 

 hive? NEW HAMPSHIRE. 



Answers. — 1. Yes. They usually rear queen- 

 cells under those circumstances. 



2. It is not necessary with gueen above. 



3. It will really be better to put supers be- 

 tween the two bodies if you expect the bees 

 to retain two queens for any length of time 

 in the same hive. The tendt ncy is for the 

 bees to kill one of those queens, even when 

 there is a queen excluder between them. 



4. A queen cannot mate in lier own hive, be- 

 cause nature has provided that the sexual 

 organs of the drones require the exercise of 

 flight in order to exude from the abdomen. 

 Mating is impossible except in flight. A 

 queen surrounded with thousands of drones 

 will not mate except on the wing. 



Drone-Brood 



Off and on, in my comb honey, I find sec- 

 tions having drone-brood; otherwise of the 

 best grade. It has been my way to cut this 

 out and put the sections back, hoping that the 

 i)ees would fill them; this rarely is done; the 

 bees preferring to finish up the under edges 

 of such sections and letting them go. The 

 other day it occurred to me that it might be 

 better not to cut out such broud, letting that 

 brood develop and the drone emerge; the 

 cells then being empty, the liees might lui 

 them out with honey. What do you think of 

 this? PENNSYLVANIA. 



Answer. — The reason why the bees did not 

 fill them after cutting out the drone-brood was, 

 probably, because they were nearing the end 

 of the crop and had room in other parts. Al- 

 lowing the drones to hatch, the bees would 

 probably fill those sections with honey. But 

 they would be darkened with the cocoons of 

 the drone-brood and would b> of less value 

 for sale. If this happens much in your hives, 

 better use a queen excluder. 



