366 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



September 



(T 



THE EDITOR'S ANSWERs| 



When stamp is enclosed, the editor will answer questions by mail. Since 

 we have far more questions than we can print in the space available, several 

 months sometimes elapse before answers appear. 



Willow Herb 



I notice in the A B C of Bee Culture an 

 article about a plant called willow herb as ue- 

 ing a large producer of nectar. Would --e 

 very thankful if you or some, of your cor- 

 respondents would give nie some information 

 about it ; also where it can be obtained. Am 

 starting with bees and \vish to get all the in- 

 formation I can. We have just started an 

 irrigation system here and hope to soon have 

 plenty of i-lfalfa growing around us. The 

 farmers here seem to prefer that for their 

 hay crop, but if there are other plants that 

 wui bloom at different times, am eager to learn 

 what they are, so as to make the season of 

 honey flow longer- Will say I am very much 

 interested in the Journal and read it from 

 start to finish as soon as it arrives. 



OREGON. 



Answer. — Willow herb or fireweed (£/>i- 

 lobium angustifolium) is just a weed growing 

 in the burnt-over regions of Michigan and 

 Wisconsin as well as in Canada. It is said to 

 grow some in the northern States of the Pa- 

 cific Coast. It yields delicious honey, but it 

 has never been grown artificially, and wc 

 doubt whether it would pay to try to grow it, 

 as it seems to succeed only where the land has 

 been cleared by fire. It cannot be considered 

 in the same class with alfalfa. The latter is 

 a very useful fodder plant. To buy the seea 

 of willow herb, try some of the large seed 

 houses in any of the large cities. There is 

 certainly very little demand for it. 



Moving Location of Bees in a House- 

 Apiary 



I have 9 hives of bees in a house-apiary; they 

 are placed on a stand along one side of the 

 house. This stand is becoming weak, so I 

 built a strong one on the other sid-- of the 

 house. Now I would like to move my bees to 

 this side. Will you please advise me how best 

 to do this without losing the field bees, and 

 when is the best time of the season to do it? 

 NEW HAMPSHIRE. 



Answer- — This is probably one of the most 

 difficult problems in beekeeping. You can move 

 bees easily, but to move them a short distance, 

 especially from one side of a house to the 

 other, is difficult to do without losing bees. 



If you think you can afford to do it, move 

 them after smoking them heavily, early some 

 morning; then if many bees return t'j the old 

 spot, move them back in the evening. When 

 you move them for the third time, 'he follow- 

 ing morning, or that same evening, they will 

 feel like looking around before leaving, and 

 you will lose but few. Placing a slanting 

 board in front of the hives, after moving them, 

 helps to make them look back as they issue 

 from the door. The important thing is to let 

 them realize plainly that something is wrong. 

 The better they realize it, the less of them wi.. 

 make the mistake of returning to the old spot. 



Cuban Honey for Feeding 



Buy up some of the fine white honey here 

 in Cuba that was not handled properly by the 

 Cubans and others because extracted too 

 green, and ship it to the States, locate near 

 some live town or city and feed this honey to 

 the bees to produce comb honey for peddling. 

 What price could we pay for this kind of ex- 

 tracted honey when we sold the comb honey 

 for 15 cents per pound? In other words, how 

 much extracted honey does it take to produce 

 a pound of comb honey? My experience here 

 was that it takes 7 lbs. or better of honey 

 to produce 2 pounds of comb honey; but I do 

 not think that my conditions were ideal for 



this work. \»ili amber honey be lighter in 

 color after the bees work it uver again? 1 

 thought it was some lighter than honey not 

 worked over. CUBA. 



Answer. — This proposition is hardly practi- 

 cable. First, the unripe honey th-is bought 

 may be fermented in such a way as to make 

 the honey unpalatable, after it is worked over 

 by the bees. The chance is also that there 

 might be honey of different grades and dif- 

 ferent colors in the lot. But more than all 

 is the probability of loss in feeding it to the 

 bees. Of all the enterprises of this kind that 

 I ever saw, none succeeded, because of the 

 great trouble of feeding it back. Ideal condi- 

 tions are rarely found, and the probable hap- 

 pening would be that the oees would con- 

 sume so much of it in comb building and in 

 breeding that it would be unprofitable. .fi.i 

 the experiments ever made indicate this to be 

 the result. 



If there is any change of color in the ma- 

 nipulation of this honey by the bees, I am 

 inclined to think it would make it darker 

 rather than lighter, though I don't know this 

 positively; but just the thickening of it to 

 ripen it would tend to give it more body, and 

 therefore deeper color. If anyone has tried 

 anything of this kind on a large scale and suc- 

 ceeded, we would like to hear from him. 



Water for Bees, Etc. 



1. During a recent hot spell I placed a small 

 can of water by the entrance to one ot my two 

 hives, and a force of bees took water into me 

 hive nearly all day. Can bees be given too 

 much water? 



2. When giving a new or weak colony of bees 

 a frame of brood from a stronger hive, shall 

 I brush all the bees off it into this strong hive 

 before placing the brood frame into the new 

 colony? 



3. A recent morning 1 discovered bees had 

 taken out of hive two larvae and two young bee 

 skeletons; they seemed to be healthy brood, and 

 hive apparently healthy also Why were larvae 

 taken out of hive? CALIFORNIA. 



Answers. — 1. No; bees will take only what 

 they need of water in nursing the brood, it 

 is not known to be used for any other purpose 

 than to dilute the honey for brood food- 



2. If the honey crop is on, you may give the 

 comb of brood with all the young bees on it, 

 making sure that you are not also giving the 

 queen. If there is no crop on, at the time, it 

 is better to brush all the bees off or shake them 

 off. Usually, when you shake them off very 

 few bees are left except very young bees, and 

 those are most likely to be accepted. 



3. I don't know. I suggest that there may 

 have been a moth web passing by the cells 

 containing those grubs or immature bees, and 

 that the bees had to remove them in order to 

 repair the damage. This is only a guess. 



Royal Jelly 



Please explain how artificial royal jelly is 

 made when none is to be had and a person 

 wants to rear queens artificially. 



NEW \ORK. 



Answer. — While several parties have recom- 

 mended different things to take the place of 

 royal jelly, we would not recommend anything 

 that the bees did not make themselves. 



Royal jelly was long thought to be quite dif- 

 ferent from the pap fed to the worker larvx. 

 But it is becoming more and more evident that 



there is but little difference, if any, except in 

 quantity, between the pap given to the queen 

 larvs during the entire time of their growth 

 and that given to the larvae of workers during 

 the first three days of their life as grubs. That 

 is why we find, as Schirach informed us, as 

 early as 1771, or 150 years ago, that the bees 

 may rear queens from any larvie not ov-.- 3 

 days old. Huber confirmed this and insisted 

 on the fact that the bees generally select lar- 

 va 3 days old to rear queens. After that age 

 they are fed on coarser food. 



I see no reason why you may not use the 

 pap found in any cell containing a young 

 grub, as royal jelly. There a i always plenty 

 of young larvic n hives *hat are breeding, at 

 the time when queen rearing may be carried 

 on. True, it is not so plentiful in those cells 

 as in real queen-cells, for the bees always feed 

 the young queens plentifully, and that seems to 

 be essential to their growth and perfection. 



Concerning some of the experiments made 

 and the conclusions drawn therefrom, in re- 

 gard to royal jelly, read paragraph 491 of the 

 "Hive & Honey Bee, Revised." 



If, however, you prefer to have real royal 

 jelly, you may follow the Pellett plan, Demaree 

 fashion. Leave the queen of the colony on the 

 comb where she was found, in an empty hive 

 with foundation, on the old stand. Above that 

 put a queen excluder, then an extracting super 

 of combs, and above this the original hive con- 

 taining the brood. "Twenty -four hours later 

 the bees are given a frame of cell cups con- 

 taining larvae. These cups are placed in the 

 hive in the same manner as usual, except that 

 they have no royal jelly. A thin syrup made 

 with sugar and water is then poured freely 

 over the tops of these frames. The worker 

 bees gorge themselves with this syrup and 

 since the brood in the upper chamber is so far 

 from the queen below, the bees are easily 

 stimulated to start queen cells Usually from 

 one to three of these dry cells will be ac- 

 cepted, and two days later will furnish an 

 abundant supply of royal jelly for grafting pur- 

 poses." 



Doolittle appears to have been of our opin- 

 ion when he discussed the matter of royal 

 jelly He wrote: 



"I claim that the food fed to all larvae, up 

 to the time they are 36 hours old, is exactly 

 the same, whether the larvae are designed for 

 drones, queens or workers." 



The important thing is to have the bees sup- 

 plied plentifully with honey and pollen at 

 the time when they are rearing queen-cells, for 

 they certainly cannot supply royal jelly or 

 pap, as plentifully as is should be furnished, 

 unless they are in thriving cicrumstances. 



Pails for Honey 



Do new tin pails have to be washed before 

 filling with honey ? 



I have always washed them with hot soap 

 water, then scalded them and drained and set 

 them out in the hot sun to dry; but always 

 find a little rust starts in drying, and when I 

 get 50 pails or more washed the water is nearly 

 as clean as when I started. 



Why nut dust them and be done with it? Is 

 there any harmful chemical used in the manu- 

 facturing of these pails which has to be 

 washed out? MICHIGAN. 



Answer. — Certainly, it is sufficient to either 

 wipe or dust the inside of the pails to make 

 them fit to contain honey. There is, however, 

 a recommendation to make: Do not use pails 

 coated with lead-tin. Lead-tin is of duller color 

 than real tin, and is rarely used, but we have 

 been warned by chemists that the lead in such 

 tin might decompose and become poisonous. 



It is a peculiar, but significant fact that 

 honey does not rust tin pails a sugar syrup 



