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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



April 1 



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QUESTIONS 



ANSWERS TO J 



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BROOD - COMBS FILLED WITH HONEY AND 

 POLLEN. 



Question. — Please answer the following in 

 any bee-paper published in the English lan- 

 guage, as we take them all. Here in Jamaica, 

 just before the beginning of the main hone}- 

 flow, our bees fill up the brood-frames with 

 honey and pollen. We take them out, putting 

 in others, and these are filled. We know the 

 queens to be good, young, and vigorous. We 

 put supers on, but it does not help matters 

 much. Whose fault is it — the bees', queen's, 

 or ours ? 



Answer. — While this question comes from 

 Jamaica, I thought it would not be out of 

 place to answer it in these columns, as Glean- 

 ings not only has many subscribers there, but 

 many of us here in the United States are trou- 

 bled in a similar way with pollen, if not with 

 honey. During the bloom of hard maple and 

 the wild grape, I often have combs so filled 

 with pollen that they seem almost useless, and 

 others are bothered in the same way, some to 

 an extent great enough so that I heard a man 

 at a bee-convention once offer !?50 for a ma- 

 chine that would remove pollen from the 

 combs without harming them. I used to 

 remove these frames of polltn, as our ques- 

 tioner says he does, but instead of putting in 

 empty combs I put in a dummy or division- 

 board in place of the frames removed ; and 

 when the sections were on, this would throw 

 a greater force of bees into the sections, and 

 thus, as soon as any honey came from the 

 fields, it would go into the sections, thus re- 

 lieving the pressure of honey from the brood- 

 combs. But later on I would simply shove 

 these combs of pollen back toward the side of 

 the hive, by removing an outside comb if 

 necessary, and place a frame of comb founda- 

 tion between the pollen and brood, and where 

 honey enough was coming from the fields to 

 cause them to draw out this foun lation the 

 queen would fill it with eggs before the cells 

 were deep enough for ttie bees to do much 

 work at storing either honey or pollen in 

 them, and thus I had brood where I should 

 get only pollen were I to give an empty comb 

 in place of the foundation. There is always 

 something about drawing out foundation or 

 building comb that sets the queen to laying 

 more vigorously than where no comb is built ; 

 and where combs can be drawn or built, there 

 is usually no trouble in having them well fill- 

 ed with brood : and where young brood is 

 maturing rapidly much pollen is used, thus 

 keeping the combs from being overloaded 

 with pollen, and rearing a lot of bees for the 

 harvest. But with us, such yields of pollen 

 rarely last more than a week or ten days, after 

 which the bees generally are anxious for brood; 

 and what appeared combs nearly spoiled be- 

 cause they were so full of pollen assumes a 

 different aspect very soon ; and by the time 



the main honey harvest arrives, there is little 

 more pollen than is necessary in the hive. 



Just why the queens do not breed when 

 pollen comes in to abundantly is a mystery I 

 have never been able to solve, though I have 

 spent much thought and study on the subject. 

 The nearest I can come to the matter is that, 

 for some reason, the bees fail to feed the queen 

 on the stimulating food usually given at all 

 times when she is laying very prolifically, and 

 all know she lays only as she is fed and cared 

 for. When laying very prolifically we see 

 bees offering the queen food ever}' few min- 

 utes ; but at these times when pollen is com- 

 ing in so as to crowd the broed it is a rare 

 thing that I see the bees feeding the queen. 

 For this reason I should say that the fault lay 

 in the bees more than in the questioner or the 

 queen. If he can devise some plan or way 

 whereby the bees can be caused to feed the 

 queen abundantly at the time when his brood 

 is being crowded with honey and pollen, he 

 will have the key to the situation, and be 

 enabled to turn these things to a good account 

 as they are changed over into brood. It is 

 possible that a little very thin or diluted 

 sweet fed at such times would have the desired 

 effect, if fed just at night, this causing the 

 bees to feed the queen, as it generally does at 

 all times when so fed. Were I to have anoth- 

 er season when the combs are crowded with 

 pollen I would try it and see what the result 

 would be. There are times (when it is gener- 

 ally cool and stormy) when the bees will not 

 feed the queen nor perfect any eggs into larvae, 

 no matter how hard you coax ; and this time 

 of pollen might prove like these; but I should 

 sooner think otherwise. 



SCHOLZ (OR GOOD) CANDY. 



Question. — Jamaica, again, wants to know 

 my treatment of a strong colony previous to 

 giving the cell-cups, and also just how I make 

 my candy for shipping queeus, as only four 

 out of the forty odd sent him last year arrived 

 in any other than a good condition, and these 

 four were fumigated to death in the mails, 

 when the scare about the yellow fever was on. 

 He says, " It would be dollars in our pockets 

 if more of your queeii-breede . s knew how to 

 make C'ood candy." 



Answer. — A part of the time I buy this 

 c uniy . f The A. 1. Root Co., and a part of the 

 time I make it myself ; and I do uot know 

 that there is any difference between that made 

 by them and that made by myself, when first 

 made. But with either, when shipping queens 

 where they must go in hot weather, or go 

 from our cool climate into a hot one, as in 

 going to Jamaica or the Austr lian colonies, I 

 take the candy and knead into it some very fine 

 granulated sugar, to the amount of about 

 one-sixth of its uulk, and this granulated 

 sugar makes the candy "hold up" in place, 

 no matter what the weather, while at the same 

 time it does not take from its moisture. 



To first make the candy I use good powder- 

 ed sugar, setting it near the stove for four to 

 six hours, till thoroughly warmeei through, 

 when some good thick extracted honey (of 

 any kind which is wholesome to the bees i is 



