1911 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



283 



get the honey, they remain tightly clustered until 

 they die from lack of food. It does not pay to at- 

 tempt to winter weak colonies. All such should be 

 united in the fall, so that there will be good large 

 clusters of bees. Furthermore, the colonies in the 

 fall should be headed by young queens, and there 

 should be a good percentage of young bees in the 

 hive. A large colony of very old bees will die al- 

 most invariably. Very old bees in the fall are not 

 worth much, any way. 



From the symptoms you give, we do not see any 

 evidence of disease; but if bees are dying so rapid- 

 ly In your locality it would be well for you to keep 

 careful watch of the brood in the summer time, 

 and to see that it is healthy. If you find the brood 

 dying ofl rapidly you should investigate at once, 

 and send a sample of it to Dr. E. F. Phillips, in 

 charge of apiculture, Bureau of Entomology, De- 

 partment of Agriculture, Washington, D. C, who 

 will look it over and report to you, without charge, 

 the cause of the trouble or disease, if such it is. 



The substance resembling cotton that you men- 

 tion is probably the web of bee-moth larvae. You 

 can give such combs to strong colonies, one at a 

 time, to clean up; but you must be careful not to 

 give more than one comb, or possibly two at the 

 most, to anyone colony. Good strong colonies of 

 bees, especially if they are Italians, are rarely trou- 

 bled by moths. We do not think that fumigating 

 by means of burning sulphur would do any good, 

 nor any harm either, for that matter. 



To get a start again, perhaps you had better cut 

 out the worst of the combs, meU them up for wax, 

 and, after cleaning up the inside of the hives, scrap- 

 ing them, etc., put full sheets of comb foundation 

 in the frames and put your new colonies or swarms 

 that you buy into hives so equipped, reserving the 

 best of the old combs that you keep over to be 

 cleaned up later. If there has been any trouble 

 with brood dying, however, in your community, 

 we would not use the old combs again under any 

 consideration, but would cut them out, melt them 

 up for wax, and fill the frames with full sheets of 

 comb foundation instead. — Ed.] 



Is Spring Dwindling Caused by the Loss of the 

 Queen ? 



A good deal has been said in Gleanings about 

 spring dwindling. While I am not an extensive 

 bee-keeper, possibly my experience this spring 

 may offer some suggestions as to the cause of dwin- 

 dling. I had eight colonies last fall which were 

 packed by a method described on page 207, April 1, 

 1910, with sealed covers, having lJ4-inch bee-space 

 above the frames. I placed the hives six Inches 

 apart on a platform eight inches above ground, ten 

 inches from an out-building, the spaces between 

 being packed with dry leaves, with a tar-paper roof 

 to furnish protection. Nevertheless, I lost 50 per 

 cent. Two colonies died from starvation, as there 

 was no honey in either hive: the other two had at 

 least 20 lbs. of honey left In the brood-chamber, but 

 the dead bees were scattered all over the hive and 

 throughout the open and empty cells. They lived 

 until about two weeks ago. When I noticed they 

 were dead, I took out the frames, and was very 

 careful to make a thorough examination of the 

 dead bees for the purpose of finding the queen, but 

 without success in either hive. In the summer 

 time, too, a colony without a queen will dwindle 

 in three or four weeks until there are hardly any 

 bees In the hive; therefore I fully believe that 

 spring dwindling is, in a measure, due to the loss 

 of the queen during winter time. 



In regard to the bees dying as they did In the last 

 two hives, I think it was due to lack of ventilation, 

 as their entrances were contracted to ^x6 inches, 

 while the other four which I had left had an en- 

 trance of %x8 inches, and wintered perfectly with 

 scarcely any loss. I have come to the conclusion 

 that the colonies which were lost did not get air 

 enough, and the bees scattered in the hive and 

 then froze to death. Hereafter I will see that my 

 hives have an opening of at least %x8 inches. Is an 

 entrance of this size too large? and am I right in 

 what I have said about spring dwindling? 



Frank Langohk. 



Columbia City, Ind., April 3. 



[A colony or colonies without queens are liable 

 to die, either in the winter or in the spring. I do 

 not think you will need to go much further than 

 the queens to find the source of your trouble, in 



the case of the two colonies that survived along 

 until spring, and then dwindled away. The »fact 

 that they had entrances more contracted than the 

 others, we do not think had very much to do with 

 the matter. Of course, when colonies die for want 

 of stores we do not need to theorize about it one 

 way or the other; but our experience has been 

 that a colony will consume more stores, and some- 

 times starve to death, because of too wide open an 

 entrance, or insufficient packing. 



You speak of another condition — that your hives 

 wei'e put on a platform eight inches above the 

 ground. If you had no slanting boards up from 

 the ground tj the entrances of the hives you would 

 lose large numbers of bees in the spring that 

 would fly close to the hive, and strike the ground, 

 too chilled to fly any further, but not too chilled to 

 crawl Into the entrance providing they had a run- 

 way. It is all right to put hives up ofl the ground; 

 but there should be some sort of runway from the 

 ground to the hive.— Ed.] 



Transferring by Placing the Old Hive Above the 

 New One, with a Queen- excluder Between. 



When transferring, how would it do to place a 

 new hive with combs or full sheets of foundation on 

 the old stand, and shake the bees, including the 

 queen, before the entrance, allowing them to run 

 in; then place a queen-excluder over this new hive, 

 and on top put the old hive? In five days look over 

 the old combs above in the old hive, and cut out 

 the queen-cells if any have been started. By this 

 plan would not the old combs above be practically 

 vacated after 21 days from the time the transfer- 

 ring was done? 



Durand, 111. M. Lucy Feitz. 



[When transferring you can put the old hive 

 above a queen-excluder as you outline; and, al- 

 though the queen will remain below if she is placed 

 there on the new comb, the bees, if there Is any 

 honey coming in at the time, may store honey 

 above. However, as transferring is usually done 

 before the main honey-flow begins, there is not 

 likely to be any great amount of honey placed 

 above. — Ed.] 



Proper Time to Shake Swarms. 



In regard to brushed or shaken swarms, there 

 appears to be great diversity of opinion as to the 

 proper time to perform the operation. One writer 

 says, in Italics, never do it " until there is evidence 

 that the bees are making preparations to swarm." 

 Another is no less emphatic in saying, "It is use- 

 less to undertake it after the bees get the swarming 

 fever." Then it must naturally follow that the one 

 or the other is in error, or it makes no difference 

 whether it Is done before or after the '" fever." 



Can you not, by getting the opinions, with the 

 reasons, of several extensive bee-keepers. In some 

 degree settle these differences for the benefit of the 

 ever-recruiting army of novices? If these bee-keep- 

 ers are widely scattered over the country we may 

 get some idea from their replies whether the sea- 

 son, the climate, the location, or some other factor 

 is responsible for their opinions. 



Hoboken, N. J., Jan. 14. Novice. 



[It is not at all strange that a beginner should be 

 confused over these apparently paradoxical state- 

 ments. Perhaps we can explain. It Is true that 

 there Is no use In shaking until the development of 

 certain conditions; as, for example, the starting of 

 queen-cells and the w hltenlng of the combs near 

 the top, showing that the bees contemplate swarm- 

 ing after the cells are capped over. To shake before 

 these evidences appear, is premature. 



Again, it Is generally useless to undertake shak- 

 ing after the bees have got the mania for swarming. 

 Your confusion arises over the meaning of the word 

 '■ fever." When a colony is bent on swarming, has 

 cells capped over, and virgins hatching, shaking 

 probably will not do much good. It should take 

 place when cells begin to start, and not after they 

 are capped over and virgins are hatching out. In 

 the first case there is no mania or fever — simply an 

 indication of a mania or fever that will take place 

 ten days after. Now, then, when that mania is on 

 it Is too late to db any thing but make a most radi- 

 cal change in conditions. Shaking as ordinarily 

 practiced may be enough; but probably not.— Ed.] 



