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Feeding in Order to Get Bees in Gaod Condition 

 for Winter. 



I am up against the worst diovith that this part 

 of Kansas has ever known: and as I have about 90 

 colonies of bees, and they are now getting abso- 

 lutely nothing, and 1 see no chance for their get- 

 ting any thing this sea.son, I am figuring how to 

 get them through the winter. Possibly, if a rain 

 would come soon, there would be a little in the fall: 

 but I think it unlikely. Now, what bothers me is 

 this : The bees have practically stopped rearing 

 brood. Very little can be found anywhere. If I let 

 them go with a big feed from the Miller feeders in 

 the fall I should think that there would be few be- 

 sides old bees, and they would go the route and die 

 In the winter. It seems to me that, if I begin feed- 

 ing them half a pint of thin syrup about Sept. 1, and 

 keep it up for a month, and top that off with a Mil- 

 ler feederful of thick syrup, I should have a lot of 

 young bees, and plenty to get them through. I 

 never had so many bees before, and never had the 

 drouth either, and I do not wish to incur any more 

 expense than Is needful: but as I am at much trou- 

 ble and expense I do not propose to lose the bees 

 either, and ask you if I am right or not. 



This locality has had no rain for five weeks, with 

 a temperature close to (and often above) the 100 

 mark all the time. The corn will make a good crop 

 yet if rain comes within ten days, as it has been 

 well tended, and all moisture conserved. Wheat 

 was extra good, and oats also. Hay was short. 

 Pastures are as brown and dry as a griddle cake, 

 and I have to feed my cow which runs on three 

 acres. 



Sabetha, Kan., July 11. Frank Hill. 



[You are " up against " a peculiar proposition. If 

 your bees have stores enough so that they can get 

 along until about Sept. 1, or, say, even two or three 

 weeks later, it would be better to begin feeding 

 them then than to feed them now. Your colonies 

 are overpopulous just now: and with no prospect of 

 getting any honey these bees are consumers. If 

 you go to feeding them now, these bees will eat up 

 a large quantity of stores. It would be our judg- 

 ment to let them get along as they are until the 

 strength of the colony is reduced somewhat, and 

 then begin feeding somewhere later in the sea-son. 

 This will start brood-rearing provided you have 

 young queens. If your queens are old you may not 

 be able to get them to lay much, even if you start 

 feeding. 



Stimulative feeding should be practiced— that Is, 

 half a pint or a pint of syrup dally should be given 

 until the brood Is pretty well through the hive: 

 then as the season draws to a close — that is to say, 

 when there is danger of cold weather coming on — 

 we would advise giving one large feed so that the 

 hive will be full of stores. Possibly the stimulative 

 feeding that is kept up during the time brood-rear- 

 ing is on would fill the hives full enough. But we 

 have found this: After a considerable period of 

 stimulative feeding, the old bees will be worn out 

 and the colony will dwindle In strength very rapid- 

 ly, and by mid-winter there will be a small force 

 unless you take pains to see that a large amount of 

 brood is raised. See editorial remarks on stimu- 

 lative feeding elsewhere. — IOd.] 



Swarms that liave Lost their Clipped Queens Divid- 

 ed into Nuclei. 



I should like to know if any one has tried divid- 

 ing a colony that has lost its clipped queen In 

 swarming into three or four nuclei, and stacking 

 the hives one on top of another, with a flat bottom 

 to answer as top and bottom between each story, 

 facing the second story backward, the third for- 

 ward, etc. 



1 have tried this plan, but have failed to keep the 

 bees together (which was the object), and at the 

 same time save a few queens. My experience has 

 been that the bees swarmed, and left only one 

 (lueen in the stack. I explain it this way: They 

 have such a desire to swarm that they are not sat- 

 isfied, or they hear the piping of the other queens 

 In the other stories, and become excited from that 

 source. 



Canton, S. D., June 17. L. A. Syverud. 



[We do not know that anybody has tried the 

 plan outlined, of tiering three or four hives one on 



top of another, with the entrances facing in oppo- 

 site directions. If so, they have never reported the 

 result. It seems quite reasonable to suppose that, 

 during the swarming season, the piping of one 

 cpieen in one of the hives might be heard by the 

 bees In the hive above or below, and thus excite 

 the colonies In the whole stack. Your explanation 

 is probably correct. — Ed.] 



Was the Queen Fertilized in the Hive? Italians vs. 

 Blacks for Robbing. 



I have a fine large queen that was fertilized in the 

 hive. The old queen was killed in a queen-trap 

 which I left securely fastened and in good shape on 

 a good hive. I cut out cells and left a large queen 

 just hatched, and there was nothing but capised 

 brood in the hive. Twelve days after, the young 

 queen had pretty nearly filled frames with eggs, 

 and there were lots of young larvse. The trap was 

 still secure, and the yoiuig queen was very large. 

 This is the third case I have seen like It. 



Do pure Italians rob as badly as those not pure? 

 I have a number of pure swarms, and all the spring 

 they were on hand when I opened a hive, and now 

 they keep coming into a building where I am sort- 

 ing and scraping honey. They ai'e very noticeable 

 by their yellow bodies, and black bees are conspic- 

 uous by their absence. 



This is the poorest year I have yet seen for honey. 



Marshall, Mich. G. F. Pease. 



[There is some mistake about the young queen 

 being fertilized in the hive. Either she was In the 

 old hive together with the old mother at the time 

 the queen-trap was put on the hive by you. or else 

 she managed to go through the perforated metal. 

 Occasionally we find a very small virgin that will 

 go through the zinc: and If the qvieen was not in 

 the hive at the time the trap was placed on it we 

 should conclude that this queen must have passed 

 the metal, met the drone in the air, and, in the usu- 

 al way, came back again. Almo.st every report of 

 this kind, when carefully Investigated, has shown 

 that the mating took place in the air in the regular 

 way. 



As a general thing it is considered that pure Ital- 

 ians are less inclined to rob than the ordinary black 

 bees. We have noticed this: That black bees and 

 hybrids will usually be very conspicuous when rob- 

 bers are about, while leather-colored Italians will 

 not be seen at all. P'or example, at one of our out- 

 yards we had just one colony of black bees, and 

 about a hundred colonies of pure Italians. There 

 was a case of robbing on, and we should say that 

 there were a dozen black bees to one yellow one. 

 On the other hand, it often happens that the very 

 best workers of Italians will be the meanest rob- 

 bers in the whole apiary. It is possible that the 

 yellow bees that you had were fine workers. The 

 old red-clover queen that we had something like 30 

 vears ago. whose bees would actually store honey 

 in the supers while other bees were doing noth- 

 ing, and killing off drones, was the mother of the 

 worj?t robbers we have ever had. If there was any 

 robbing going on we could always find they were 

 coming from that hive more than from any other. 

 As a general thing, however, we should say that 

 bees that are inclined to rob are not good workers, 

 and it Is seldom that good workers are mean rob- 

 bers. — Ed.] 



Buckwheat — how to Grow it Profitably Without 

 Interfering with Regular Crops. 



The past .season we tried growing buckwheat on 

 a small scale. We always wanted to grow some, 

 but did not want to take up the land at the ex- 

 pense of the regular crops. While it is a paying 

 crop I do not believe that it pays well enough to 

 .sow It on land worth 8150 to §200 per acre. But, on 

 the other hand. If It can be grown In between your 

 regular crops withoxit interfering, but aiding the 

 same b.v putting the ground In first-class condi- 

 tion, it is worthy of our consideration. 



We plowed three acres as soon as the wheat was 

 harvested in the field, to be .sown to wheat again 

 in the fall: but on account of the drouth prevailing 

 at this time we could not sow the buckwheat until 

 Jul.v21, when we had a light rainfall: and despite 

 the continued dryness it was in bloom by Aug. Ki. 

 For some rea.son or other (dryness, probably) the 



