34 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



old stand and drive most of the bees witli the queen 

 into the new hive. Then 21 days later, after all the 

 brood is hatched in the old parent hive, shake the 

 rest of them in front of the entrance of the new 

 hive ; finally remove the old hive with its combs, 

 which may now be melted up into wax. 



5. The answer to this question will depend some- 

 what on the mode of treatment adopted in the answer 

 to No. 4. If you are running for increase you can 

 divide. If you are running for honey, we would 

 not advise you to make the division. 



6. As a general answer to this question, we would 

 state that, if you desire to make increase, you should 

 not practice dividing. If you desire to make in- 



■crease and honey both, practice the Alexander meth- 

 od as described in his book. Four or five nuclei 

 can be made from one strong colony ; but this is on 

 the basis of no surplus. As a general proposition 

 we would advise making all increase after the main 

 honey-flow is over, and then resort to feeding if the 

 bees need stores. When practicing dividing it is 

 usually necessary to shut up the entrances of the 

 nucleus (moved from the old stand) with a little 

 grass, for two or three days. Grass is better than 

 wire cloth, because it will wilt away, releasing the 

 bees without the aid of the beekeeper. But a far 

 better plan where one has out-apiaries is to move the 

 divided colonies from an outyard. In other words, 

 make the division in some yard other than the one 

 in which they have been stationed previously. Try 

 as you may, splitting a good colony into several 

 units, in the same yard, will result in a part of the 

 flying bees going back to the old stand. The veteran 

 beekeepers know how to overcome this to a certain 

 extent, but not entirely. 



Every nucleus should have a laying queen, a vir- 

 gin, or a cell, as soon as the division is made; 

 otherwise valuable time will be lost. Another thing, 

 a nucleus, as a rule, will not produce cells that will 

 result in strong, vigorous queens. 



7. Packages of bees without combs can be sent 

 with or without combs. The presence of Her Maj- 

 esty does not, so far as we can discover, detract 

 from or add to the success of the shipment. If a 

 pound of bees, however, is given to a nucleus with 

 a queen, the latter should be caged in an introduc- 

 ing cage for 24 or 48 hours. It might be advisable, 

 also, in the case of hybrids or cross bees, to smoke 

 both lots a little before uniting. 



8. It is the general practice of honey-producers to 

 destroy cjueen-cells at the beginning of the swarming 

 season. Swarming-cells, if left unmolested, are al- 

 most sure to cause swarming. 



You had better run your eight-frame hives for 

 comb honey, and the ten-frame for extracted. In 

 producing comb honey it is always advisable to use 

 full sheets in sections. Starters are used by the 

 manufacturers of bee-supplies for the reason that 

 sections with full sheets do not ship well. Aside from 

 this, there is no reason why starters should be used 

 except on the ground of economy, and a poor econ- 

 omy it is. 



We use bee-escapes when we can. Sometimes at 

 outyards we shake and smoke the bees out of the 

 supers. 



9. In the instructions above referred to, worker- 

 cells are probably meant, both on the ground of con- 

 venience and because they might be accepted more 

 readily for queen-cell purposes. Before you expect 

 the bees to work out these prepared cells, all other 

 brood in the hive to which they will go should be 

 removed first. If you succeed by this method you 

 will need to follow carefully the directions in the 

 bulletin referred to. 



10. Ordinary black painted wire cloth will give 

 good results. Do not use any wire cloth painted 

 green, on account of the Paris green in the paint. 

 A two or three frame nucleus with a queen will ship 

 almost anywhere with scarcely a failure. — Ed.] 



Danger of Spontaneous Combustion 



Referring to page 599, Sept. 1, do not store waste 

 in an empty hive, in a box or a small building, but 

 in a tin box with tight cover. Never let waste touch 

 wood nor get air to feed any flame that may stai't in 

 it. 



Spontaneous combustion is one of man's worst 

 enemies, being but little understood, and working 

 silently day and night. It requires just enough air 

 to combine with the combustible to raise it to the 

 temperature of ignition. A draft of air would keep 

 the temperature down and prevent it. 



An empty hive is an ideal place to start a fire by 

 spontaneous combustion ; but in a tight tin box the 

 heat passes through the tin, lowering the inside tem- 

 perature, and in case of spontaneous combustion the 

 tight tin keeps the air away from the fire, allowing 

 it to smoulder without danger. 



Hammonton, N. J., Sept. 7. C. E. Fowler. 



One Cause of Dark Wax 



If I boil bee-comb in an iron or metal kettle to 

 extract the wax, will the wax be a dark color ? 



Williamson, Pa., Dec. 1. L. H. Lindemuth. 



[Wax will not be darkened in an iron kettle unless 

 you let it boil for a considerable length of time. The 

 lest way, as soon as the wax is melted, is to dip it 

 off immediately; then you will find no discoloration. 

 An iron kettle will discolor wax a great deal less 

 than a receptacle of galvanized iron, or, in fact, of 

 almost any other metal except the plain iron. The 

 important thing is to see that the wax is dipped out 

 and cooled as soon as it is melted. Wax kept hot 

 for an hour or two, or longer, will invariably be 

 discolored. The longer it is kept hot, the darker it 

 will be. — Ed.] 



CONVERSATIONS WITH DOOLITTLE 



Continued from page 9. 



or tliose produced from queens reared from 

 an imported mother, allowing these queens 

 to mate with whatever drones there were in 

 and about the ajjiary, as such crossing would 

 give additional vigor to an already vigorous 

 I'ace of bees. 



" Allow me to sum ujd this matter briefly 

 from a standpoint covering a period of 

 nearly forty-five years : Except for the 

 breeding of queens for market, 1 would say. 

 first have your queens mate with drones as 

 distantly related to your queen mother as 

 possible; second, use queens as closely re- 

 lated to imported Italian stock as possible, 

 where working for extracted honey, for 

 there are no bees in the world, in my opin- 

 ion, that excel those one generation from 

 imported stock for large yields of extracted 

 honey. Third, where white capping of combs 

 becomes one of the great objects to work 

 for, as is the case where working for section 

 honey, choose the golden Italians on account 

 of their qualities in that direction. These 

 bees are in no way second to Italians from 

 imported stock as to their honey-gathering 

 qualities. They simply use, of that gather- 

 ed, only enough to give the nice white cap- 

 pings required when producing fancy sec- 

 tion honey." 



