476 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



hold I I discovered that there was not a drop of 

 honey in the comb, and practically all the brood had 

 hatched out with the exception of two or three small 

 patches. I gave them some sugar syrup immediately, 

 and they went at it as pigs would swill, and I found 

 that my paralysis was nothing more nor less than 

 starvation. I also realized then that the queen was 

 a very prolific one, and the swarm an unusually 

 large one. She had used up all the stores in the 

 hive in raising young brood, and we had just had 

 three days of very cold rainy weather which brought 

 about the starvation. 



Kinston, N. C, April 21. J. W. BLACK. 



two cases of American foul brood. I like five-band- 

 ed bees because they brood up early in the spring, 

 and get ready for the honey-flow when the second 

 cutting of alfalfa blooms. 



Preewater, Oregon. C. A. McCarty 



What Made the Paint Come off the Hives? What 

 Kind of Paint to Use 



I do not want to be understood as being against 

 unpainted hives or painted hives, as I am only a 

 beginner; but last fall I fed my bees on sugar syrup 

 from October 1 until it was too cold to feed them, 

 and they went into winter quarters with their hives 

 running over with bees. In preparing them for 

 winter I used some heavy wrapping paper over the 

 hives and then vrrapped around this a single ply of 

 roofing paper after putting on top of my hives a 

 super filled with planer shavings. I made one nice 

 complete job of wrapping over the super and all. 

 When I took off this paper this spring the paint had 

 literally left the wood in patches from the size of a 

 quarter up to the size of a silver dollar. They all 

 looked as if they had been through a fire with the 

 exception that they showed no char on the outside. 



I had two colonies of ordinary size in the Danzen- 

 baker hive. These showed no signs of blister, but 

 the others are in very bad order. I am going to 

 transfer these frames to other hives and scrape them 

 and repaint them. Is there any way I could prevent 

 this blistering next fall, and also wrap my hives so 

 that they will be warm ? 



Kinston, N. C, April 21. J. W. Black. 



[It is important to have the hives thoroughly d?-y 

 before painting. If the lumber is a little green at 

 the time of putting on the priming coat, the paint 

 would easily flake off later ; but this was evidently 

 not your trouble, as your Danzenbaker hives, painted 

 presumably with the same paint, did not flake. Your 

 paint did not have enough dryer in it or you put 

 your ^v^apping on the hives when the paint was too 

 green. Unless the paint were thoroughly dry (and 

 it would not be dry unless some dryer were used) 

 the paper wrapping would take off the paint in 

 patches just as you describe. 



We advise a pure white-lead and linseed-oil paint. 

 Some of the ready prepared paints on the market 

 have neither lead nor zinc in them; and instead of 

 linseed oil they have fish oil. Such paint is dear at 

 any price.^ — Ed.] 



Five-banded Bees Immune to American Foul Brood 



I see Mr. J. E. Crane is after the five-banded 

 Italians. My brother-in-law (.John Talbert) had 100 

 colonies, spring count, 1907, of three-banded Ital- 

 ians. They became diseased with American foul 

 brood that summer, and in the spring of 1908 there 

 were only 52 colonics left. I moved them down on 

 the river near Mr. Nathan Sams, who had 80 or 90 

 colonies of f.ve-banded Italians. At that time my 

 home yard was on one side of him, and the Talbert 

 bees on the other. Both yards had foul brood, and 

 they were a good grade of three-banded Italians. 

 The farmers were losing their bees on all sides of 

 him. I was talking to Mr. Sams last fall, and be 

 said he had never had a case of American foul 

 brood. 



In 1910 I commenced to raise five-banded Italian 

 queens, and every time a colony had to be treated for 

 foul brood I requeened with a five-banded queen, 

 and last fall I went into winter quarters with only 



Requeening without Dequeening 



The " basic law " for requeening without dequeen- 

 ing, which Mr. A. C. Miller is in search of, Dec. 1, 

 1913, page 850, will probably be found in Mr. G. M. 

 Doolittle's writings of some twenty years ago. Mr. 

 Doolittle found that, on giving all colonies a queen- 

 cell at the close of the white-honey harvest, about a 

 third were accepted each year. He concluded from 

 this that queens in the small hives he used at that 

 time began to fail at about the third year, and that 

 a queen-cell would be accepted by all colonies headed 

 by a failing queen, even though they had not them- 

 selves made preparation to supersede her. 



I believe Mr. Doolittle has found that, in the larg- 

 er hive he now uses, the queen usually begins to fail 

 in about two years. Mr. J. B. Merwin, in the article 

 following Mr. Miller's, brings out the same point 

 where he says, page 852, " This plan will work well 

 on all queens two years old or over," and that is 

 probably the " basic law " — " a queen-cell will be 

 accepted by any colony with a failing queen." 



Mr. Merwin may greatly simplify his work by using 

 a ripe or nearly ripe queen-cell. I believe, though, 

 that when you wish to requeen a colony having a 

 vigorous but undesirable queen, the "basic law" will 

 lequire you to do it in the good old way. 



Had I any desire to "jab" Mr. Miller or the editor 

 I would suggest that they procure a small work 

 entitled " Scientific Queen-rearing," by one G. M. 

 Doolittle, in which they may find the plan which the 

 editor says, page 852, is "worth pasting in the hat." 



Audubon, Iowa, Dec. 15. E. M. Cole. 



Bees Steal Eggs from Another Hive to Raise Queen 



There have been many articles WTitten the last few 

 years, showing that bees sometimes move eggs from 

 one hive to another. I think we had the most posi- 

 tive proof to that effect of any that I have seen. 

 Last summer Mr. Frank C. Pellett, our State bee- 

 in.spector, and a friend with him, were at our place. 

 After inquiring about the bees I told him that all 

 seemed well but one colony, and we went to examine 

 it. We commenced on one side, and took out the 

 frames to the center, and found no brood nor eggs in 

 the hive, nor any queen ; but we found two queen- 

 cells — one sealed and the other about ready to seal, 

 and that was all the brood there was in the hive — 

 no queen. It seems to me that this could not have 

 occurred unless the bees had transferred eggs from 

 some other hive. In a few weeks I examined it 

 again and found two frames pretty well filled with 

 brood and eggs, and as fine a young yellow queen 

 as I ever saw. 



Bedford, Iowa, Feb. 10. J. H. FiTCH. 



Are Fumigated Combs Objectionable to Bees ? 



I have accidentally made a discovery with my bees 

 that leads me to believe that disinfecting old combs 

 with bisulphide of carbon to destroy wax moths 

 makes the combs unfit for use again for brood-combs. 

 I have never seen any thing in Gleanings about 

 this chemical doing any harm to the combs ; but, as 

 I said al>ove, I am now of the opinion that it does. 



Seymour, Ct., Feb. 5. P. J. Hoevel. 



[We have fumigated considerably with carbon 

 .bisulphide, and have never noticed any bad effects 

 afterward, although, since our combs thus fumigated 

 are very seldom given the bees again any way, we can 

 not say for sure. If any of our readers have had 

 any opportunity to test this matter, we should be 

 glad to hear from them, — Ed. ] 



