January, 1917 



GLEANINGS TN BEE CULTURE 



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RH. T., Port 

 Ewcii, N. 

 Y. — How 

 111 u c h does a 

 solid Hoffman 

 frame of honey 

 weigh? 



A. It is pretty 

 hard to give a 

 definite figure. 

 Even if the frames are crowded tightly 

 together, there is considerable difference 

 between the thickness of the combs, in 

 the lower half at least, and in the amount 

 of honey contained. Five or six pounds 

 would be somewhere near the average. If 

 the frames were rpaced wide for extracting, 

 the weight would be much greater — nearly 

 double in fact. 



A. H., Owego, N. Y. — How many quarts of 

 bees are there in one pound ? 



A. Bees vary in weight considerably. 

 The average number of bees in a pound is 

 usually given as 4800. A quart contains 

 about 3200. Therefore there are approxi- 

 mately IV2 quarts of bees in a pound. 



V. W. M., Charlevoix, Mich. Last winter 

 was an unusually long one. The tempera- 

 ture in our bee-cellar was too low (only 32 

 degrees Fahrenheit) until after April. This 

 year I have the temperature at 44 degrees. 

 All except one colony lived thru last winter 

 and had honey in the combs in the spring 

 but they were all weak. The queens in 

 several colonies died later. Is this present 

 temperature of 44 degrees all right? 



A. It is a wonder that the bees wintered 

 as well as they did. The cellar must have 

 been very dry. The combination of a damp 

 atmosphere and a low temperature makes 

 trouble. A low temperature, if the atmos- 

 phere is dry, does not do as much harm; but 

 it is far better, of course, to have a higher 

 temperature, say 50 degrees. This is prob- 

 ably better than 44; but at the higher tem- 

 perature there must be plenty of ventilation. 



L. D. M., Winder, Ga. — 1. I can buy bees 

 in box hives at $1.50 a colony. I get 15 cts. 

 a pound for extracted honey in quart fruit- 

 jars. I have only eight colonies now, and 

 would like to have more. Will it pay me 

 t'o buy such colonies, or had I better in- 

 crease what I have? 



2. Can I put four box hives close together 

 and in the spring, when tlie weather is warm, 

 move them all awaj^ some distance and put 

 one new hive on the same stand occupied by 

 the four with one or two frames of brood to 

 catch the field bees? Can I get a good 

 strong colony by this plan? If it would 

 work I would like to repeat the operation 

 several times during the summer, and then in 

 the late fall unite the few bees left in the 

 box hives. 



A. 1. This is a question that can not be 

 settled for all conditions. If a beekeeper 

 has to buy sugar at a high price in order to 

 furnish artificial feed for making the in- 



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crease, the box- 

 hive proposition 

 at $1.50 per colo- 

 ny is undoubted- 

 ly the best, pro- 

 vided, of course, 

 that the colonies 

 ill box hives are 

 known to be ab- 

 s lutely free 

 from any disease. It does not pay to accept 

 disease at any price. 



On the other hand, if the conditions are 

 such that early in the season, before the 

 main honey-flow begins, there is a prolonged 

 period when the bees are gathering honey 

 slowly, making an ideal condition for brood- 

 rearing and increase, it probably would not 

 pay to bother with the box-hive colonies. 



2. Your plan of collecting field bees from 

 four box hives would make a large cluster of 

 bees. While such a colony would be defi- 

 cient in young nurse bees until the brood 

 supi^lied had hatched, the old bees would per- 

 form this function for a time. 



It would be a good plan to supply more 

 than two combs of brood. Probably it 

 would be simpler and more satisfactory in 

 the end to drum the bees out of the box 

 hives, as many as you can, including the 

 queen. That is, actually to transfer by what 

 is known as the Heddon short method, rath- 

 er than to rely upon the plan you refer 

 to, catching the field bees and the few young 

 bees that might happen to be flying at the 

 time. 



L. B., Poplar Bluff, Mo. Upon examina- 

 tion of my bees one warm day I found one 

 hive where the bees were flying around 

 the entrance as tho it were springtime. 

 On looking closer I found that they were 

 dragging out dead bees — and. there are many 

 yellow-looking crumbs. There was quite a 

 pile of dead bees on the floor, and hundreds 

 of them were on the ground in front. I 

 am a beginner and would like to know what 

 the trouble is. 



A. The yellow-looking crumbs referred 

 to are bits of cai>pings, particles of comb, 

 and pollen dust. If there was unusual ex- 

 citement at the entrance of this hive on 

 that warm day, and if the bees were fight- 

 ing, it is more than likely that the colony, 

 being weak, with a good supply of honey, 

 and an entrance perhaps too large, was be- 

 ing robbed out by another colony. Under 

 such conditions there would be a large 

 amount of this granular substance on the 

 floor-board of the hive, indicating the 

 gnawed cappings. The uproar in front of 

 the entrance, the pile of dead bees on the 

 floor, and the dead bees outside, would 

 point toward a case of robbing. 



The bees may have been having merely a 

 playspell. If this were just after cool or 

 cold weather for a week or two you would 

 find just exactly what you describe — dead 

 bees being carried out as well as a demon- 

 stration at the entrance. 



