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LJ 



August, 1917 



JH. S., N c w 

 York. — M y 

 • neighbor with a 

 cornfield a d- 

 joining my beeyard 

 complains that my 

 bees sting his horses 

 when he runs a cul- 

 tivator thru the field 

 near the apiary. 

 He says I must 



move my bees away. Can he compel me to do so 

 by law ? I cannot move these bees a quarter of a 

 mile, and so what shall I do ? 



A. The probabilities are that your neighbor 

 could compel you to move your bees provided 

 he could prove that they sting his horses and 

 sting him to the extent that it endangers 

 either the life of man or of beast. Yes, you 

 had better move your bees; but do not at- 

 tempt to move them only a fourth of a mile, 

 but move them at least five miles away. In 

 the spring of the year or in the fall you can 

 move bees a short distance without great 

 loss. To move them only a quarter of a mile 

 with a honey-flow on would only result in 

 making conditions infinitely worse, as the 

 flying bees would come back to the old 

 stands and be crosser than hornets. 



D. L. H., Ohio. — Are artificial cells as good as 

 supersedure or swarming cells ? 



A. Artificial cells maj'^ be built under the 

 management of a skillful queen-breeder that 

 are equal to if not better than the swarming 

 or supersedure cells. One who knows his 

 job can produce conditions artificially that 

 will furnish some beautiful large cells. 

 These artificial conditions might be said to 

 be a combination of the swarming and 

 supersedure impulses. Good cells cannot be 

 raised unless the colony is made strong and 

 highly prosperous by a little feeding every 

 day if honey is not coming in from natural 

 sources. 



A. E. F., Michigan. — There is a swamp about five 

 miles from my place. I have no fall flora at the 

 home yard. Would it pay me to move my bees to 

 the swamp ? 



A. That depends. Tlie whole swamp 

 country should be carefully examined to see 

 if there are any honey-bearing plants. If 

 aster, goldenrod, or swamp milkweed grows 

 in the vicinity it would pay to move the bees 

 provided there are no other bees in the 

 swamp, and it might pay anyway. Prac- 

 tically all swamps, no matter where located, 

 yield some fall flora useful to bees. During 

 the present year, when syrup and sugar are 

 so high, it will pay to practice migratory 

 beekeeping if it ever did. 



But be sure to move the bees on a cool day 

 or at night. Unless the hives are well ven- 

 tilated, moving colonies on a hot day is 

 usually attended with considerable loss. 



W. L. H., Ohio. — 1. Will it pay to extract the 

 honey and feed up on cheap grape sugar? 



2. Can brown sugar be used in place of granu- 

 lated sugar? 



A. 1. No, decidedly not. Grape sugar 

 does not make a good winter food, but it 

 does excellently for the purpose of stimulat 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



GLEANED by ASKING 



1 



E. R. Root 



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ing brood - rear- 

 ing. Years ago we 

 fed grape sugar 

 as a winter food; 

 but we will not 

 do it again, as 

 practically every 

 CO 1 n y so fed 

 died. It is a very 

 poor sweet in the 

 first place, and, what is more, it cakes in the 

 combs. 



2. The price of brown sugar is so near 

 that of granulated that it would not pay. 

 Moreover, brown sugar does not begin to go 

 as far, apparently, as the white; nor do bees 

 winter on it so well. 



W. S. F., Iowa. — When granulated sugar is 8 

 cents, and extracted honey 12 cents, will it pay 

 to extract the combs clean and feed sugar for winter? 

 A. We are inclined to think it would; but 

 when sugar is 6 cents and honey 7, it does 

 not pay. The ratio of difference must be 

 great enough to warrant not only the cost 

 of taking the honey away from the hive and 

 putting sugar syrup in the combs, but there 

 should be an allowance of at least 25 per cent 

 extra to cover loss from the feeder to the 

 sealed cells. When sugar syrup is fed to 

 bees it stirs up the colony to rush to the 

 fields when perhaps there is nothing there. 

 This causes a loss in vital force of bee life. 

 There is also a considerable shrinkage be- 

 tween the amount of sugar syrup fed and 

 the amount actually capped over in the 

 combs. Unless honey, pound for pound, 

 brings anywhere from 25 per cent to 33 per 

 per cent more than sugar it will not pay to 

 extract and feed sugar syrup. There is one 

 more consideration, namely, some of our best 

 beekeepers now believe that, pound for 

 pound, sealed honey will go much further 

 than sugar syrup, because honey is a natural 

 food containing other food elements needful 

 in brood-rearing. How much more honey is 

 worth than sugar syrup no estimate has been 

 given. 



M. A. B., Indiana. — I have a nice queen, but 

 she has a deep dent in her body. Does it do any 

 harm? 



A. If she is doing good work, apparently 

 no harm has been done more than to dis- 

 figure her looks a little. Some of the best 

 queens we ever used had a little dent in the 

 abdomen. Others were minus a leg on one 

 side; and while they appeared to go over the 

 combs with a little more difficulty than 

 normal queens, they laid as well as any 

 queens in the yard. We would naturally 

 expect such queens to be superseded a little 

 sooner, however. 



L. F. C, Michigan. — What do you do when two 

 or three swarms come out together and unite in 

 one big cluster? 



A. Divide them about equally with a 

 dipper and place them in two or three sepa- 

 rate hives. Such united swarms work to- 

 gether very nicely, altho they may be in 

 three separate hives. If one bunch of bees 

 gets a part or all of the queens no particular 



