Pebruaey, 1920 



GT, EANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



UESTIONS. J 

 -(1) Are the^ ' 



C 



GLEANED 



lona 



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\^ tested and 

 untested 

 queens sold by 

 queen - breeders^ 

 mated or are only*, 

 the breeding queensr 

 mated? (2) Last! 

 fall I purchased 8 

 colonies of Italian 



bees in horaMnade movable-frame hives. Upon re- 

 moving the covers of the hives when packing I 

 found two colonies gone, but no dead bees. 

 One hive showed much evidence of the larger wax- 

 moth. The other had no work of the moth visible 

 and the two outside frames contained nearly full 

 combs of sealed honey. On the inner frames the 

 comb was very, dark, the cells full of a' dark- brown 

 odorless liquid. What was the cause of the loss of 

 the two colonies? (3) June 1st I intend to get 

 pound packages of bees with a queen for each, 

 phuing them in new standard hives on full sheets of 

 wired foundation. Then I intend to place Porter 

 tee-escapes on each of the old hives, and close to the 

 entrance of each of the old hives to place one of 

 the new hives with its queen and pound of bees. In 

 August I expect to sulphur the bees in the old hives, 

 remove any remaining honey, dilute it w'ith water, 

 boil it to kill all germs, feed it back to the bees thru 

 Boardman entrance feeders, press out the wax, and 

 burn the old hives and refuse from the wax. Is the 

 above plan all right. F. B. Sawj'er. 



New York. 



Answers. — (1) Tested and untested queens 

 when sent out are mated. The unmated 

 queens are always sold as virgins. (2) From 

 your brief description we cannot tell what 

 caused the trouble with your bees. Shortage 

 of stores or a poor queen sometimes causes 

 colonies to dwindle and die. If you would 

 send us, or, better still, the Department of 

 Entomology, Washington, a small piece of 

 comb showing the dark-brown substance 

 within the cells, you would be able to find 

 out whether or not the colonies were affected 

 with foul brood. ^ (3) If it proves that your 

 colonies have foul brood, then the method 

 you suggest would work out nicely, only in- 

 stead of placing the new hives close to the 

 old ones, it would be better to put the new 

 ones on the old stands and place the old 

 ones (with bee-escape attached) near the 

 entrances of the new ones. And the old 

 hives should not be touched or jarred after 

 being so arranged. In using this plan it 

 will, of course, be necessary to have the old 

 hive shut up completely so that not one of 

 the bees can escape except thru the bee- 

 escape at the entrance. You see, after the 

 foundation is drawn in the new hive, if 

 any bee in the old hive should load up with 

 diseased honey and then enter the new hive 

 and store it, the disease would spread to the 

 new hive. By using care, however, the plan 

 will be found a success. In regard to foul- 

 brood honey, tho, we would not care to take 

 .such chances. Altho it is possible to dilute 

 with water, boil until all germs are killed, 

 and then feed back to the bees, we ourselves 

 would not care to take the risk. It would 

 bo much better economy, in the long run, to 

 use the honey for baking purposes; for, as 

 you doubtless know, such honey is perfectly 



BY ASKING 



Fowls 



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1 



101 



wholesome for 

 human consump- 

 tion, altho dis- 

 astrous for the 

 bees. The ex- 

 tractor used in 

 extracting foul- 

 brood honey 

 should be care- 

 fully disinfect- 

 ed, and the old hives scorched out and sav- 

 ed. The wax also should be saved, as you 

 suggest. 



Questions. — (1) In the June issue of Gleanings, 

 page 367, in commenting on a swarm-control plan 

 there mentioned, Miss Fowls asserts that she or her 

 people managed to get the nurse bees — or " took 

 pains " in behalf thereof — to beget themselves into 

 the upper stories, and stop committing the nuisance 

 of starting queen-cells in the lowest story. Now 

 what I would like to be enlightened about is, how 

 one can do anything to induce any certain portion 

 of the bees to go just where you, we, I, or anybody 

 elsa wants them to go ? I for my part cannot even 

 tell a nurse bee from any other worker. I would 

 like to quality myself or be qualified to get aforesaid 

 nurse bees to beget themselves upstairs instead of 

 frustrating my designs. (2) When trying this 

 .swarm-control plan last year, next to no work was 

 done in the lowest story. How is it that with me 

 it results as described? (3) In that escape foul- 

 brood treatment given in the ABC and X Y Z of 

 Bee Culture, would not a glass tube be better than 

 a tin tube ? It would not be such a dark passage- 

 way. Chas. Reynders. 



Pennsylvania. 



Answers. — (1) It is not difficult to get 

 the nurse bees out of the lower brood-cham- 

 ber and into the upper one. It is only neces- 

 sary to shake out the bees adhering to the 

 lower brood-chamber on to the combs of bees 

 and brood placed above. The young bees 

 that act as nurse bees will have no induce- 

 ment to leave the upper story and go thru 

 several other stories down to the lower one, 

 and will, therefore, remain above on the 

 brood just where the beekeeper wants them. 

 (2) In the case of good, strong colonies, 

 during the honey flow, we have never experi- 

 enced any difiiculty in getting the founda- 

 tion drawn out in the lower brood-chamber. 

 If applied too late, however, the plan would 

 be unsatisfactory. (3) The glass tube, we 

 fear, might cause the bees to worry. Since 

 they could see thru all along the tube, they 

 would not easily find the exit. 



Question. — I noted in a certain issue of Gleanings 

 that you tried out, last season, in your yards the 

 non-swarming plan incident to the use of a half- 

 depth super under the hive. I teg to ask how this 

 worked out ? I tried the plan on a small scale with 

 some success and contemplate employing the idea 

 in my outyard, but would like a little more con- 

 firmation from the experience of a large producer ; 

 hence my query. H. M. Daniels. 



Maine. 



Answer. — In our locality there was very 

 little swarming this past summer, and so, 

 altho we think the plan a good one, we are. 

 not yet ready to report. We shall try it 

 again the coming season. If you also use 

 tiie plan next summer we shall be glad to 

 learn of the results. 



