550 



GLEANINGS IN BEE C IT I. T IT R E 



REPTl•:^fBER, 1920 



I 



c 



GLEANED BY ASKING 



lona Fowls 



AM running 32 



colonies of bees 



thin simimer, 



and so far I 

 liavp not lipen able 

 to seen re enough 

 sugar for fall feed- 

 ing. Would it be 

 possible for me to 

 boil up beets the 

 latter part of Sep- 

 tember and thus make a syrup and feed this to the 

 bees? Would .this syrup in any way injure the bees? 

 Michigan. O. H. Roth. 



Answer. — The sugar made from the beets 

 could be fed the bees in the spring, but 

 would be very bad as winter stores. In case 



you are not able to obtain the sugar for fall bers do, sometimes, 

 feeding, your best plan will be to reserve Illinois 



enough of the super combs of honey to sup- 

 ply the bees during the winter. 



KKKDING OLD HONEV. 



Question. — I have on hand about 400 pound.s of 

 old honey taken from cappings. This honey is eight 

 or fen years old. Would it be all right to use for 

 feed or do you think it would be in.iurious, thus 

 killing the bees? It has been stored in open-top 

 CO-pound cans, and is mostly candied. 



Idaho. Charles W. Gwin. 



Answer. — If you are certain that the hon 

 ey did not come from diseased colonies, it 

 will be perfectly safe for you to feed this. 



P.UOOD IN .SlPliR.S EXTRACTIXG FRONt BROOI)- 



C'HAMBER. 



Questions. — (1) What can be done with supers 

 that have brood in them? I have a ten-frame hive 

 and two supers on it. One of the supers is full of 

 honey and brood. What can be done in such a 

 case? (2) The rest of my hives are Sframe and 

 they are packed with honey and brood. Would 

 you advise taking some of the honey from the 

 brood-chamber or leave it all to them? Will the 

 brood be damaged when honey is extracted from the 

 lirood-chamber ? 



Kansas. Mrs. S. A. Kleiman. 



Answers. — (1) In order to extract the hon- 

 ey without being troubled by the presence of 

 brood, our advice would be to leave the 

 supers on the hive until after the brood has 

 hatched. The honey may then be extracted 

 without trouble. (2) We certainly would 

 not advise extracting from the brood- 

 chamber. Your bees will doubtless need all 

 the stores they have for the coming winter; 

 and it is never advisable to extract from 

 frames that contain any brood, for some 

 of the bees and the larvae are bound to get 

 into the honey — a condition which, of course, 

 you would not tolerate. 



KKKPING MOTHS FROM COMBS. 



Question. — We will have about 1500 frames that 

 we will have to take off our bee boxes and would 

 like to know the best way to store them for next sea- 

 son to keep out the moth. 



Louisiana. Bernard & Be,ieaux Apiary. 



Answer. — Dr. Miller, in the American Bee 

 .Tournal, strongly commends the plan of W. 

 iS. Pangburn, which is as follows: First 

 scrape all propolis from the top and bottom 

 edges of the supers in order that the bodies 

 may tit tight and thus retain the gas. On 

 top of each set of combs place a cloth about 

 111 inclics s(|uare (doubled), and jioiir a table- 



3 



K 



spoonful of car- 

 1> o M bisulphide 

 (in the cloth and 

 cover with two 

 thicknesses o f 

 news papers to 

 insure a tight 

 joint. Then 

 place another 

 body on top and 



treat the same way, and continue as high as 



vou wish to go. 



si'o.^R FOR vaijL, feeding. 

 Question. — In March Gleanings you are advising 

 buying sugar for next fall feeding. You forget 

 one thing. Beekeepers do not buy sugar, bee rob- 

 W. H. H. Stewart. 



Answer. — We are interested in your opin- 

 ion, and yet can hardly agree with you. 

 There are some beekeepers who tind that 

 they can winter better with sugar stores 

 than with honey. This is always true if the 

 fall flow is of poor qualitj-. Also, there 

 have been years of failure in some localities 

 when the bees could not store enough for 

 winter. Furthermore, in those cases in 

 which the beekeeper has foul brood to con- 

 tend with, it is not safe to interchange ex- 

 tracting combs with brood-combs, and there- 

 fore in the fall such a beekeeper will some- 

 times find a part of his colonies without suf- 

 ficient stores in the brood-chamber; and, 

 since it is not safe for him to feed his hon- 

 ey for fear of thus scattering the disease, 

 he will find it necessary to use sugar syruj). 



HEATING HONEV. 



Question. — For heating honey after it is bottled 

 I intend to use a sheet-iron plate to be placed in a 

 pan of water with a false bottom. The idea of the 

 false bottom is to keep the jars from actual contact 

 with the heat. How high should the water line be 

 on the jars? Also, what would be the niaxiniuin 

 temperature? William Wallin. 



Connecticut. 



Answer. — A false bottom of screen would 

 be better than a sheet-iron plate, since it 

 would allow free circulation of water at the 

 bottoms of the jars. The false bottom should 

 be about an inch from the bottom of the 

 vessel containing the water, and the watei- 

 should cover the jars to within an inch of 

 the top. The water may be heated to 180 

 degrees Fahrenheit, but the honey should 

 not be allowed to become hotter than 100, 

 as otherwise its flavor will be injured. 



SWARMS RETURN TO PARENT COLONY. 



QuestiO'U. — One of my colonies has swarmed 

 twice, and both times they left the new hive and 

 returned to the parent colony. How can 1 n'inc<ly 

 this? 



Michigan. Mack Hoagland. 



Answer. — Colonies sometimes show reluc- 

 tance to remaining in new hives. If drawn 

 comb is given instead of foundation, they 

 are more inclined to stay. Also, it often 

 helps to turn the parent hive with its en- 

 trance in the opposite direction. In some 

 cases it is even necessary to throw a sheet 

 r tlie hive at the time the colony returns 

 in Older that the appearance of the hive 



