GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



746 



QUESTION. — 

 I am making 

 a specialty of 

 extracted and 

 liullf comb honey. I 

 use the Danzen- 

 1 aker hive, with 

 tlie hive-body as 

 supers. I use full 

 slieets of founda- 

 tion. Some of the 



combs are crooked, some too thick and some are 

 too thin. Is there not some device, similar to the 

 fences used in section supers, to insure straight 

 combs of uniform thickness? Something on the 

 order of the queen-excluding honey-board might 

 answer. If there is nothing for this purpose, would 

 you recommend the queen-excluding division-board? 

 North Carolina. B- E. Carter. 



Answer. — If the hives are kept level and if 

 the colonies of bees are kept strong and are 

 given a full set of foundation at one time, 

 we see no reason why those combs should 

 not be drawn out evenly, when there is a 

 good flow of honey. But if your honey flow is 

 slow or intermittent or if your colonies are 

 not booming strong, the bees will begin 

 work on some of the combs ahead of others, 

 building these combs thicker unless you use 

 some such device as that you mention. 



Questions. — (1) I have read about the flight 

 that bees make in the fall in November, and they 

 say you should put your bees away in the cellar 

 right after the flight. Can you tell me what a 

 flight is and how to distinguish it? (2) Does it 

 take any more honey in a hive that is in a poor cel- 

 lar than in a cellar in which there is a furnace? 



Minnesota. Charley Krueger. 



Answers. — (1) During warm days in the 

 late fall bees will often fly from their hives 

 not as a swarm, but simply a few bees leav- 

 ing and returning to the hives just as they 

 might do any day which is warm. On such 

 days as this all the bees actually needing a 

 flight would take it. Therefore such days 

 are spoken of as good flight days. (2) A 

 good cellar should be darkened and well ven- 

 tilated and should have an even temperature 

 of about 45 degrees. If the cellar is too cool 

 it becomes necessary for the bees to be very 

 active in order to keep up the temperature 

 of the colony, and this unusual activity on 

 their part compels them to use an unusual 

 amount of stores; so there will be consider- 

 able saving of stores if the right cellar tem- 

 perature is maintained. 



Question. — I intend to quit the city life and 

 would like to buy myself a farm in New York State 

 out on Long Island. I intend to put up about 75 

 hives to begin with. And what I would like to 

 know is: Do you think a bee farm with 75 hives 

 will bring enough money for two to live on ? 



New York. Fred SoUner. 



Answer. — Of course, if you have had ex- 

 perience with bees, then it might be safe to 

 start in with 75 colonies; but, as a general 

 proposition, it is much better to start with 

 a few and then as you gain in experience 

 gradually increase the number. Now, as to 

 the number of colonies that would be nec- 

 essary in order to support two, that would 



December, 1920 



depend a greait 

 deal on the two 

 individuals, o n 

 the local condi- 

 tions, the 

 amount of nec- 

 tnr to 

 tained 

 siven 



be ob- 

 in any 

 locality. 



and also upon 

 the price at which the honey would sell. 

 Of course, the seasons vary, but in a local- 

 ity where colonies average 100 pounds per 

 colony and in a season when honey sells 

 at 20c you can readily see that your 75 colo- 

 nies would produce $1500 worth of honey, 

 but of course, there would be some expense 

 connected with this. In order to make a 

 living good years and poor ones, just as they 

 come, you would probably want more colo- 

 nies, very likely as many as 150, or even 

 more. A year ago a number of beekeepers 

 in Michigan whose colonies averaged 100 

 colonies to the beekeeper, had an average 

 income of nearly $3000, but, of course, at 

 that time prices were very high. 



Question. — Will it be perfectly safe to use foul 

 brood hives again by scraping the inside carefully, 

 then charring slightly the inside with a blow-pipe 

 and painting inside and out. 



Pennsylvania. John Major. 



Answer. — Yes, the method that you sug- 

 gest of cleaning your hives would certainly 

 make them safe to use again. However, we 

 do not think that it would be necessary 

 after scraping and charring the inside of 

 the hive to paint it. The scraping and char- 

 ring ought to be sufficient. Of course, we 

 infer that you are speaking about American 

 foul brood, for in case of European foul 

 brood it is not necessary to disinfect the 

 hives at all. 



Question. — I purchased a supply of carbon bisul- 

 phide to kill moths which were working on my un- 

 finished sections and frames of honey that I had 

 reserved to give to weak colonies. I gave all of 

 those combs a slight treatment of carbon bisulphide, 

 and a wliile afterwards I gave three of those frames 

 containing honey to a colony that was short of 

 stores, and in 24 hours afterward half of the bees 

 in the hive were dead. These frames were carried 

 from the honey-house in the open air to the hive. 

 I would like to know if the rest of those frames of 

 honey will still be poisonous to bees or people. If so, 

 that dope is going to cost me about $100 ; but I am 

 pretty sure the moths will die. 



West Virginia. T. A. Youngblood. 



Answer. — The report you gave us of killing 

 your bees by the use of combs that had been 

 treated with carbon bisulphide is difficult to 

 understand, for in all the years that carbon 

 bisulphide has been used for this purpose we 

 have never yet had a report such as yours. 

 We are wondering just how you applied the 

 treatment. The carbon bisulphide is not 

 supposed to be sprayed on the combs, but is 

 simply put in a shallow pan and placed at 

 the top of a pile of combs to be treated, the 

 pile being carefully covered at the top and 

 bottom and left 24 hours. The Texas Experi- 



