June, 1921 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



idXDITIONS FOK BlU.liIXG WORKER COMB. 



Question. — Under what i-onditions will bees best 

 build woiker comlis ? M. W. Millard. 



Tennessee. 



Answer. — If full sheets of foundation are 

 not vised, there are two conditions under 

 which bees may be expected to build work 

 er combs. (11 Very weak colonies having 

 only two or three frames of brood can be in- 

 duced to fill frame after frame with worker 

 comb from inch starters only by removing 

 all but two of their combs and giving them 

 one frame at a time during the honey flow. 

 The principle is useful in having combs re 

 paired which have holes in them; for these 

 nuclei will fill the holes with worker comb, 

 while a larger colony would almost invari 

 ably fill the holes with drone comb. (2) Just 

 after a swarm lias been hived the bees will 

 build worker comb for the first few days, 

 unless the queen is old or failing. If only 

 five or six frames containing inch starters 

 are given to a newly liived swarm, the re- 

 maining space being filled with division- 

 boards, a newly hived swarm having a queen 

 not more than a year old, will usually fill 

 these frames witli worker comb; but, if 

 more frames are given, the outside ones, 

 and perhaps the ends of the middle ones, 

 will contain drone comb. 



When full sheets of foundation are used, 

 better combs can usually be secured by hav-* 

 ing them built out in an upper story during 

 a good honey flow. 



ITALIANS AND EUROPEAN FOUL BROOD. 



Question. — Do you consider that certain strains 

 of Italian bees are really immune to European 

 foul brood, or do you believe that the disease is 

 eradicated by strong:, vigorous colonies on account 

 of their being- able actually to carrj- all the infested 

 material from the hive' D. D. Stacy. 



Ohio. 



Answer. — Italian bt'es are not immune to 

 European foul brood, as may easily be dem- 

 onstrated by placing combs containing this 

 disease in a hive containing a weak colony 

 of Italians. If the colony chosen is too, 

 weak to clean out the infested material 

 thoroly, the disease will spread to other 

 combs. Apparently strong colonies of Ital- 

 ians are able to overcome European foul 

 brood by their thoroness in disposing of 

 the dead larvae and pupae and cleaning out 

 the cells. The two important factors in the 

 eradication of European foul brood are a 

 good strain of Italian bees and strong colo- 

 nies, that is, strong in the spring. 



QUREN-KXrH-DKR TO ('OXTROL SWARMING. 



Que-stion. — If I should place a queen-excludfr 

 underneath the brood-chamber and leave it there 

 during the swarming season, what would be the 

 result as to swarmintt .' P. K. Morlan. 



Indiana. 



Answer. — After the prime swarm has is- 

 sued and returned two or three times the 

 bees would give up further swarming until 

 the young queens begin to emerge a few 

 days later. Then if none of the young 

 queens succeed in escaping thru the queen- 

 excluder, they would attempt to swarm 

 every day or t'tvo until no unemerged young 



(|ueens remain, aiul all but one of them 

 liave been killed. If the queen-excluder is 

 not then removed to permit the surviving 

 young queen to go out to mate, she would 

 finally disappear, probably worried to death 

 l)v the workers. The colony would then be 

 hopelessly queenless. In the meantime such 

 colonies, having the swarming fever thruout 

 most of the honey flow and wasting mucli 

 time in many unsuccessful attempts to 

 swarm, would do little work in the supers. 

 A queen-excluder can be used, as you sug- 

 gest, to prevent an undipped queen leading 

 off a swarm while the owner is away, but 

 to leave it in place thruout the swarming 

 season would give very poor results. 



ORIGIN OF BEK DISEASES. 



Question. — In the April issue, page 203, you say 

 the cause of the two most destructive brood dis- 

 eases is positively known, the cause of American 

 foul brood being a specific ge*n, Bacilhis larvae. 

 and the cause of European foul brood being an en- 

 tirely different germ. Bacilhoi phtton. Now I ask 

 what causes this germ ? A. Beckard. 



Missouri. 



Answer. — The germs which cause the two 

 brood diseases are minute plants, too small 

 to be seen with the naked eye, but can be 

 seen by means of a microscope. You are 

 asking a hard one when you ask what causes 

 these microscopic plants, or where they 

 come from. No one knows any more about 

 the origin of the microscopic plants than is 

 known about the origin of any other plants. 

 It is known, however, that it is impossible 

 for a colony of bees to have American foul 

 brood, unless some of the spores of the mic- 

 roscopic plant called Bacillus larvae are in 

 some way carried into the hive and fed to 

 the young brood. Likewise it is impossible 

 for a colony of bees to have European foul 

 brood unless some of the germs Bacillus 

 liliiton are in some way carried into the 

 hive and fed to the young larvae. The dis- 

 ease is carried from colony to colony by 

 robbing, by drifting bees, by the bees ob- 

 taining honey taken from diseased colonies, 

 or by the beekeeper giving combs or other 

 material from the hive of a diseased colony 

 to a healthy colony. 



UNITING SWARMS WITH ESTABLISHED COLONIES. 



Question. — What do you think of hiving swarms 

 (that one could buy) in with full colonies of bees 

 to increase the population of the colony, thereby 

 increasing the production of honey? 



Iowa. M. E. Zbornik. 



Answer.— -Unless there is a good honey 

 How at the time, the bees of the two colo- 

 nies may fight and many of them be killed 

 when a swarm is hived in with an estab- 

 lished colony, but sometimes this may be 

 done without any fighting. Another objec- 

 tion to this plan is that, if the established 

 colonies are already of normal strength, 

 the addition of the swarm would probably 

 result in these abnormally strong colonies 

 immediately preparing to swarm. This plan 

 might be used to strengthen colonies that 

 are not strong enough to work in the supers, 

 if conditions are favorable for uniting, but 

 it should be used with caution. 



