March, 1922 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



lf)9 



QUESTION. 

 — When t h e 

 1 i 111 e-sulphur 

 solution is 

 used on fruit trees 

 for control of San 

 Jose scale, is dam- 

 age or injury there- 

 from likely to re- 

 sult to bees located 

 in the orchard from 

 gums or resinous 



c 



GLEANED 



Geo. S 



BY ASKING 



Demuth 



1 



ur 



TU 



gather 



substances they might 

 from the trunks of the trees for propolis? 



Idaho. Lawrence 0. Nichols. 



Answer. — So far as known the lime-siil- 

 phur solution does not injure bees in any 

 way. It would seem that the chances of 

 bees being seriously injured in the manner 

 you suggest would be very small indeed. So 

 far as known, it is only when poison, such 

 as arsenic in some form, is added to the 

 spray solution that bees are injured. Even 

 then they are seriously injured only when 

 the spray is applied wliile the trees are in 

 bloom or when the bees are working on the 

 cover crop on which some of the poisoned 

 liquid falls. 



BEES DISAPPEAR DURING WINTER. 



■Question. — In March last year I found all the 

 bees gone from three hives, leaving plenty of stores. 

 What do you suppose was the trouble with them ? 



North Carolina. T. W. Gentry. 



Answer. — These colonies may have been 

 queenless last summer or fall, and having 

 none but old bees they would, of course, die 

 off gradually from old age until none were 

 left. It sometimes happens when bees 

 swarm that the young queen left in the par- 

 ent colony is lost in her mating flight or 

 fails to become fertile. When this happens 

 the parent colony is hopelessly queenless 

 and will die in the fall or winter if not be- 

 fore, unless tlie beekeeper supplies them 

 with either a queen or .some brood from 

 Avhich to rear one. Sometimes laying queens 

 are lost, and thru some accident the colony 

 fails to requeen itself. 

 ■ The colonies may have swarmed out be- 

 cause of American foul brood. They often 

 do this if the disease is permitted to run 

 for long, even when they have plenty of 

 honey. You can tell by looking for dead 

 larvae and pupae in the brood-combs, and 

 especially by looking for the dried-down 

 scales on the lower cell wall if the colonies 

 had American foul brood. By examining 

 the combs carefully you can also usually tell 

 if they were queenless the previous sum- 

 mer. Queenless colonies usually fill their 

 brood-combs Avith pollen; so, if you find the 

 combs heavy with pollen, you may be fairly 

 certain that these colonies were queenless. 



BEES LEAVE HIVE AND BECOME CHILLED. 



Question. — What causes bees to leave their hives 

 in a frenzied manner, take flight and drop to the 

 ground stiffened from the cold? The bees are well 

 packed, and the thermometer was 25° when they 

 caine out. Andrew Stofka. 



Ohio. 



Answer. — Bees will flv from their hives 



wheii it is too 

 cold for s a f e 

 fliglit, only wlien 

 in distress from 

 age or accumu- 

 lated feces. Old 

 bees often leave 

 t li e hive n 

 bright days in 

 . w i )i t e r and 



(|uu'kly become cliilled iii the manner you 

 describe. Since these old bees would otli- 

 erwise die in the hive a little later their 

 loss is of but little consequence. When 

 bees are wintering on poor stores, such as 

 some kinds of late-gathered fall honey or 

 honeydew, they often become so laden "with 

 indigestible matter that they are in great 

 distress and fly out in an effort to relieve 

 tlieiiiselves of accumulated feces. It some- 

 times happens that many bees are lost when 

 there is snow on the ground, even when the 

 air is warm enough for safe flight, by fall- 

 ing into the snow and becoming chilled be- 

 fore they can again take wing. 



DIFFERENT SIZES OF SECTIONS. 



Que.stioii. — Why are sections made in th^ee differ- 

 ent sizes? W. .J. Shafer. 



Ohio. 



Answer. — Formerly many more different 

 sizes and styles of sections were made than 

 at present. During the period of the de- 

 velopment of the standard hives and equip- 

 ment of today, many beekeepers used odd- 

 sized hives and supers. In many cases these 

 odd-sized supers called for odd-sized sec- 

 tions. 



Just why certain sizes have become stand 

 nrd is an interesting story. A.' I. Eoot made 

 his first sections 41^x414 inches in order 

 that eight of them would fit inside of a 

 standard-sized Langstroth frame made of 

 1/4 -inch stuff but wider than the brood- 

 frames. To make these hold about a pound 

 he made them 1{§ inches wide, with top and 

 bottom narrower to admit the bees. Later, 

 when the one-piece section was invented, 

 the openings at the top and bottom were 

 cut out of the wood to form the beeway, as 

 they are made today. When wooden instead 

 of tin separators came into vogue, about 

 1890, the width of the standard section was 

 reduced to 1% inches to allow -^g inch for 

 the thickness of the separator. This size 

 and style of section are still standard, more 

 of these being used in this country than 

 any other. When the fence separators and 

 plain sections were introduced in 1897 the 

 4^,1 X 414 X l^L'-inch plain section was made 

 to fit the same supers as the' standard bee- 

 way section, these plain sections having the 

 same comb thickness and therefore the same 

 capacity as the standard 1%-inch section. 

 The 4x5 section came into general use 

 largely in connection with the divisible 

 brood-chamber hives which were so vigor- 

 ously exploited from 1885 to 1900, tho sec- 

 tions taller than wide had long been in use 



