598 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



September, 1922 



c 



GLEANED 



Geo. S. 



QUESTION. 

 — I am dig- 

 ging a base- 

 in e n t under 

 my summer cot- 

 tage, which is lo- 

 cated high and 

 dry. The basement 

 will be eight feet 

 deep, 16 feet long 

 and 16 feet wide. 



As there will be no occupant of the house dur- 

 ing the winter the question arises whether this 

 basement will be too cold for wintering bees 

 where the temperature during January and Feb- 

 ruary often reaches 40° below zero. Would it be 

 well to put boards around the hives and pack 

 them with six inches of leaves ? R. Turnbull. 



Minnesota. 



Answer. — Such a basement would no 

 doubt become too cold for good wintering in 

 your climate, especially if mucli of the up- 

 per portion of the walls is exposed above 

 ground. You may be able to winter the 

 bees successfully in this cellar by packing as 

 you describe, but it will be better to pack 

 the cellar itself by banking up the outside 

 with straw two feet or more above the top 

 of the basement walls. It may also be nec- 

 essary to put some kind of packing over the 

 floors above to keep the temperature of the 

 basement above 45°. 



A better plan would be to dig the base- 

 ment deeper into the ground, then put in a 

 false ceiling about three feet below the sur- 

 face of the ground, filling the space between 

 this false ceiling and the floor above with 

 packing material such as dry forest leaves, 

 planer shavings or sawdust. 



Bees Rear Queen in 11 Via Days. 



Question. — Why do all the books give 16 days 

 as the time for the development of a queen when 

 my bees reared a queen in 11 V^ days. 



Virginia. Carrington Callaway. 



Answer. — The development period as giv- 

 en in the books is computed from the time 

 the egg was laid, Avhile in the case you men- 

 tion the queen was no doubt reared from 

 a larva at least one day old. Since it is three 

 days from the time the egg is laid until it 

 hatches, this would make four to four and 

 a half days to be added to the 11% days in 

 tlie case you mention, making the total pe- 

 riod for development IS^A to 16 days. 

 Insufficient Stores Left After Extracting. 



Question. — If a colony fills three extracting- 

 supers and I take them all off, will it be neces- 

 sary to feed this colony sugar syrup for win- 

 ter? L. J. Heinzer. 



California. 



Answer.^ — ^If. there is no later honey flow 

 to supply stores for winter, it will be neces- 

 sjiry eitiier to feed such colonies for winter 

 or to give them frames of honey. Often it 

 is not safe to extract all the honey from the 

 supers even when a later honey flow is as- 

 sured, for there may not be enough honey 

 left in the brood-chamber to enable the colo- 

 nies to keep up brood-rearing until the later 

 lioney flow begins. Such close cxtriicting no 

 doubt puts more colonies of bees out of com 

 mission for the next season, every year, in 

 this country than all the brood diseases cum- 



BY ASKING 



Demuth 



3 



bined. If all the 

 beekeepers in the 

 United States 

 could in some 

 way be induced 

 to leave 40 to 50 

 pounds of honey 

 in each hive at 

 the close of the 

 season for the 

 bees, the total honey crop of the country 

 the next season would no doubt be more 

 than doubled. The successful beekeepers are 

 those who supply their bees with an abun- 

 dance of stores at the close of the season 

 or who are located so favorably that nature 

 supplies sufficient food for the bees after 

 the honey has been extracted. 



Wintering Two Queens in One Hive. 



Question. — Is there any way of wintering two 

 queens in one colony or in one hive? 



Kansas. A. E. Zellner. 



Answer. — Two or more queens can be win- 

 tered in the same hive but not very well in 

 the same colony. The hive can be divided 

 by a tight-fitting division-board and pro- 

 vided with a separate entrance for each di- 

 vision so that two or more nuclei can be 

 wintered in one hive. Queen-breeders some- 

 times winter surplus queens in this way to 

 fill early orders in the spring. It will be 

 well to have these small colonies strong 

 enough to cover at least three combs. A 

 division-board can be inserted in the middle 

 of the hive in tlie fall, dividing the brood 

 and bees about equally on each side, and the 

 queenless part supplied with a queen or a 

 ripe queen-cell, thus making two colonies. 

 Such colonies shoi;ld winter well if supplied 

 with sufficient stores, but will need more 

 room early next spring. 



Wlien the bees rear a young queen to take 

 the place of the old one, frequently they 

 permit both the old and the young queens 

 to work together for some time after the 

 young queen begins to lay, but usually the 

 old queen disappears after the honey flow, 

 so it is not often that the two queens are 

 wintered. It is possible under certain con- 

 ditions even to have two or more young lay- 

 ing queens in one colony during the honey 

 flow, but usually all but one disappear after 

 the close of the honey flow. 



Placing Combs Crosswise in the Hive. 



Question. — If the bees build their combs cross- 

 wise in relation to the entrance in nature, wliy 

 are hives built with the combs running length- 

 wise? John Valley. 



Ohio. 



Answer. — In nature, bees build their 

 combs in various directions in relation to 

 the entrance, no special rule being followed. 

 It has been suggested that the hive will be 

 warmer in winter if the entrance is at the 

 side of the combs instead of in the usual 

 position at the ends. In the older literature 

 this was designated as the Avarm way of 

 placing the combs, while placing them witli 

 tliii ends toAvard the entrance was called the 

 cold way. In actual practice this probably 

 does not make much difference in the way 



