American l^ee Journal 



bread'' of our fathers, and was often 

 called for by many children who liked 

 to eat such combs of "bread and honey," 

 but the older ones preferred their honey 

 clear. One of the strange things about 

 this matter is, although I have tried 

 to keep a close watch during my 40 

 years of bee-keeping life, I have never 

 observed any other pollen preserved un- 

 der honey except that from the clovers 

 — white, red or alsike. 



Again I am asked: "Why do some 

 colonies of bees store more pollen than 

 others?" Pollen accumulates in the 

 combs only as brood-rearing does not 

 go on rapidly enough to use it up, hence 

 a failing queen, or a queenless colony, 

 is liable to have more pollen stored in 

 the combs than colonies having very 

 prolific queens. The attention of the 

 apiarist is often first called to a queen- 

 less colony, or one having a failing 

 queen, by the large quantities of pollen 

 found in the combs upon opening a 

 hive that has been left undisturbed for 

 a long time. I have many times in this 

 way found queenless colonies when 

 opening the hives of those having cast 

 swarms 3 or 4 weeks before, with their 

 combs half filled with pollen. But there 

 are times where the combs of all colo- 

 nies are crowded with pollen from the 

 great amount which the bees see fit 

 to collect when the hard maple and 

 wild grape are in bloom in this locality. 

 But as there is a dearth of pollen dur- 

 ing the next week or so following, all 

 of this is turned into ■ brood by all 

 colonies having good queens, and for 

 this reason it is a blessing rather than 

 otherwise. 



Again he says, "What is propolis, and 

 where does it come from?" Propolis 

 is a resinous substance gathered by the 

 bees, and comes very largely from the 

 buds of the horse chestnut and Balm 

 of Gilead in this locality. When gath- 

 ered it is of a salvey nature which allows 

 of its being worked in warm weather, 

 but which is hard and brittle when it 

 has aged or grown cold from the ap- 

 proach of winter. It is used to stop 

 all cracks in the hive not large enough 

 to admit a bee, and to smooth over all 

 uneven surfaces about that part of the 

 hive they come in contact with when 

 clustered. Where too much of it is not 

 gathered, it is a great blessing in mak- 

 ing all tight, dry and nice, but where 

 it is too freely gathered and plastered 

 about, so as to run down over the 

 frame and sections, it almost becomes a 

 nuisance. Where there is little or no 

 propolis gathered, wax is often used 

 to take the place of it, though it is not 

 used to any such extent as propolis is. 



Lastly he wishes to know, " Can 

 either pollen or propolis be put to any 

 domestic use?" I think not, or, at least 

 nothing of sufficient amount to pay the 

 bee-keeper for saving either. As far as 

 I know there has never been any effort 

 to use pollen in any way; but I believe 

 attempts have been made to use propolis 

 as an ingredient in making some salves. 

 Propolis also contains more or less wax, 

 and of late some think the amount of 

 sufficient value to pay for the labor in 

 rendering it, but with me I think it a 

 doubtful problem for the man who can 

 command $1.50 as a day wage. 



Borodino, N. Y. 



No. 5.— Colorado Bee-Keeping 



BY R. C. AIKIN. 



March and April in Colorado are 

 rather trying months. In March we 

 simply know little about "where we are 

 at" in the northern end of the State; 

 it may be warm and pleasant all the 

 way through, and it may be partly warm 

 and some very cold. I have known a 

 temperature as low as r8 to 20 de- 

 grees below zero after the middle of 

 the month, and as high as 90 above, 

 but not in the same year. As a rule 

 we get one or two dips to the vicinity 

 of zero during the month. This dry 

 country usually gets more moisture in 

 the months of March, April and May 

 than in any other period of the same 

 length. Another thing peculiar is, that 

 up to May, and often in that month, the 

 moisture comes either in snow, or rain 

 turning to snow, then clears cold and 

 calm, and the first night of clear is 

 when we get the intense cold. The 

 fact is, that it is in snowy winters that 

 we get our intense cold, for so sure as 

 it clears with the ground covered with 

 snow, then it takes a long thermometer 

 at the bottom to register. 



April rarely closes without some 

 freezes, and often with several, and 

 sometimes pretty sharp. So you see -this 

 is a testing time for the bees. We 

 may think when there is a warm spell 

 in March, and bees flying and getting 

 pollen, or going to the mills and get- 

 ting flour, that we have safely win- 

 tered ; but it is not safe to count yet — 

 wait until about May ist; if any have 

 failed to mature enough brood so as to 

 have enough workers of recent hatch- 

 ing to warm and care for a patch of 

 brood they are doomed. Some may 

 have some old bees still alive at June 

 first, but it is a rare case for them to 

 hold out that long. 

 Uniting Weak Colonies In Spring. 



If you have a goodly bunch of bees 

 in some hives, but either too few to 

 mature brood or they are queenless, do 

 not think you can save them by adding 

 them to some other weak colony. Those 

 old bees will not last long enough to 

 be of any help ; it is hard to make them 

 stay where you put them, and they are 

 almost sure to kill enough queens to 

 leave you worse off than before. You 

 may, however, give them some ripe and 

 just-hatching brood, so that within a 

 very few days there will be enough bees 

 hatched to care for the later maturing 

 brood,_ but remember that this takes 

 good judgment to succeed, and what 

 have you when it is done but a bit of 

 a queenless colony? And any queen 

 reared in such a colony is worthless. 



If April be a pleasant month, and if 

 the colony has been in a prosperous 

 condition and building up, now is the 

 time to cut off bur-combs and clip 

 queens, to rearrange the position of 

 brood-combs, to take out drone-combs 

 left over from the previous season, and 

 such work. But you will have to watch 

 your chance and work when there is 

 field-work for the bees, or work in a 

 tent or some protection against robbers. 

 In this part of the State the cotton- 

 wood trees come into bloom usually 

 from April 15th to 20th — the earliest I 

 have known in 20 years was the 12th, 



and the latest the 2Sth. Farther south 

 and in more favorable parts the time 

 will be earher. The Cottonwood is a 

 State-wide tree where there are trees 

 bearing pollen and nectar, so when these 

 trees are in bloom is when, and the ear- 

 liest date that most of us can find, field- 

 work sufficient to put the bees in shape 

 for handling. It is not wise to try hive 

 and frame manipulations any time in the 

 spring that bees are not occupied with 

 bringing in stores of some kind, for the 

 nuisance of robbers makes it almost im- 

 possible to do the work. 



As stated above, do not handle frames 

 and bees except when they are gathering 

 some kind of stores, unless it is a case 

 of necessity for some reason. The pres- 

 ence of robbers is sure to excite the col- 

 ony and make them very irritable, and 

 when so they will ball queens and also 

 fight the operator. Very many queens 

 are lost at this time of the year by in- 

 judicious manipulations. A queen lost 

 in the early spring is very hard to re- 

 place, and in many of our Colorado lo- 

 calities it is almost impossible at this 

 time to get a queen reared that is worth 

 even temporary use, unless by feeding 

 and in the best colonies. Then, too, this 

 is a time when it is most important to 

 have every queen doing her best. Lo- 

 calities will vary, owing to latitude and 

 altitude, and varying sources of supplies, 

 but the principles above must be applied 

 if best results are obtained. In the 

 spring, handle bees just as little as pos- 

 sible when robbing will follow. 



SUPERSEDURE OF QuEENS. 



If you have allowed any old queens 

 that are about to pass their prime, or if 

 you have poorly reared ones, such as 

 would be the result from those reared in 

 weak colonies or early in the spring, the 

 kind called starved queens, now is the 

 time they will begin to disappear or be 

 superseded. Here is one of the worst 

 things about allowing the bees to do 

 their own superseding, so many of the 

 queens fail in the spring before the col- 

 ony is made_ ready for the honey-flow, 

 and such failure usually means an un- 

 profitable colony for that season. To 

 have all colonies with queens that have 

 not passed their prime will get more 

 bees and stronger colonies ready for the 

 flow when it comes. It will also pre- 

 vent some early swarming, for it often 

 happens that a queen will do a good 

 business in the early spring and get a 

 very fair colony so that the apiarist 

 thinks he has a good queen, only to be 

 disappointed just near the flow, to find 

 the combs not as full of brood as he ex- 

 pected, or the same with one or more 

 queen-cclls started. And if as I said, 

 the colony has built up to pretty good 

 strength it often happens that these su- 

 perseding colonies will swarm early. I 

 know that very many early swarms, say 

 in April and May, in this country were 

 just that kind, and I have had a large 

 experience and observation along that 

 line. 



To breed from starved queen-mothers 

 is not to be thought of; but if one has 

 good old queens, and there is super- 

 sedure in the spring before the main 

 swarming season, it may pay well to 

 save such cells if one has the brood and 

 bees necessary. I would form such into 

 nuclei, and endeavor to have them ma- 



