214 



June. 1909. 



American Tiee Journal 



^ 



ocfor WiWefs 



Send Questions either to the office '.; luc Auiciicrtii Ucc J<.ui lun 

 DR. C. C. MILLER, Marene-o. 111. 

 Dr. Miller does not answer Questions by mail. 



Sticking Labels on Tin. 



How do you stick labels on tin cans? I 

 don't s;em to be able to make them stick. 



Minnesota. 



AxswEK. — The favorite way is to have the 

 label pass clear around the can and overlap, 

 in which case any common paste will answer. 

 I'm not sure about it, but I think flour paste 

 with cold water sticks to tin. 



Granulated Combs of Honey. 



Please advise me what to do witli a lot of 

 clean, straight S-frame hives tliat have all 

 the honey in the combs granulated. Only 

 part of each frame is full. Tlie rest is empty 

 cells. WiU this granulated honey be a waste? 

 W'ill the bees use it up ? They weigh from 

 15 to 40 pounds for each colony. Will it 

 do to hive swarms on these granulated combs. 



New York. 



An&wer. — Spray the combs with water, pref- 

 erably warm, and give them to the bees. 

 When they are cleaned out dry, spray them 

 again until all is cleaned up. If there are no 

 neiehbors' bees to share the spoils, you can 

 make a quicker job of it by setting the frames 

 out where the bees can rob them out. They 

 will be all right to give to swarms, only there 

 will be waste if the candied honey is not wet, 

 and you can not well wet tlie combs after 

 the queen lays in them. 



What Became of the Queen? 



\\ hy did one of my colonies of bees go 

 wrong? I doubled a light one. or set a 

 light one on a medium heavy one when put- 

 ting them out of the cellar in the spring. The 

 lower hive had a queen. She went up into 

 the top hive and made a lot of brood, also 

 in the lower hive. It appeared to be the 

 strongest colony I had. I went to it the 

 other day to get a frame of brood to test 

 another colony, but was surprised to find no 

 brood nor eggs nor any signs of a queen. 

 They are starting a queen-cell on the brood 

 T put in. Will it make a satisfactory queen? 

 The cell is not very large. Iowa. 



Answer. — If I understand correctly, you 

 found plenty of brood in both hives after they 

 were put together, so that it appears the queen 

 was all right for some time after the uniting. 

 It is possible that at the time you looked to 

 find this brood, you may have accidentally 

 killed the^ queen in shoving the frames to- 

 gether. Not very likely, however. It is pos- 

 sible that after you closed the hive the bees 

 took offense and balled the queen, killing 

 her. Some object to much opening of hives 

 in spring on this account. It is al5;o possi- 

 ble that the queen just naturally played out 

 and the bees were trying to supersede her. 

 pueens generally play out at or about the 

 close of harvest, but sometimes in spring. 

 The queen they rtar may turn out good, 

 but generally a queen reared so early is bad. 



Taming Cross Bees. 



1. I have a colony of bees that are very 

 cross, and one that is vny tame. How 

 could I introduce a queen from the tame 

 colony to the cross one so as to make them 

 all tame? And at what time ought I do it? 



2. As I am a beginner I would like to have 

 your opinion as to whether the chaff hives 

 are better than the single-board hive? 



Ohio. 

 Answer. — 1. Rear a queen from the better 

 stock, kill the objectionable queen, and in- 

 troduce the new queen in an introducing 

 '•ace. Or you may do another way. Take 



2 or 3 frames of brood from the good col- 

 ony, put them in an empty hive, fill out with 

 empty combs or frames filled with founda- 

 tion, and set this on the stand of the bad 

 colony, moving the bad colony to a new 

 place close by. Now lift out 2 or 3 frames 

 from the bad colony (be sure you don't 

 get the queen) , and shake the Isees from 

 these frames into your new hive, returning 

 to the bad colony its 2 frames of brood. In 

 something like 2 weeks there ought to be a 

 queen laying in your new hive. You can 

 strengthen it by adding brood and bees from 

 the bad hive, or you can unite with it all 

 of the bees and brood, killing the bad queen 

 2 or 3 days before uniting. Perhaps you 

 would like to have 2 colonies instead of one. 

 In that case kill the bad queen a week after 

 the first move, and 2 or 3 days late;- ex- 

 change one of the 2 frames in your new 

 hive for one of the frames in the bad hive, 

 making sure there is a cell on the frame, 

 and also on the frame you leave. 



2. Nowadays the tendency seems rather to- 

 ward the single-walled hive, with protection 

 for outdoor wintering. 



Cyprian Queens. 



Where can one get Cyprian queens? 



Illinois. 



Answer. — I don't know. If any one has 

 them for sale, one would think an advertise- 

 ment of them would appear by the time this 

 gets into print. 



Two Queens in One Hive. 



To increase a colony more rapidly, would 

 it be possible for me to put 2 queens, each 

 having a 2-frame nucleus, with a division- 

 board between, in one hive, and later, as the 

 (|ueens filled their frames with brood, take 

 away one of the queens, and by thus doing, 

 unite the two? A Subscriber. 



Answer. — If I understand, your idea is to 

 have two queens at work while the colony 

 is weak so that you may the sooner have a 

 strong colony. It won't work. The two nu- 

 clei with two frames of brood each will not 

 build up as fast as one queen with four 

 frames of brood. For a single queen can 

 lay eggs faster than they can be cared for 

 by the bees until the colony is strong enough 

 to cover a good deal more than four combs. 

 Some queens can keep 13 to l.j frames of 

 brood going. 



Foul Brood — Winter Size of Hive- 

 Entrance — Bees Stinging 

 Some People. 



1. Ought I to use brood-frames which con- 

 tain perfect combs, i. e., those showing no 

 signs of foul brood, if purchased in a lot 

 of hives, part of which I suspected were in- 

 fected ? 



2, Would there be danger of introducing 

 foul brood from using the supers from these 

 liivcs containing the sections? 



'i. Would it make any difference if empty 

 comb were built in the sections, no cells 

 contai"ing honey. 



4. What size entrance for wintering do 

 you consider best for an average colony in an 

 S- frame well-protected hive wintered out-of- 

 doors where the thermometer ranges from 12 

 degrees below to .jj degrees above? 



5. Would it be better to clear the snow 

 from the entrance after each storm that 

 blocks it, or leave the snow and clear only 

 when there is danger of the hive becoming 

 scaled by ice or sleet storms? 



G. Do your bees know the difference be- 



tween you and another person when they are 

 in a stinging mood, neither person having 

 angered them? 



7. Are there persons whom bees seem to 

 hate worse than an average person? 



8. If so, can you give any reason for it? 



Maine. 

 Answers. — 1. There is danger. Don't use 

 them unless you keep close watch. 



2. I'm not sure there's any danger; cer- 

 tainly very little. 



3. That would probably make no difference. 

 And yet foul brood is such a dangerous 

 thing to have anything to do with that I 

 would hardly want to have in my apiary a 

 bee journal containing an article on foul 

 brood. 



4. Views differ; perhaps 4 inches by fs- 



5. It may be as well to leave it, so long 

 as the air can work its way freely through 

 the snow. Yet if the snow be very deep, some 

 have reported trouble from too great warmth. 



fi. I don't suppose they do. 



7. Yes. 



S. Like enough the difference in odor. 

 Some people have an odor that you can smell. 

 Bees may have such a sharp smell that they 

 can smell odors imperceptible to you, and 

 the odor of some people may be very ob- 

 jectionable to them. 



Getting Honey to Granulate. 



Under what conditions can extracted honey 

 be most quickly crystallized, or candied, so 

 that it can be sold in paper packages? I am 

 not engaged in bee-keeping, and haven't much 

 literature on the subject. California. 



Answer. — In Europe, where there is more 

 desire to have honey granulate than here, 

 they stir the honey occasionally. Mixing a 

 little granulated honey with the liquid also 

 helps. There is a great difference in the 

 kinds of honey. Some honey begins to granu- 

 late as soon as extracted, while other honey 

 may remain liquid a year or more. 



Rearing Queens — Caucasian Bees. 



I have held back long enough. I must out 

 with it and ask a question about rearing 

 queens. I have been working with bees now 

 for 4 years and have 25 colonies. I have 

 spent a good deal buying books about rearing 

 queens, but have never reared a queen. Now 

 no doubt all small dealers would like to 

 know what I am about to ask. that is, how 

 to rear a few queens for home use, without 

 having to transfer larvae or working with 

 cell-cups, and so on. I believe I will put my 

 question in this form — I will outline a plan 

 given to me by a friend which I tried but 

 failed. 



1. I am using the Hand sectional hive. He 

 told me to take a strong colony, put most of 

 the brood above an excluder, and after 10 

 days take the lower part of the hive to a 

 new stand. Now prepare some little sticks 

 of wood ^ of an inch square by 2 inches 

 long; tack a little piece of tin across the 

 end so as to hang them in a frame prepared 

 for them. In this way instead of a top-bar 

 tack some little thin pieces say half-inch 

 wide, on each side of the end-bars, so as to 

 form a top-bar having an open space to hang 

 the blocks of wood in. Xow take from the 

 hive you want to breed from a piece of comb 

 containing eggs, split this comb up in a little 

 pieces that will contain one or more eggs. 

 Having your knife sharp, and warmed over a 

 lamp, trim the cells so they will be shallow. 

 Xow with some melted wax stick these little 

 pieces on the end of the blocks of wood, and 

 hang them in the frame. Now go to this 

 prepared hive, take out one side-frame so you 

 can spread the frames in the center, then 

 hang in the frame with the eggs on the 

 blocks, seeing first that there are no queen- 

 cells started. In 16 days you will have 

 queen-cells. 



Now, what do you think of this plan? If 

 they would use them and make cells it seems 

 to me it would be a nice and easy way to 

 handle them, one could handle them on the 

 sticks very easily, or they could be pro- 

 tected by a cell-protector and introduced 

 where you want them. Do you see any seri- 

 ous fault with this plan? 



I have your plan given in the Journal of 

 .Tune 20. 1907; I cut it out. as I thought 

 it was the simplest plan I ever saw. 



2. I read the piece, "Good Caucasians," in 

 the last Journal. Now it has just fired me 

 up again to Caucasian all my colonies. I have 

 bought one Caucasian queen. It seems to be 

 the most active colony tliat I have — the 

 only one that has swarmed; they all went 



