July, igog. 



American Vae Journal 



chamber. If Mr. Aikin would do the 

 same thing he could tier up his beeless 

 bi-ood as Mr. Doolittle does, and con- 

 trol increase. 



I will here venture the opinion, and 

 I think I can almost say with certainty, 

 that the 8-frame Langstroth is respon- 

 sible for more dead bees in spring than 

 any other one thing. It was so persis- 

 tently boomed for years, that everybody 

 who wanted a hive bought one of 8 

 frames, thinking he had got the best. 

 These hives fell into the hands of so 

 many who had no knowledge of how 

 to care for bees, that thousands of colo- 

 nies died of starvation, that might have 

 lived if they had been in hives of 

 greater capacity. And yet they are a 

 good hive in the hands of some. 

 Honey for Winter Stores. 



When the season last year had de- 

 veloped so far as to convince me that it 

 was going to be a poor one for honey, 

 I ceased putting on supers for surplus, 

 and went to putting on upper stories 

 filled with drawn combs in order to se- 

 cure all the honey possible for winter 

 stores. This was done with colonies of 

 good strength, but not with the strong- 

 est nor with the weakest. The strong- 

 est were worked for all the surplus 

 possible, and the weakest to do what 

 they could in one story. As soon as 

 the weather got warm enough in the 

 first half of April, I made examinations 

 of these upper stories, expecting to find 

 the brood-nests established in these up- 

 per stories. In most instances I found 

 the brood there, but in a few others I 

 found tlie set of upper combs heavy 

 with honey, and the brood all in the 

 lower story. The combs of the lower 

 stories had but little honey in them, and 

 this was remote from the brood. Did 

 I put any of these combs of honey in 

 the upper stories nearer to the brood? 

 I didn't. I took them all away and 

 gave each colony 3 quarts of liquid feed 

 at one feeding. 



My reasons for this procedure will 

 be sufficiently indicated when I say that 

 Mr. Doolittle's id^a of an extra set of 

 combs filled, or rather partly filled, with 

 honey, to be placed on the brood-cham- 

 ber, over an excluder, about the time of 

 fruit-bloom, I believe to be of greater 

 moment to the bee-keeping world than 

 anything that has been thought of since 

 Langstroth thought of the movable 

 frame. These combs are put away for 

 later and experimental uses. 



Abbott Pl.\n of Introducing Queens. 



Of the dozen or more queens intro- 

 duced last fall by the Abbott plan, not 

 one was lost. I have just been exam- 

 ining the colonies having queens that 

 had done good work for 2 seasons. One 

 was in a hive containing 11 Langstroth 

 frames. There was no brood and only 

 about 100 bees. The combs were about 

 half full of sealed honey. More combs, 

 you see, for experimental uses. Let me 

 say here that when getting combs of 

 honey for experimental uses, from colo- 

 nies that have queens and brood, do not 

 overlook the sugar-barrel for winter 

 food. 



Superseding Queens, Etc. 



The other colonies examined were in 

 lo-frame hives, and I found the colo- 

 nies weak in number of bees, and brood 



scant, as a general thing. This con- 

 firms me in the belief that the apiarist 

 will do well to follow Mr. Doolittle's 

 latest advice and supersede after the 

 queen has done 2 season's work. 



Mr. Doolittle asserts or argues (I do 

 not know exactly which), that this su- 

 perseding by the apiarist is not neces- 

 sary when using small hives. By small 

 hives I think he had in mind the 8- 

 frame Langstroth hives, although I be- 

 lieve he at one time used a smaller 

 kind. Even if the queen, as he says, 

 would do as good work the third sea- 

 son as she had done in the two former 

 ones when worked for comb honey, is 

 it true when worked in the 8-frame 

 hives for extracted honey? I have 

 worked some colonies in 8-frame hives 

 for extracted honey, giving unlimited 

 room above, and at the end of the sea- 

 son found the brood-chamber light in 

 stores, showing that the queen had had 

 unlimited room for laving. 



On the whole, I feel constrained to 

 say in this connection that "One by one 

 the roses fall," and that "So sleeps the 

 pride of former days." It was not long 

 ago that Mr. Doolittle was an advo- 

 cate of the small hive, and the super- 

 sedure of queens by the bees. When 

 later experiments make it plain that bet- 

 ter results can be obtained by a change 

 from both these things, he very prop- 

 erly advises a change to the better 

 methods. We are all grateful for many 

 of the things Mr. Doolittle has said and 

 done. Glancing backward over the 

 things I have read in books and papers 

 devoted to apiculture, I am not a little 

 surprised to note the many things that 

 were taught and practised a few years 

 ago that are held to be bad practise 

 now. One thing I note that is dis- 

 tinctly retrogressive and indefensible, 

 and that is the way some queen-breed- 

 ers classify their queens. 



Leon, Iowa. 



Send Questions either to the office of the American Bee Journal or to 



DR. C. C. MILLER. Marengo, 111. 



Dr. Miller does not answer Questions by mail. 



Preventing Swarming — Queen-Cells 



Not Hatching — Repairing Old 



Combs — Clipped Queen and 



Swarming. 



I dare say you will be surprised to get a 

 few queries concerning the "poetry of Na- 

 ture" from such a remote quarter. However, 

 seeing that I have devoted much study to the 

 following details before finally deciding to 

 appeal to you, I hope you will kindly do 

 your best to assist me. 



1. In the American Bee .Tournal for No- 

 vember last, "Pennsylvania" mentions the 

 Dudley tube system (page 343), as means 

 for preventing swarming, etc. Now, can you 

 inform me why it is that the bees trans- 

 ferred with the combs to the lower hive do 

 not commence queen-cells? In the Alexander 

 and Somerford systems for increase, the same 

 method, practically, is employed as is fol- 

 lowed by the Dudley system as a means for 

 preventing increase, except that the position 

 of the extra hive is reversed. It is common- 

 ly known that l>ees when provided with the 

 means for supplying a queen lose no time 

 in doing so, and with the facilities provided 

 them by the Dudley-tube system, it seems 

 peculiar that they should not do so. I note 

 in your reply to "Pennsylvania" you state 

 inter alia, "you would find it practically im- 

 possible to shift combs of sealed brood with- 

 out having any unsealed, nor would it be 

 necessary." 



2. Why is it that queen-cells sometimes 

 fail to hatcli even when carefully protected 

 by prepared cages? In any case, I invariably 

 find that the larva in the cell is shrivelled 

 up at the hatching end of the cell: this in 

 spite of a plentiful suonly of "royal jelly." 

 favorable climatic conditions, and during the 

 honey-flow. I have sometimes attributed 

 the foregoing to the fact that cells were made 

 from a queen's first round of laying; but I 

 have recently noted the same results with a 

 second-season queen's brood. 



3. Why do bees in repairing' old comb, ap- 

 parently (I say apparently because I have no 

 actual proof, beyond discoloration) use old 

 comb for the work? Recently, I placed some 

 old damaged combs in some of my hives, to- 

 gether with some new ones slightly damaged. 



In the former case the patching was made 

 by the bees to match the surrounding sides — 

 the wa.x used was dark brown. I always 

 supposed that bees could secrete only tlie n^ 

 wax with which we are all familiar. 



4. Do you think it possible for bees to 

 carry away a clipped queen when acting under 

 the swarming impulse? I recently lost a 

 swarm having a clipped queen. At first I was 

 inclined to place faith in a story told by 

 A. I. Root in the "A B C of Bee Culture," 

 where he relates that a swarm returned to the 

 parent hive after being away a short time, 

 presumably owing to the fact that the queeit 

 could not take wing with the bees on account 

 of being clipped; but my faith was shattered 

 when I saw the swarm above mentioned de- 

 part from the veld, and the only inference 

 to my mind is that the bees — possibly the drones 

 — carried her majesty away, a la Elizabethan 

 style, so to speak — on their shoulders! 



South Africa. 



.Answers. — 1. Whenever bees are made to 

 feel that they are not in pretty close com- 

 munication with a queen, you may count 

 pretty safely on their starting queen-cells if 

 they have the right material from which to 

 start them. But these cells are not allowed 

 to go on to maturity. They are destroyed, 

 either directly by the bee-keeper or the bees. 

 Increase can be made or prevented, just as 

 the cells are encouraged or not. And that 

 makes all the difference. 



2. Swiss bee-keepers, who are away up in 

 matters pertaining to queen-rearing, tell tis 

 that mere physical heat is not enough to bring 

 young queens safely to maturity, the bees 

 must be allowed to be in close contact with 

 the cells, exercising some mysterious influ- 

 ence by their close contact with the occu- 

 pants of the cells. According to that it Is 

 a mistake to cage cells as soon as they are 

 sealed. In my own practise I leave the cells 

 uncaged in a strong colony, not caging them 

 till there is danger of their liatching. 



But there is one thing that looks as if 

 another cause was at the bottom of the trouble. 

 You say you find the larva "shrivelled up at 

 the hatching end of the cell." That looks 

 as if the combs had been shaken, thus throw- 

 ing the larva out of its bed of jelly. 



3. Your supposition is correct; bees secrete 



