July, 1909. 



American Hee Journal 



3. Do we always have drones flying in May 

 and June before the bees swarm, or will they 

 swarm without the drones flying? Drones fly- 

 ing are, as a rule, a sure sign of swarming 

 soon. Is this right? 



4. How long after drones begin to fly in 

 the apiary will the bees swarm? 



New York, 

 Answer, — 1. Better not give those combs, 

 as they are, to swarms. At least don't give 

 a whole hiveful at a time. The bees might 

 desert. It might work all right to give 2 or 

 3, possibly 4, at one side of the hive, filling up 

 with clean combs or foundation. Spray with 

 water the combs that have granules in, repeat- 

 ing the spraying until the granules are all 

 gone. Better give them to other colonies to 

 clean up first, and then you can give a whole 

 hiveful to a swarm. You can set a hiveful 

 over a full colony to be cleaned up. 



2. I think no one glues them. I know of no 

 machine for it. They stand shipment all right 

 without gluing. 



3. You will probably always find drones fly- 

 ing in May and June; but drones flying is by 

 no means a sure sign of swarming. 



4. No rule about it. You may see a few- 

 drones 2 months before swarming, and some 

 colonics miy not swarm at all. 



Extracting Comb with Patch of 

 Brood. 

 In case there should be a patch of sealed 

 brood on a frame that required extracting, 

 would it be injured in the extractor by being 

 thrown to the outer end of the cells? Would 

 the bees therefrom be as strong? 



California. 

 Answer. — I don't know. My guess would 

 be that a bee nearly ready to emerge would 

 not be injured, but that the occupant of a cell 

 just sealed might be injured, if not killed. 



Bottom-Boards in Winter — Cutting 

 Queen-Cells to Control Swarm- 

 ing — Hybrids vs. Italians. 



1. I have hives with reversible bottom- 

 boards. Which is the best for wintering, the 

 big or the small one? Why? 



2. When controlling swarming by cutting 

 queen-cells, how many shall I leave? If there 

 were 4 queen-cells would it do to cut all but 

 one? 



3. I have nice hybrid bees. Will they gather 

 as much noney as Italians? Iowa. 



Answers.—!. The big. Gives better chance 

 Joi ventilation, with less danger of choking 

 the entrance with dead bees. .\lthough the 

 reversible bottom-board is my own invention I 

 no longer use it, but use a bottom-board' 2 

 inches deep the year around. During the gath- 

 ering season I put in a bottom-rack to prevent 

 bunding down. 



2. No matter how many there are, cut all 

 but one. The bees can swarm as well with 

 2 as with 30. 



3. C.ood hybrids are as good gatherers as 

 Italians sometimes better. The trouble is that 

 It you breed from them you're not as sure of 

 good stock as if you breed from pure stock. 



Early Queens — Long-Tongue Bees 



Albino Bees— Best Race of Bees. 



1.1 had a colony of bees that cast a swarm 

 April 1.,. fhey had reared a lot of young 

 queens. Why was it that they acted thai 

 way so early? The only bloom was fruit- 

 bloom. 



2 Are queens reared so early worthy of 

 heading the colony through the season? and 

 wha ought to be done with such queens? or 

 what ought I to do to get a good queen in 

 the colony? 



3. I see the long-tongued red clover queens 

 adver ised. Have they a longer tongue-reach 

 than the common Italians? What race of bees 

 has the greatest tongue-reach, if any dilter- 

 cnce ' 



nrriifi/"'^ ^^^"^ Albinos? Are their queens 



..ti'^*^''^ n^ of yellow-banded bees are the 

 Kcntlcst and best for the beginner? 



* . Kentucky. 



Answers.-!. It is not such a very unusual 

 thing for a colony to swarm during fruit- 

 bloom, the only reason for it being that the 

 colony IS unusually strong. It might also be 

 that a very strong colony in some way lost its 

 f|"cen. in which case a number of young 



queens would be reared, and if there was a 

 heavy flow on from fruit-bloom the colony 

 would be pretty certain to swarm. 



2. Generally queens reared very early are 

 poor. If, however, there was such a good 

 flow from fruit-bloom or other early harvest 

 as to encourage swarming, it is possible a 

 good queen might be reared. If she is poor, 

 you will fina the combs not well and evenly 

 filled with brood and eggs, and you may also 

 find queen-cells started with the idea of super- 

 sedure. In that case you will do well to 

 give a better queen, either by purchasing one 

 or rearing one as soon as a good honey-flow 

 begins. 



3. There have been red-clover queens which 

 undoubtedly did better than the average on 

 red clover, no doubt because of the longer 

 tongues of the workers, but the trait does not 

 seem to be very permanent. I am not sure 

 just now. but I think Caucasians have the 

 longest tongues. 



i. The general rule is that albinos of the 

 human race, or any other, are weaker than 

 the average. I can not say about their gen- 

 tleness. 



5. Probably nothing can Oe recommended 

 for the beginner better than 3-banded Ital- 

 ians. 



Many Drones — Old or Young Bees 



Swarming? 



1. I am a beginner In bee-keeping, and 

 have started with one colony of Italians. 

 W'hy are the worker-bees killing so many 

 drones ? They began to cluster outside of 

 th? hive for 5 days, and since then they 

 have killed so many drones. I should judge 

 from 200 to 300. Is it natural to have so 

 many drones, and is there a way to prevent 

 them' I am looking for the bees to swarm, 

 as they have been clustering out so thick. 



2. Which of the two is it that leave the 

 hive when tiiey swarm, the old or young 

 bees? 



3. How long after a young swarm is hived 

 can you put supers on? 



4. What is the age or a worker-bee? 



Illinois. 

 Answers. — 1. Bees kill off drones if there 

 comes a scarcity of pasturage. Also, if by 

 any means they have a young queen, they are 

 likely to kill off the drones as soon as the 

 young queen begins to lay. It is better not 

 to have so many drones. You can prevent 

 them by filling the frames with worker 

 foundation on which to have the combs built, 

 and by cutting out all drone-comb and putting 

 in its i)lace patches of worker-comb. Bees 

 hanging out is not always a reliable sign of 

 swarming. The slaughter of the drones is a 

 sure sign that thev will not swarm. 



2. All sorts. 



3. As soon as a brood-nest is started and 

 the queen laying, say in 2 or 3 days. But 

 if a queen-excluder is between the hive and 

 the super, the super may be put on right 

 away. 



4. A worker lives about weeks in the 

 busy season. Those born late in the season 

 live perhaps as many months. 



Pollen in Super — Value of Prime 



Swarms — Foundation Fasteners — 



Cyprian Queens. 



1. Why is there pollen in the super? I am 

 using the 10-frame Langstroth below hive, and 

 shallow extracting frames above for surplus 

 honey. 



2. How much do you think first swarms 

 are worth if I furnish the hive? 



3. What do you think of the Root founda- 

 tion-fastener? Is it much good? 



4. Who sells Cyprian queens? 



Indiana. 

 Answers. — 1. If the queen goes up into the 

 super, that will help to get pollen there. The 

 shallowness of the frames in your brood-cham- 

 ber also helps. 



2. The price varies very much in different 

 places, from perhaps $2.00 to $5.00. 



3. I have had no experience with it. 



4. I don't know. If any one is selling them 

 you will probably see an advertisement to that 

 effect. 



Trouble with a Queen. 



This spring I purchased 2 colonies of Italian 



bees from an apiary 2 miles distant from this 



place, and the owner told me there were 2 



good clipped queens with them. But on the 



24th of last month, I found the clipped queen 

 of one of the colonies under the hive. I then 

 caught her and put her in the hive, and in 

 about a minute they threw her out dead. I 

 did not examine the hives at that time, and 

 about S days later found a young queen under 

 the same hive, and on putting her back into 

 the hive she was pulled out every time I put 

 her in. The colony is working well in the 

 supers, and ao not seem to mind the loss of 

 the queen any more than they would a drone. 

 iNeither colony has shown any signs of swarm- 

 ing yet, although the white clover is in bloom. 

 What is the trouble? Pennsylvania. 



Answer. — Either the colony swarmed, or else 

 the bees superseded their queen. If the colony 

 swarmed, escaping your notice, the bees re- 

 fused to keen a queen that would not go 

 with them, and about 8 days later the young 

 queens began to hatch out. One of these 

 young queens took possession, killing or driv- 

 ing out the others, and you found one of 

 those driven out. It may be. however, that 

 the queen was about played out. although do- 

 ing good work up to that time, and all right 

 so far as human eyes could see. But the 

 bees could not see that she would not last, 

 and had prepared two or more young queens, 

 one of which you found driven out, while 

 the favored one remains in the hive. 



Eggs 



?s and Unsealed Brood Out of 

 Hive. 



IIow long can combs of eggs and unsealed 

 brood remain off a hive without being dam- 

 aged? Cuba. 



Answer. — I don't know. That's a good 

 subject for you to experiment upon. I know 

 that brood nearly ready to seal will begin to 

 crawl out of the cell within a few hours— 

 perhaps 2 or 3 — after being taken from the 

 hive. In Switzerland they make a practise 

 of sending eggs by mail, so it is likely eggs 

 will Keep at least a day or more. A fresh-laid 

 egg would perhaps keep better than one 3 

 days old. 



Peppermint as a Honey-Plant. 



Is peppermint a good honey-plant? It is 

 sometimes cut twice in distilling it for the 

 essence. Will it bloom the second time the 

 same year? Would it pay to move bees close 

 up to it where it grows? There w-ill be from 

 500 to 1,000 acres of it about 5 miles from 

 my apiary. Michigan. 



Answer. — I don't know. As. however, pep- 

 permint is one of the Labiats, it would be 

 nothing strange if it were a good honey- 

 plant. Possibly .some one in a peppermint re- 

 gion can tell us about it. Peppermint is classed 

 among honey-plants in Root's "'A B C of Bee 

 Culture," but that doesn't say whether it is 

 good enough so that it would be profitable to 

 move 5 miles for it. It would be an easy 

 matter to move a single colony and find find 

 out what it would do compared with colonies 

 at home. 



Self-Requeening — Excluder Zinc — Ex- 

 tracting Frames — Keeping Empty 

 Combs. 



1. Will the bees rear a new queen when 

 the old one gets too old to be any good? 



2. Will not the queen-excluding zinc be very 

 hard for the bees to crawl through? It seems 

 to me that they would not be able to work 

 nearly as fast when they have to squeeze 

 throueh that. 



3. Would it not be practical to use the 

 same size frames in the supers for extracted 

 honey, and let the queen go above if she 

 won't stay below, and then when the honey 

 harvest is over sort the combs out and take 

 what is good and put the brood in the brood- 

 nest together with the uncapped honey if 

 there is some of it? Would not the bees 

 cap that over before cold weather and get it 

 ready for winter? Wouid it not be all riglit 

 to give them the uncapped honey if there is 

 lots of it? 



4. Would not an air-tight box be all right 

 for keeping empty combs, and also for keep- 

 ing honey so that moths and other vermin 

 can not get at it? That is, if kept upstairs 

 in a dry place, they would not be likely to 

 mold. Kansas. 



Answers. — 1. In my experience I can count 

 f|uite cafely on the bees superseding their 

 queen before she plays out. Some, however, 

 say that if they leave the matter of super- 

 seding entirely to the bees, they have quite 



