November, 1909. 



American Hee Jonrnal 



(or wintering. If you had extracted in Sep- 

 tember, or even early in October, and fed 

 sugar syrup, it might have been safer, but it 

 is late for that now. You might, however, 

 lay a cake of candy, say an inch thick, over 

 top-bars, if you think you dare not risk what 

 is in the combs, as the bees would be likely 

 to use the candy tirst. 



2. It is certainly good ; whether it is better 

 than an outside wall of boards I don't know, 

 but it's cheaper and more convenient. 



Vegetable Cellar for Bees in Winter 



Will a cellar containing vegetables, pota- 

 toes, etc., be a good place to winter bees? 

 Would the odor from the vegetables hurt 

 the bees? Minnesota. 



ANSWfER.— That depends. If like too many 

 cellars, with a lot of decayed vegetables and 

 the air foul and moldy, the bees will not do 

 well. If the cellar is kept as clean as it 

 should be for civilized beings to live over, 

 the bees will not object to the odor of the 

 vegetables. _^^__ 



Hive Entrance Almost Sealed Up 



I have a colony of bees in a hive that has 

 an entrance I'i inches deep and 12 inches 

 long, and they have sealed it up all but just 

 space enough for a bee to pass through at 

 the bottom. Should the sealing be cut out 

 before the flow starts next spring? 



Louisiana. 



Answer.— If that is all the chance they 

 have for ventilation, better not wait till 

 spring, but clear out the opening at once. 

 Otherwise ihey will have too little air for 

 good wintering. 



Late Queens Bead 



V'esterday morning, in looking at my hives 

 and bees, I saw on the aligliting-board of 

 one the remains of at least 2 queen-cells and 

 one very young queen not quite dead. This 

 morning I found 2 more queens dead, one of 

 a darker color than the other 2. Could the 

 dark queen be the mother of the colony? Is 

 it usual for such an occurrence so late in the 

 season? Pennsylvania. 



Answer.— It is not usual to find queens 

 hatching as late as Oct. i«. but still there is 

 nothing remarkable about it. If by any 

 cliance a queen should be killed, queen-cells 

 would be started at any time while young 

 brood was yet in the hive. It is not likely 

 that either of the dead queens was the old 

 queen. 



Warning Against Ants 



I have just tried lin^ plan of introducing a 

 valuable queen mentioned on page 252 of 

 " Forty Years Among the Bees." I released 

 the queen and her attendants on 4 frames of 

 hatching brood and 4 frames of honey, and 

 placed it on another hive according to direc- 

 tions. All would havfe been well If about 

 1,000,000 little red ants had not taken posses- 

 sion; killed the queen and the hatching 

 brood. I almost cried when I opened the 

 hive 5 days later to see the havoc wrought. I 

 write you that you may warn others to make 

 hives ant-tight as well as bee-tight, when in- 

 troducing queens. CM.iFORis'tA. 



Answer.— Thanks for the warning. Ants 

 are a factor in some places that must be 

 reckoned with, if a valuable queen is to be 

 put on hatching brood with no force of 

 workers to defend the queen and brood. 

 Indeed in some places in the South they are 

 so bad that no force of bees is sufficient to 

 withstand them, and the hives must be so 

 safeguarded that no ant can get into them. 



Wintering Nuclei 



1. Through my carelessness and a poor 

 season I have 2 weak nuclei at the com- 

 mencement of cool weather, which I am de- 

 sirous of wintering over, as they are headed 

 by two of my best queens. How shall I best 

 winter them over? They are of about 3- 

 framc strength. In this locality people win- 

 ter bees out-of-doors altogether. Our win- 

 ters are, as as a rule, rather open. Some- 

 times it goes to zero, but that is seldom. 

 The bees have a flight about every 2 or 3 

 weeks. 



2. The past summer I caught a swarm of 

 bees and put them into a frame hive. I 

 opened the hive a little later, and from indi- 

 cations they had a good queen. About 6 or 7 

 weeks later I went to requeen them, and 

 found that thuy were in a very bad condi- 



tion, for there wasn't more than a quart of 

 bees in the hive and about half of them were 

 drones. There was no queen nor live worker- 

 brood. There was some dead brood. It was 

 black. There was no smell about it. What 

 do you suppose was the matter? 



Missouri. 



Answers.— I. One way is to winter both in 

 the same hive. Put in a division-board that 

 separates the hive in 2 equal parts, and put 

 the nuclei in these 2 parts, each nucleus up 

 against the division-board, so that they may 

 have the advantage of the mutual heat from 

 each other. It is possible they might winter 

 through in separate hives, if the hives are 

 well protected. Strengthening each nucleus 

 by giving brood and bees (bees alone if the 

 brood has all hatched out) from other colo- 

 nies will help their chances if you should try 

 to winter them in separate hives. 



2. The large proportion of drones suggests 

 a drone-laying queen, or else laying workers. 

 There being no young workers hatching out 

 to keep up the strength of the colony, it 

 would inevitably dwindle away. 



A Bee-Eater— Boxing Bee-Trees 



Mr. W. F. Card, of Fulton. Ky.. and I 

 caught a large fly. the two wings about one 

 inch long, with long slim abdomen, ti legs all 

 coming out close together, body and all 

 about i!i inches long and dull ash color. It 

 has very quick, rapid flight and keeps close 

 to the ground. It will catch a great many 

 bees when they are out feeding, and holds 

 them tight and sucks them to death, and 

 lets them go. Is this enemy commonly 

 known to bee-keepers. 



I am a beginner this year. I have caught 

 and bought and cut trees this year, and will 

 have at the beginning of winter about 20 col- 

 onies in new standard hives. All early ones 

 are doing well, but my late colonies will re- 

 quire feeding. I am thinking of putting in a 

 few bought queens in my best colonies 

 now. Last spring I put some boxes 10x12x14 

 inches over the holes in several bee-trees, 

 and this fall I took them down and they 

 were full of bees and honey. I was very 

 successful. Kentucky. 



Answer.— It may be a robber-fly (Asilus 

 missouricnsis . mentioned in Cook's Manual, 

 page 488. 



Building Comb Between Top-Bars — Six Colonies 

 for One Super 



1. What was ihi- cause of one colony build- 

 ing comb between the frames at the top of 

 the hive, leaving only a hole big enough to 

 pass up through between some frames, and 

 others not? 



2. Could more than one colony be made to 

 work in one super, say 6 hives set 3 side by 

 side and the other 3 the same with backs to- 

 gether and one large super put over all 6. 

 and filled with sections of foundation and 

 left until time to remove in the fall? Would 

 it be necessary to use queen-excluders to 

 keep tlic queens separate or in the hives? 



3. If so. would such colonies be likely to 

 swarm with plenty of room in the super? 



Missouri. 



Answers.— I. It's a way that bees have 

 when they are strong, and I don't know why 

 they do it. Possibly being crowded for 

 room may have made the matter worse. 



2. Yes. 2 colonies have been worked that 

 way. and no doubt 6 could. But I prophesy 

 you won't like it if you try it. 



3. I don't think it would prevent swarming. 

 No amount of room in the super will always 

 do that, although being crowded for room 

 will help to make bees swarm. 



A Beginner's Questions 



1. Will bees rear drones without a queen? 



2. How do you tell foul brood comb after 

 the bees are gone? 



3. What is a safe plan to clean a foul- 

 broody hive? 



4. Can a queen sting? 



5. Does it kill a bee to sting anything? 



6. Am I likely to lose a guee;i by changing 

 the location of a hive? Missouri. 



Answers.— I. Yes. 



2. Just the same as when bees are present 

 — by the appearance of the brood. If you 

 mean combs in a hive where there have 

 been no bees for a long while, that isn't so 

 easy; but even then the dried scales of the 

 diseased brood help to diagnose the case. 



3. There arc a good many who think it is 

 not necessary to disinfect the hive at all. 

 Those who disinfect the hive sometimes 



throw in a handful of straw and burn it out; 

 others anoint the inside with kerosene or 

 gasoline and burn it out; perhaps the most 

 thorough way is to go carefully over the 

 whole inside surface with a painters gaso- 

 line blow-lamp. 



4. Yes; but she will sting only another 

 queen, with very rare exceptions. 



5. Formerly it was held that it does; now 

 it is known that at least a bee may live quite 

 a while after losing its sting. 



b. No; but it sometimes happens that when 

 you make two colonies exchange places, one 

 or both of the queens may be killed. 



Queer Actions of Requeened Colony 



1 had a funny experience with a queen. I 

 introduced her nicely to a colony of bees. 

 She stayed about a week and they cleaned 

 up nicely for her. but she came out and went 

 off and took the bees with her. She stayed 

 3 days, came back a week ago last Sunday 

 lOct. 3 and went into the hive all right, but 

 came out again and went off and never did 

 come back anv more. So I guess I have lost 

 her. How do you account for such a thing? 



Tennessee. 



Answer.— The specially hard part to ac- 

 count for is the going away and then coming 

 back in 3 days. If it was in a time when 

 swarms were common. I would rather think 

 that she did not come back at all. but some 

 other swarm. It is barely possible that the 

 colony were dissatisfied with their quarters, 

 swarmed out and settled on some tree, and 

 then not finding any better place concluded 

 to go back into the hive from which they 

 came. 



Sugar Stores for Winter— Colony from a Tree 



1. Can bees winter without bee-bread? 



2. Is a mixture of syrup made of equal 

 parts of granulated sugar and water sufti- 

 cient feed for them in winter? 



3. Would there be any danger of syrup 

 souring in old combs that have been used? 



4. I have a colony of bees out of a tree that 

 had been cut and robbed and left them with- 

 out a home. I hived them on Sept. 20. igog. 

 and they had no honey. I fed them sugar 

 svrup-all thev could carry— and about a 

 week after I hived them I examined the 

 colony and found considerable brood. The 

 bees are not yellow, they are of a dark color, 

 but not very large. In regard to the brood, 

 is it the disturbing, or is it a good laying 

 queen? , . 



5. Could worker-bees lay drone-eggs at this 

 time of the year? Wisconsin. 



Answers— I. Yes; but they can rear no 

 brood in the spring without pollen. 



2 Yes. provided it is fed early enough; 

 otherwise it should be 2 parts sugar to i of 

 water, or even z'A sugar to i of water. If fed 

 as strong as the last, it is well to add an even 

 teaspoonful of tartartic acid for each 20 

 pounds of sugar. 



3. No more than in new combs, provided 

 the old combs are in good condition just as 

 the bees left them. . 



4. Most likely the queen is all right. 



5. Yes. they never lay any but drone eggs; 

 but they would likely stop before this time 

 of year. 



Balled Queen — Feeding Bees 



I. A colonv had a young queen hatch out 

 and apparently treated her all right. I had 

 not bothered or lookeil into the hive until I 

 think it was the eighth or ninth day after the 

 queen had hatched out, and on passing near 

 by the hive 1 heard the queerest noise I ever 

 heard among bees. It was not like any dis- 

 turbed buzz I had ever heard, but seemed 

 rather between a disturbed buzz and a whis- 

 tle. I at once located the noise in this hive 

 and immediately took off the cover to find a 

 ball of bees as large as my fist down in some 

 frames that were not filled with comb. I at 

 once threw out the ball and found the young 

 queen, caught, and caged her; donned a 

 veil, got a smoker, and went after them good 

 and strong, expecting to find either another 

 queen or queen-cell. But, to my astonish- 

 ment. I found neither. By this time I had 

 the bees perfectly calm. I took the cage 

 anil released the queen, again smoking her 

 with tobacco smoke and the other bees good 

 and plenty, but the queen had no more than 

 hit tin- frame until a bunch of bees had her 

 and stung her so badly before I could get 

 her away from them .that she died in a few- 

 minutes after taking her away from them. I 

 gave them a frame of fresh brood from a 

 colony of leather-colored Italians. (These 

 were (-banded Italians.) They reared an- 

 other queen right away, and she was mated 



