AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



521 



In this department will be answered those 

 questions needing immediate attention, and 

 Buch as are not of sufficient special interest to 

 require replies from the '^0 or more apiarists 

 who help to make "Queries and Replies" 80 

 interesting on another page. In the main, it 

 will contain questions and answers upon mat- 

 ters that particularly interest beginners.— Ed. 



Golden-Bod and Aster. 



I send two samples of flowers. Which 

 one is the golden-rod, the one with the 

 long stem, or the one with the short 

 stem ? The short stemmed one is what 

 I supposed to be the golden-rod. 



Pioneer, O. Chas. E. Falkner. 



Prof. Cook replies to the foregoing as 

 follows : 



The plant is one of the Solidagos, or 

 golden-rods. They vary so much, and 

 run so together that I am not sure of 

 the species. It is hard to determine it 

 with only the flower head. It is of 

 small importance, however, as all are 

 excellent honey-plants. The small 

 plant is an aster. All the asters furnish 

 nectar. The golden-rods and asters 

 often give much fine autumn honey. 



Honey- Yield from Buckwheat, Etc. 



I see the question asked and answered 

 about how much honey one acre of 

 buckwheat would yield. I have had 

 some experience this year, having sovv'ed 

 one acre and watched it very carefully, 

 and I failed at any time to find the bees 

 working on it. At any rate, my bees 

 stored no honey until golden-rod began 

 to bloom. 



I have one colony that has not started 

 to fill the three outside frames at all on 

 one side. If they do not before time to 

 put them away for winter, would it do 

 to put in a division-board between the 

 full and empty frames '? 



I have another colony that has been 

 cross all the season, but within two 

 weeks they will go three rods away to 

 sting me. This I am getting tired of. 

 Will re-queening them make them bet- 

 ter ? And are there other remedies ? 



My harvest, so far this season, is two 

 pounds from three colonies. 



E. H. Hallett. 



St. Johnsbury Centre, Vt., Sept. 4. 



Answers. — Buckwheat is considered a 

 very variable honey-plant, some years 



yielding abundantly and some years 

 yielding nothing. 



The lack of forage has something to 

 do with the crossness of your bees, but 

 you will probably find there will be no 

 complete cure so long as they retain the 

 same queen. Naturally one would think 

 that no complete change of character 

 would be found so long as any of the 

 workers of the old queen were still liv- 

 ing, but some think that the simple 

 presence of the queen has something to 

 do with it, and that you may look for a 

 decided change of temper long before 

 the bees of the old queen have died off. 

 You may have a fair chance to test the 

 matter. We know of no other cure but 

 a change of queens. 



The Laying-Worker Nuisance. 



How can I combat with what I may 

 term our greatest drawback to success- 

 ful bee-keeping here, viz.: the laying- 

 worker plague ? No sooner is a colony 

 rendered, from some cause or other, 

 queenless, than this miserable worker is 

 there laying its thousands of eggs pro- 

 miscuously all over, and destroying 

 queen-cells as soon as they are formed. 

 Rearing queens under these circum- 

 stances is next to impossible. How 

 would it be to transfer the comb with 

 queen-cells just when capped (for we do 

 sometimes get as far as that before the 

 laying worker is in evidence) to another 

 colony, rendered expressly therefor 

 queenless? From all I can ascertain, 

 the laying-worker is a greater curse 

 here than in any European country — 

 perhaps because it is hotter. How is it 

 in the warmer parts, such as Texas and 

 California? Is it perhaps equally 

 troublesome there? Can any of your 

 readers say how it comes about that a 

 worker should be thus able to lay eggs ? 

 What is about the most correct theory 

 current amongst advanced apiarists ? 

 S. A. Deacon. 



Cape of Good Hope, Africa. 



Answers. — You're right in consider- 

 ing laying-workers great pests, and they 

 are an especial pest to any one who at- 

 tempts to write about them, for they 

 seem to be different at different times 

 and places. As to the primal cause of 

 laying workers, we will make no ven- 

 ture to say. That lies in the domain of 

 the theorist, and we'll not run the risk 

 of a broken head, metaphorically speak- 

 ing, by attempting to champion any one 

 theory. 



There seems to be no little difference 

 of opinion among practical bee-keepers 



